[cad-linux] list update

Hi,
I'm still here, but I have a new email address, and the old one will stop 
working next time the renewal fees fall due. See below.

Re CAD on Linux. I used to teach Design & Technology in England, then moved to 
tech support for an educational CAD/CAM company (www.techsoftuk.co.uk) for 
several years. TechSoft was Windows only but I started playing with Linux at 
home just for fun. I tested TechSoft's 2D Design app under Wine and found only 
one small problem, filled arrow heads on dimensions don't render properly, use 
open arrows it's fine. Their old parallel and serial port CAM machines worked 
too, but I left around the time they were switching to USB.

I've been trying to get UK schools, and in particular Welsh schools, 
interested in Linux, but it's hopeless. An awful lot of teachers are really 
not at all interested in computers. They use the web and email, though not in 
a very organised fashion, and misuse MS Office for handouts, posters etc. 
Design & Tech teachers are better, they use Techsoft (but often not very well) 
and dabble in 3D CAD - TechSoft sell SoildWorks with education licences, other 
suppliers push ProE and Inventor.

Bearing in mind that UK schools first computer initiative started in 1982, all 
teachers under 30 will have had them in school since kindergarten. Teachers 
under 40 have had them since first year at secondary (high) school. But 
somehow the various training schemes have failed to catch on and IT skills are 
minimal. When people are frightened of using OpenOffice or Firefox on Windows, 
and they are, there is no chance of convincing them to try a whole new 
operating system.

It is my belief that the whole UK education system has gone badly wrong. Very 
few students are able to think and understand, the 'good' ones memorise and 
regurgitate, they plagiarise from the net (and their teachers turn a blind eye 
to it). The others just fail. Unfortunately it's gone on so long we now have 
new teachers who actually know very little about their subject, and almost 
nothing about anything else.

Teachers are trained to train students to pass exams. Nothing else matters. 
You can pass ICT (IT to the rest of us) by memorising a bunch of key presses 
in MS Office. Why do anything else?

These days I write pretty much full time, but I do the occasional day in 
school for pocket money. Attached is a short story I published in UK teachers' 
magazine. It's in .doc format - because that's what magazine editors require. 
It's only lightly fictionalised to protect the guilty and sums up the 
situation.

-- 
regards
Phil Thane
Bryn Villa
Penycoed Road
Llangollen
LL20 8LR
Wales (UK)

phil@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.pthane.co.uk
tel: ++44 (0)1978 861677
mob: ++44 (0)7971 087623
Skype: philthane

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