OpenOffice 3.0 out, now for Mac

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Permalink Reply by Joseph Chmielewski on October 13, 2008 at 10:26am

Probably only a few folks have been waiting for Open Office for the Mac.

I wish that I could afford the luxury of owning a Mac. But, I can't justify the additional expense.

The last time that I tried Open Office (Windows Version), it was too "kludge." This is my description for just plain lacking something...but "that something" is hard to describe..

This was several years ago, and I don't remember what was missing in the software, but I deleted it and went back to MS Office.

However, the format painter was a feature that I remember wanting in the version of Open Office that I was testing.

I suspect that what Open Office needs to do is develop features that other suites lack instead of waiting for Microsoft to innovate...then attempting to copy. In addition, Open Office must offer full, real, perfect conversion of documents. (I couldn't waste the time fixing minor formatting issues between Office Suites. Teachers don't have that kind of time to waste, either.)

The other area that Open Office might need is integration with other programs. For example: MindManager, Adobe Web Development Suite and Acrobat, MS Project...integrate into the MS Office Menu system. Import and export is seamless. Open Office needs this kind of integration with educational and instructional applications such as Inspiration's mind mapping and database applications.

However, the biggest need for Open Office is the development of back-end templates and macro processes that are education-specific. The program needs special tools that made teachers' work easier and faster...while maintaining 100% compatibility with industry standards.

Examples of this would be entering a list of students one time, and having that list automatically populate grade books, E-mail merges, check sheets, What the software also needs is database connectors and interoperability. [Microsoft and Sun Microsystems are members of the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association, as are other important software developers, but Novell seems to be the only Open Source member.)

Seamless integration into online portfolios also would help Open Office.

Most educators think that a Word Processor and Spreadsheet are cornerstones of computing. What Open Office might do to differentiate itself is to make a SIF compliant database the cornerstone of its products. And a SIF compliant database connectors would go a long way in providing the capacity that is needed to make Open Office a "winner's circle contender" instead of an "also ran."

Here is an example:

A teacher opens an Application that collects each students' essay or project from each students' digital portfolio. Then, a semi-transparent, floating toolbar appears above each student's work refers to the assignment's rubric. The teacher check and selects from pull down menus within the floating toolbar. The toolbar automatically calculates the student's grade for the assignment and enters that grade into the grade book software. With a system such as this, a high school teacher with 180 students or a distance learning teacher with 240 students could assess the work of every student in an hour or two.

The focus of Open Office should be on saving time and streamlining teachers' and students' work. Automation of common, recurrent tasks is what counts.

Besides, free is a misguided concept. Value is what counts.

For example: I moved from WordPerfect to Word once Microsoft added a macro language. In those days, the Internet was text-based. I could use a set of macros to strip out spaces and carriage returns, making editable text. This saved hours a week of tedium.

Maybe Open Office needs to shake the reputation of being a "clone" of the industry standard. Maybe too, Google, not Microsoft is Open Office's main competitor.

What Open Office folks forget is that change requires benefits. To convince teachers to change requires that payoffs for changing outweigh the stress of making the change.

The other thing that Open Source Advocates forget are the reasons that Windows unseated Apple in the schools.

Here are a few:

* Business and Industry adopted the PC because it did what they wanted.

- When Business and Industry folks were saying that they needed a multithreaded, multitasking operating system, Apple was saying that their software was "easy to use"

- The Mac OS would crash if Internet connections and multiple windows were open

- Spouses of teachers worked in Business and Industry and needed compatible equipment for home use

- Spouses needed 100% file compatibility between home and office, even Office for the Mac couldn't provide that

- Apple missed the boat by trying to be a hardware and a software company. Big mistake. They needed to focus upon software that would run on PCs and Networks (Thin Clients). Killing the short-lived Apple clones was another error

Apple lost its lead computers because the company brought in a CEO from a soft drink company.

Now, Apple stays afloat because of their iPods, not their computers. But, Apple has been under a financial threat for a number of years now. Some analysts believe that Apple won't survive a financial crisis.

Perhaps Microsoft will provide another cash infusion to keep Apple afloat. Maybe Google will bail Apple out this time.

Apple was never an application software powerhouse. Microsoft always sold more software for the Mac than Apple did. And, even the idea for the Apple OS interface came from Xerox.

The question, "What do teachers need from Open Office that will entice them to change?" is a good one. When someone can provide a list of benefits beyond "It is free," or, "It does almost all of what MS Office does," then we will know the answer.

For links to all my articles on the failed technology moverment, and what Open Source advocates need to do to reverse that...

http://switchboard.open-source-resource.com/index.php?option=com_we...

Permalink Reply by Joseph Chmielewski on October 14, 2008 at 11:40am

I just found a great example of what I referred to in my post yesterday.

Here is the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/products/office/2007/profess...

Has anyone created all the backend time savers and support channels for teachers that Open Office would need to compete with Mircosoft?

Of course, those time savers and support channels need to be fine-tuned for teachers of all levels.

And, a loose collection of volunteers, doing their own thing might need some leadership and motivation to create a massive project like developing infrastructure, tools and resources for K-12+ education...for hundred of subjects and ability levels.

Open Source advocates cannot keep harping on "free and zero cost" and compete with Microsoft. The issue has to become, higher quality, better performance, streamlined work, super training, stellar professional development; and superior tools for more efficient and effective resources for increased student outcomes. If we fail to start with "increased student outcomes" Microsoft has our movement "whipped before we start."

Are any other Open Source advocates ready to accept this challenge?

For links to all my articles on the failed technology movement, and what Open Source advocates need to do to reverse that...

http://switchboard.open-source-resource.com/index.php?option=com_we...

Permalink Reply by Turadg Aleahmad on October 18, 2008 at 10:36am

I'm not sure what the "technology movement" is or why it failed, but your suggestions for improving OpenOffice are well taken. I look at open source software as an option, not an ideology. In my experience, open source applications often many benefits that outweigh the drawbacks. For example, OpenOffice is much better suited to connecting to MySQL, a database platform I have much experience with and prefer over MS Access.

The question of what application to use in a classroom should be driven by practicality, not ideology. Fortunately for OpenOffice, it has many practical advantages over Microsoft Office. For one, it has better compatibility with old Word docs than MS Office does. It also handles corrupted files much better. It also has a consistent UI across its platforms. And of course, it works on more than just Windows and Mac. And it is free. "Value" is important, of course, but when you've got zero dollars to spend the choice becomes pretty simple.

All the same, I've used OOo on my Mac more since my first post and it's not ready for me to switch from MS Office 2008. I'm grateful that they've brought it to Mac / Aqua, but it's still very rough around the edges. I hope that version 3.1 adds stability and polish to 3.0's new foundation.

Permalink Reply by John Hegarty on October 24, 2008 at 1:55pm

Yep good to see it running natively. We are using neooffice at the moment on our macs (student and teacher machines) and I am starting the process of moving to OOO 3.0 - it will take a while but it meets pretty much all our needs from an office suite.