November 3, 2008
Here's some info from a virtual house for learning sustainabiliy, which i've described before ...a project with Swinburne uni, orginally inspired by River City
its a full 3D environment, which kids seem to relate very well to, in our testing ...here's a few screenshots
we can give a copy of the game to educators who want to trial this hopefully they'll want to help develop curriculum, and provide feedback...but just having a look is ok
here's a collaborative doc, which i can give interested people access to
send me an email (rob at thinkingcurriculum.com) or comment below...
still looking at whether uploading or sending a CD is best option - its about CD worth of info...we could post it out if needed [update 8th Nov; have it on a server for download now]
So... something cool...open for any interested educators to get involved...
October 12, 2008
fun.... if you're wired that way
...same reason the tech story of chrome is readable, maybe
lots of similar quirky stuff on his wobsite
humour ...
September 13, 2008
what difference has ICT made in school maths?
In spite of the smoke, just about none.
We just use the technology for more efficient representation of the same content. Hundreds of years of pen and paper has deeply shaped the way we think of maths, and we're not sure of how to unleash the new thinking that ICT provides ... such as the power of modelling in an era of spreadsheets and recursion. Although the practice of science and engineering is highly transformed in places, we've barely modified the content or approaches to 'problem solving' in maths education....barely scratched the surface of how these tools overlap with the school subject we call 'maths' . We have some interactive whiteboard demos, but not much has changed in secondary maths...we have lots of little disconnected 'learning objects' that illustrate a concept or two(the Learning Federation spent $100 M on a set of very ordinary, disconnected 'learning objects'... which tend to be feel scripted, artificial - not much of the rich constructivist thinking that ICT can offer)
Some commerical organisations have done a bit better... eg Mathletics using the network effect of ICT to allow, for example, live competition and integrated scoring systems that reflect on an avatar's virtual purchasing. Kids like that ... though even the main component is still largely a fairly narrow representation of traditional curriculum, with closed answers and very limited exploration ... sweetened a bit by electronic record keeping.... but the problem solving space isn't really informed by ICT approaches ... no rich manipulatives ..
Compare this with the rich interactvity of game engines.... the huge and sustained development that makes a world fluid and believable and compelling ... where are the versions tweaked to make maths explicit?
school barely even attempts to go there ...-
(here's a minor example of what i mean)
Alan Kay thinks the real computer revolution hasn't happened yet... and we're still in the early days, like the first 50 years after the printing press, when it just looked like a better way to make manuscripts....
.. when there is a realm of ideas and approaches that can be tapped - click the pic to see what 6 simple building blocks can do, when we move beyond the computer as reproducing text, to having tools that allow new ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the material
this is literally, a few building blocks ... click to see ... year 7 and 8 kids got this at first go...
there are 200,000 other projects shared in this space, and some rich maths ones...
in spite of the limitations of the tool, Scratch is rich enough to allow
- expression of creative ideas
- tinkering
- experimentation
...attributes often rather lacking in school versions of maths
I’ve often noticed a few kids in school – often totally under the radar of their teachers- have quite strong skills at programming, largely self taught - even though they might be mediocre at maths or english, as judged by results.
just about no-one in school tries to the leverage the overlap...since education still tends think of 'mathematics' as manipulating symbols according to the same rules ... and computing has become a black box, where we are 'users' and others to the work of developing the simulation and model
Contrast with this
"(If you like programming, but you hate mathematics, don't panic. In
that case it's not really mathematics you hate, it's school. The
programming you enjoy is much more like real mathematics than the stuff
you get in most high school math classes.) In these books I try to
encourage this sort of formal thinking by discussing programming in
terms of general rules rather than as a bag of tricks."
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/v1ch0/preface.html
Papert of course had strong views on this - that school maths was too
dry, and that playing with the turtle gave even young students access to
ideas like vector calculus, in a more intuitive way, without the
formalism normally associated with these ideas....
for example,
Repeat 360 [fd 1 rt 1]
Is an alternate and possibly more intuitive way for kids to explore a circle, than the classic analytical description
(x-a)2 + (y-b)2=r2
(and when differentiated according to the rules for doing this...
dy/dx = --- [an expression too full of indices, brackets and square roots, to be formatted into an email (where some of this was drafted) ]
and so what intuitive meaning does a student see in the rate of change of y with respect to x
and which version will a child most likely see in school?
The former approach gives more "feeling" for the differential changes; and so maybe in later years 'curl' and 'div' and all that would be likely to make more sense, if one had played with the 'feeling' of curves like this ... or at least, maybe one is more primed for some sense of the mathematical objects ... maybe ... (like paperts 'gears' becoming the mental tool he spun to appreciate what 20=4x+5y meant)
why is the mapping between these domains, across them, so weak in school maths - with all the effort expended in both ICT and maths ... why not better allied ...
I know I move into a more creative place when i model or program maths ideas - and have ever since my own schooling - and thus find the maths makes more music ... and I want the kids to experience all this via modelling and programming ...
will take some more permeation of ICT into maths... not as a presentation tool, but as modifying the discipline itself...
Papert and David Perkins describe this as "2nd order" change - not just using the new tool to more efficiently represent traditional paper based content, but allowing it to interact, modify the content and discipline itself ... will sound like sacrilege to many maths educators; less so, i suspect, to pragmatic scientists and engineers, whom we like to think we are preparing..
July 2, 2008
I guess nearly everyone is aware, to some extent, of the One Laptop Per Child Project – which is, as the same suggests, trying to get a cheap (nominally $100) laptop (known as the XO) into the hands of the world’s children; prioritizing poorer areas (outback Aus would probably qualify). Its hit various problems – and also had a strange spin off in provoking the large manufacturers into producing smaller models which compete with it… even Microsoft has suddenly found a way to get XP onto small systems.
One fall out of all this has been that the software (known as Sugar) has taken on something of a life of its own – and can be run other hardware (eg this CD allows you to run Sugar - even if you normally run MS or another non Linux system).
Another spin off has been a renewed discussion of how children learn – what’s the best thing to do with computers, anyway, if millions more kids are getting one? The OLPC thinking on this has focussed on ‘constructionism’ – which means, loosely, that people generally learn best by constructing their own understanding (not just being told) and a particularly good way to construct your own understanding is to make something. ('tell me and I forget, involve me and i learn' etc) (more...)
June 13, 2008
someone asked about flash projects for year 9s and i remembered this one - an animated acrostic poem (click the 'start' text).
Its pretty simple, but good for practicing layers and frames and tweens, and the kids seem to like it - so here's the instructions for doing it.
(This was originally done in Flash 5, and it works the same in Flash 8, so i expect it would be same in the later versions).
So, to start with - it needs staggered start and end points for each letter - (see the pic in step 4) .. so here's the process:
(1) set up as many layers as there are letters in your name -add label each layer
(in this case - 4 layers for FRED)
(2) on the bottom layer, add a key frame in frame 1, and use the Text tool to type in the first letter ("F') (choose a font of say size 24) .
(3) take the number of letters in your name, and multiply x 10. Fred has 4 letters, so the "magic number" is 40. Go out to the magic number (40 in this case), and add a key frame on the bottom layer.(So the 'F' starts on the stage at Frame 1; and ends at Frame 40 (or whatever your magic number is)
(4) on the second layer, add a keyframe into frame 10, type the second letter ("R" for Fred) , and offset the end point 10 frames on as well (see the pic) , so it is staggered in relation to the layer below.
(5) add the remaining letters into the other layers, and continue staggering the start and the end points 1o frames beyond the previous layer. (it doesn't look like the two top layers in the pic have staggered end points, but they do .. have just truncated the screen shot a little ) if you play it now, it will look like this (click the little "start" text at bottom)
so now to add in the rest of the word, and morph them (so 'F' morphs into 'Fruity' for example) :
(6) on the bottom layer, add another key frame 10 frames past the previous end point (now frame 50 for Fred). Edit the text so on this key frame so it has the full word (Fruity, not just F).
(7) Need to break the word into a shape, so its not ordinairy text. Select the text box (click the arrow tool first), then choose "Break-Apart" under the Modify menu, twice. (short cut : control-B twice).
(8) still on the bottom layer, break apart the single letter ('F') on the previous key frame.
(9) Now you can add a shape tween 
between these two keyframes, to morph the F into Fruity. Here's one method for this - with the "F' keyframe still selected (frame 40 in this case), and the properties window showing (select Window Properties if you need to), select "Shape" out of the "Tween" drop down
(10) all being well there should be a green arrow like this : 
between the key frames .... if you see the dreaded dashed line then one or other of the keyframes probably wasn't broken apart fully (needs to be done twice to break a word right down to a shape).
(11) so .. .repeat all that (step 6 to 11) on the other layers ..
(12) now add an extra keyframe to each layer so they all end in the same spot - so the end of the movie should look something like this
(13) from here, you could add images etc on other layers, to come in at appropriate times - an apple appears with the fruity layer etc, and motion tweens around, and maybe sounds, etc - or change the timing, if you want a delay between each letter etc
enjoy
June 8, 2008
I’ve wondered why ICT seems to lacks clarity of purpose in education. – why effective ICT usage is such an elusive thing. Also about the sense of alienation many seem to feel – that ‘technology is being done to us".
I think its because “ICT” is not one thing; it’s a million things.We might think a skilled IT person – in education say - is good at a set of programs {wordprocessing, spreadsheets, internet use; movie making … .etc}
Problem is that it is not a finite set – there are as many potential domains of ICT usage as there are domains of thought – so it’s a forlorn hope to try master it all. Taking a look at how software works, it can actually simulate every other system that can be thought of - any system that can be described, can also be simulated on a computer.
That might seem a big claim - but its what Turing mathematically demonstrated even before computers were built. And its why software is endlessly flexible–- its like the permutations of writing. - (and at bottom software is very like language) - so that set will never close.
(We don’t quite see this, partly because the physical object of a computer appears to be “one thing”, or one collection of programs – not quite seeing its capable of running every simulation that can be thought of – morphing into any conceptual form).
The first “meta medium” as Alan Kay called it.
So no wonder we’re not sure what the best way to “use ICT is” - its like asking what’s the best way to “use text”? It rather depends on what you’re wanting to do, express, analyse, what you are interested in. So what does an educator, with some responsibility for getting students or colleagues to “use it”, do?
A common approach is instrumentalist - we try to be adept at knowing a relatively wide range of tools, and potential ways to use them for learning and teaching. And then we expose others to some sense of the range of tools, and their use in mastering various domains.
(So implicitly some progressive position on education and curriculum etc often accompanies this - Marco Torres is really on about a passion for social equality, and Ken Robinson is really about creativity, as much as they might be interested in ICT as a vehicle for their ideas etc).
The mantra of this sort approach is ‘Its not about technology– its about achieving your goals etc / its about learning etc”
I think this goal driven approach is a productive and useful path, especially for busy teachers.
There is, though, a set of generic skills that still applies and is worth teaching children, who have time to learn. This seed will be more congenial for some than others – potentially grow some very big trees.Its understanding that software really is a “meta-medium” – that has a creative potential similar to language or mathematics; or some hybrid of the two.
That is, getting students to see that software is, behind the scenes, a particular type of formal language, limited in some ways – non emotive, analytical - but can be expressive and descriptive of ideas, and empowered to run at such speed that the simulation is tangible, interesting, expressive.
(listen to Steve Jobs describe the people who built the Apple
If you study these people a little bit more what you'll find is that in this particular time, in the 70's and the 80's the best people in computers would have normally been poets and writers and musicians. Almost all of them were musicians. Alot of them were poets on the side. They went into computers because it was so compelling. It was fresh and new. It was a new medium of expression for their creative talents. The feelings and the passion that people put into it were completely indistinguishable from a poet or a painter. Many of the people were introspective, inward people who expressed how they felt about other people or the rest of humanity in general into their work, work that other people would use. People put a lot of love into these products, and a lot of expression of their appreciation came to these things. It's hard to explain
So its interesting that when schools are talking so much about 'creative use of ICT', that the capacity to escape the boundaries of some else's simulation; and build ones’ own – to create at the language level – is not promoted more widely. One would think building and taking control like this would be included in the canon of constructivist / constructionist approaches to ICT.
It would help to get kids and teachers to understand that all flavours of software - spreadsheets or word docs or movie editors or browsers etc – everything is a system that begins life as an idea and becomes reality through a series of interactive expressions and rules.
It’s a pity in some ways the art of creating this is called 'programming' – since that feels like a dry, behaviourist sort of term. But as Seymour Papert said, its better for the kids to programming the computer than the other way around – and he investigated the wide ranges of “styles” that students brought to this medium.
As with other forms of literacy we want to be on the creating (writing) as well as consuming (reading) side. (The trap is because its so much easier to consume than produce - and using well designed software is such a compelling experience that we might be happy to leave creating it to the 'tech nerds').
Yet I think not doing this also contributes to a our sense of alienation – that ICT is being 'done to us', and we’ll never 'catch up'. That is, in a sense, probably true, if we’re just observing and positioning ourselves to try to use that set, which keeps growing.
Proprietary systems that position the “user” as completely apart from the “developer” and give little accessible or obvious means to get started with creating software are also part of the problem – most people sense that’s it all too difficult or involved to go the 'developer tools' and all that.
But really it doesn’t need to be that way - simulations that allow software development at some level should be quite accessible.
Ironically, the first generation of personal computers had a much easier starter language inbuilt (called BASIC) : Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Language.
Sounds like the sort of things schools should be interested in – and indeed many were.
Purists despise it of course – but it wasn’t bad for getting started – and that’s whats missing today – kids never get that start.
I'm not suggesting all should be programmers, (although if we called it software creativity it might sound more appealling) ; but the seed of that capacity should be on offer in schools; accessed via maths or english or science or robotics or overlaps of these - we should be able to cultivate that sense of creative control - which can grow in as many directions as there are ideas (in fact the idea can be the motive for learning the art).
this meta-medium allows any system to be created, simulated, transmuting one thing into something else – this is, from a particular point of view, the essence of ICT – and its what happens inside this software stuff, and so is worth understanding – or at least offering a scaffold for those how want to understand, since it becoming so pervasive and powerful. Its a slower discipline, compared to using software (maybe analogous to learning music, rather than the easier task of appreciating it) - but avoiding it seems to rule off a literacy that can be very empowering.
May 31, 2008
Wikipedia is the best known wiki. The wiki thing is about simple editing of pages, simple addition of pages, collaborative editing - and a mindset that allows work in progress to still be useful, sketched out and in use, and flexible, incremental changes
Ward Cunningham invented the thing and is also one of the developers of extreme programming - which loosely, seems to mean something similar; allow things to evolve, with a minimal master plan to start with - since its likely to change - allow incremental changes and constant updating
Nice to see the behind the scenes thinking of a key web 2 tool. There is - a fascinating podcast on all this here- cool design ideas on keeping it simple, intuitive, feeling empathy in the software process, teaching software ...
(twit has other very interesting insights from other creative types who were at the heart of whole software story)
May 30, 2008
[wrote this as postscript for some studies - following the intuition that the common experience of ICT as web 2.0 may eclipse some crucial understandings of classic IT, water down the content of computer science in schools] :
Sitting on a train, after a day wrestling with a research proposal, an interesting synchronicity unfolds. Passengers cram in; opposite one starts a crossword puzzle. Adjacent, one opens a laptop and starts programming. A few minutes layer another passenger gets on, sits opposite, and starts a sudoku. A moment later the sudoku solver and the programmer recognise each other; obviously know each other a little; but don’t talk for long, and settle back to their tasks. I’ve been glancing at the programming beside me; its in a terminal window and is full of test cases and assertions. I guess it might be a test harness for an electronic board.
After a while I notice the approach the sudoku player is taking, systematically listing, in small script at the top of each cell, the candidate possibilities for each square, identifying the most constrained cells first – then reducing elements out other cells once one is determined. I find myself thinking of procedures I could use to program that - looping through each column, and row, with an array attached to each cell; - maybe with colour if one just wanted to hint at productive cells…. I glance back at the programmers screen –and it suddenly seems like that is exactly what he is programming - he flicks a window and I see its called sudoku.py.
My sudden conjecture is that there might be coworkers, since they did recognise each other … even though the common link of sudoku algorithms seems like improbable work .. so I break the convention of commuting silence and start a conversation. It turns out their common focus is not these little numerical puzzles - they actually did a computer science course some years ago; the manual sudoku solver now works in a bank; as a systems designer; the programmer works for a stockbroker, programming automated trading systems – both are tackling the sudokus for distraction.
We chat, and I talk about this research, and Sherry Turkle’s reservations on today’s notion of IT– around the that fact that 20 years ago many kids programmed computers for fun – we all agree on that - but today kids are more likely to be on MySpace or World of Warcraft. I mention my suspicion that the lack of a 'BASIC' – the simple, pre-installed language we learnt with, might contribute to this. I’m interested in their opinions.
The stockbroker programmer indicates, wryly, he is happy with the lack of competition coming through from junior programmers. The sudoko banker rebukes him, and warns that below a critical mass that whole sector of the IT industry will be outsourced to India. Working in a large bank, he sees it already; there are no local programmers below the system designers. He also seems bit conflicted about ICT in schools; since he has fond memories of the control he felt in teaching himself programming language, and spending hours trying to make games, on a Commodore 64; but isn’t sure there is a future in it now. The stockbroker programmer disagrees – loves the technical work and sees it as a good career option for students.
I feel like I should interview these two, incarnations of the concerns I’ve been reading over for two days; early dialogue in an ‘outcome space’.. after they leave at the little satellite town, I travel on, feeling I might be on to something - that the historical tensions around how IT is conceived corresponds to real and current issues, and the strength of this little debate tells me the issue goes beyond schools - and the idea of visual schematics to examine the tensions might work.
many in education seem set on cheerleading the '21st century ict' ='web 2.0' =transformation' theme - lots of syrupy youtube videos on that theme - but not everyone agrees, or at least not without reservations about what is missing in that equation. Some have even stepped away from the spin and grappled with an historical context that is surprisingly absent from all the discussion of ICT in schools. Its quite stabilising to have some sense of the real historical trajectory of educational computing - the popular idea that its all progressed ignores some of the real history.
Scratch is cool. It makes learning programming fun … and collaborative.
The last 18 months has seen 140,000 projects uploaded, of the millions that have must have been made.
They range from the simple to complex, with kids and teachers and experienced programmers all contributing.It uses the tile metaphor (like etoys, Alice, Logo TNG, GameMaker).
I’ve previously questioned whether the "web 2" thing is a bit overdone as rationale for IT use, and whether we’re losing some possibilities in schools – such as the ability to construct software, and build simulations - whether we're so busy repackaging content that we lose the vision for creating at this level. So its great to see Scratch uses Web 2 to get people sharing programmable media. You can upload your projects, share them, download other peoples, and comment etc. I’ve just tried a little demo, where you can draw a steering wheel, draw a car, and control the car with the steering wheel.
Here’s the demo and a pdf file you could use for instructions
(This is the simplest of 2 minute scripts, and that 's the point - in what other environments could you draw a car, draw a steering wheel, and then link them together , so one controls the other, in a way that's accessible for kids? It gives a creative feel to the process.)
The idea is from a classic etoys demo – and indeed Scratch and etoys are both based on the same educational vision, and the same underlying platform. One of the kids made that link - "its like Squeak" which was cool. Those who remember Logo sometimes comment that its a bit like that too ).
There's a whole world of ideas lying just behind those comments - a little known history and rich array of educational ICT ideas and approaches, but won't go there now.
I'm hoping to get kids exploring maths with Scratch ... removes some of the programming language hurdles - still leaves you with the thinking challenges which are complex enough. They're enjoying it ok at present- liked some of the maths galleries and made some interesting effects with a few starters on pen drawings and iteration.
April 25, 2008
(update 9/2008- i wrote this before the 'Ultranet' - an integrated "student centred" system for doing just about everything in Victorian schools - went back to tender, as being too complex, i gather, to deliver. The school i mention below is Glen Waverley SC.
My little boy likes 'The Incredibles' brand of superheroes, so I know that Pixar film rather too well.
It plays on the tension between the messy reality of the super-heroes' domestic "home life", and their need to get into the slick costume and race around saving people.
The tension around IT systems can be a bit like that. We don’t always want the messy story of what its really like. Just tell me about the hyper-system, and what it can do when its costume is on, and its having a good day.
The reality of these things is not always so fun. I have a friend who works in procurement for a large multinational company – transacting leases on oil tankers and little things like that. He was recently pulling his hair out as the company was upgrading their super duper finance package, which is a world class, company wide, top of the range product, from version 2 to 3. The result, after endless meetings, change management plans, consultants flying in from the US, is that they now have a world class system that is much harder to use, takes 16 keystrokes to complete tasks that used to take 3, and has many of the shortcut commands in another language.
So here’s a few thoughts.
I knew a school in Melbourne, close to 10 years ago, that developed some pioneering approaches to IT in general - all teachers were asked, and required, to work hard to integrate IT in their classes - and also were progressive with learning in general (they were onto the metacognition, “learning to learn” , habits of mind, middle years sort of approaches early on), as well as new uses of space (open learning spaces, passive supervision of pods etc)
(I was in a Catholic school at the time, which would probably have wished to claim a richer purpose in education, and yet I and others from our school were very impressed with the clarity and focus of this schools purpose and mission – everything seemed to pull in the same direction – and so we ended up, via an ICT project, in some sort of mentoring relationship with the school.)
I remember a one senior staff member saying she had to travel to most of the intentional conferences on teaching and learning, to keep abreast of it all.
They also did some really interesting things with intranet / extranets etc; they were early on the block with publishing student timetables to the network, and student / parent portals to the web.
A couple of their own IT staff developed that, supporting the school's general agenda. Its not so hard with some time and support – I recall hearing them say, at a Navconn conference in 2001, that they started in Cold Fusion, a fairly streamlined web environment, and only moved to ASP once they got some skills under their belt. That is, they were just working with the more accessible and flexible tools of the day; aiming at functionality, not necessarily at the most technically advanced pathways. Rapid application development.
An interesting question arises – how would one scale up some of that intranet / extranet innovation?
To my naïve mind, two approaches seem possible.
(1) encourage other schools to foster the same sort of local skills and development. Given there are really powerful open source apps, and development environments, that streamline the process (one example is Moodle), one could expect schools to have a big jump start on those early developers. Some of those projects use a central repository of modules on the web – so one could harness the innovation across the system, magnify and harness the efforts of those two original developers.
The formal educational system could presumably provide some support in getting platforms established. It could also mandate certain standards on how the data must import / export; such as the flavour of XML that was required to exchange data between, say, timetabling and reporting applications, so that local development produced solutions that could still exchange data with each other. And then let schools plug and play and customise their modules; and tap each others development and ideas, within a framework that still maintained standards on how data was handled, exported, etc.
(For a weak parallel, one could look at edublogger, as an example of education colonising a common platform, in a way that does leverage an existing open source technology (wordpress) - one that is leaping along with regular enhancements from an active community of supporters, using a standard and yet customisable framework. Edublogger is too limited for this to be a good example, since its more of a training / playground –for example, one can’t even modify the underlying Wordpress plugins or themes. Wordpress MU might be a better example, though it would probably be stretching it a bit to try turn it a large scale content management system for a school - its not designed as an admin tool. Moodle, joomla, dotnetnuke might be better examples – where one could enforce some standards on how the flexible app was used /deployed without killing the range of customisations).
[i guess the risks are that some schools wouldn't be in a position to do much in the way of developing it; and may need a fairly standard version, and access to a local skills to customise it.]
OR (2) – one could attempt to build a big system that packages all that functionality into one bundle, does everything, and distribute to multiple schools from a commercial vendor. Sort of like SAP for schools. (Cases has tried this, i think ,with various web modules).
I think there are a couple of reasons why the former approach is pretty interesting.It could tap some of the willing creativity in schools, and allows schools to fully customise their own applications, in a way that off the shelf seems to find hard to match.
The SAP model – a system that does everything – would seem to run a few risks –in terms such development time; and also that the standardisation might make it hard to customise and match against local needs.
In my untutored observations of these things, if a company had something really good already built, it might work – but it seems pretty tricky. Watching attempts to standardise other software apps in schools, including NSW and Queensland, doesn’t suggest this is going to be easy.¼br>
One of the most astute people I know in the field of intuitive learning and software design is Kathy Sierra. (Her crash course in learning theory is great, and thoughts on software features is interesting). She’s made her name with applying these approaches to the teaching and learning of a difficult and traditionally dry area, object orientated programming –and turned the classic textbook genre on its head with the result.
She has this interesting cartoon on her site:
I have some feeling for the two developers in the school story - and the notion of proceeding by magnifying their efforts. I wrote an information system for analytical laboratories, in the early 90s, by extending some common productivity software with scripting. … was an after hours project to start with, for the lab I worked in, then a part time job while I did a Dip Ed; and somewhat to my surprise was installed in 6 labs, and reduced the need for admin staff. It lasted a few years after I left; which is not bad for non updated software. Was replaced few years later with a 'proper' commercial product – which was more secure etc, but was less well received than the inhouse tool. Developing from inside the company, one has the advantage of knowing workflow, paperwork, systems, and where to automate the manual work.
Disclaimer – i no doubt sound clueless, but its not the commerical verus free open source thing that i'm getting at here. Its the question of how to scale up successful innovation; seed it again in local environments, tap the creativity in the system, with some means of exchange and feedback, or deliver it from one standardised centre? - and also the development and flexibility issues in the two approaches .. but this is all just my uninformed reflections; and i'm not 100% sure which side of the cartoon i'm on.