Election 2011

[SYNACK]

Well the NZ election is in its final hours with the votes being counted and whoever wins there will be misguided ICT policies for schools.

 

On the challangers side (Labour - Nanny State and spending for the medal) who are very unlikely to win we have the laptops for students pledge that would give all lower desile school students (eventually) a laptop. Lots of money, lots of infrastructure and no real planning behind it.

 

For the defending champ (National - Business FTW but accounts kept in check) who are currently leading quite heavily there is the national schools network. This has promise building a national loop network between all schools over the new fibre links (when they eventually show up). The main issue here is that all schools will be tied into central services and these will be run by the same 'geniuses' that are hell bent on pushing their preffered suppliers agandas. This may well lead to NZ schools being a jointly owned subsiderary of Google and to a limited extent Apple. These are also the same people who built a network between dozens of schools that was brought down by a looped back cable.

 

Whoever wins there will be changes and they both have good and bad aspects but I predict it turning into a total sham as usual with three of four people making decisions that suite them and their supplier friends to the expence of everyone else.

 

Which toilet ICT will be flushed down is now up to the general public, may they choose wisely and may the suffering be breif.

Edited November 26, 2011 by SYNACK

[elsiegee40]

This makes our, now abandonned, BSF (Building Schools for the Future) programme sound sensible. I don't envy you.

[SYNACK]

Thanks, I am certainly worried about the direction that things are taking policy wise where everything is aimed directly at the lowest common denominator. When you take into account the lack of basic ICT skills that seem acceptable for teachers it is truely concerning when the concept of an on/off button is considered too complex, I shudder to think where we are headed.

 

In case anyone is interested in how it is going live results are here: 2011 GENERAL ELECTION - PRELIMINARY RESULT

I have to say for a government site it is actually really good

, its a bunch of static html pages being generated and automaticly uploaded as results are updated making for low server load and epic caching. Its also simple and in basic HTML with a bit of CSS meaning that it will work on almost all browsers without any fancy and unnessisary ajax stuff limiting its audience and making the load on the servers heavier.

 

Suprisingly good stuff for the government.

Edited November 26, 2011 by SYNACK

[glennda]

Suprisingly good stuff for the government.

 

was probably made at the cost of millions though by somebody on a desktop at home

 

well thats what our government would have done!

Edited November 26, 2011 by glennda
typo!

[SYNACK]

was probably made at the cost of million though by somebody on a desktop at home

 

well thats what our government would have done!

 

Possibly, it can't have gone anywhere near the MoE, Auckland Universitiy or any of the other 'trained developers' that they use as all the features work in all three major browsers, it has held up to extreme traffic rather than buckling under moderate load and it does not spew confidential details out freely to whoever is interested (and I am not kidding about any of these failings present in the current educational sites).