Hi, I've been following this list for a while, trying to get a feel for the type of list - it seems quite technical, so apologies if it is out of list policy. We're a small primary school who are just about to start work on a new ICT suite. The funding at the moment only covers building and furniture, not hardware or software. This is really a plea for information/experiences that schools have had with implementing Linux as an operating system - do schools use it solely as a server, or as workstations with server (thin-client)? What setup do schools have, and what software did they opt for? What is the range of software available for Linux for primary children (I've looked at Fensystems.co.uk and at the moment am a bit disappointed) - will it meet the curriculum requirements for KS1 and KS2? Is it easier to run a Linux server with Windows workstations? I apologise for the general questions, but we are in the early stages and trying to weigh up all options and are trying to gather information from schools who have gone down this road before us. Any info is gratefully received. Thanks for any replies. Adam Cripps __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/
On Wednesday 19 September 2001 10:13, you wrote:
This is really a plea for information/experiences that schools have had with implementing Linux as an operating system - do schools use it solely as a server, or as workstations with server (thin-client)?
At the moment we are in the former camp but in the exploratory stages of migrating to the latter. Currently I have one machine acting as a caching proxy server running Squid [see www.squid-cache.org]. This, alone, has returned all the investment of time I have put into climbing the linux learning curve by transforming the web from a joke to a useful teaching resource.
What setup do schools have, and what software did they opt for?
We have an RM Connect network which involves a not always stable mix of W98 and NT4. Vast amounts of software, educational and otherwise, simply cannot be installed or run properly on our very mainstream, orthodox, industry standard and every other FUD catchphrase setup.
What is the range of software available for Linux for primary children (I've looked at Fensystems.co.uk and at the moment am a bit disappointed) - will it meet the curriculum requirements for KS1 and KS2?
The vast majority of our IT teaching uses MS Word, Publisher, Excel, Powerpoint, IE5, Paint, etc. There are good (and rapidly developing) open source equivalents for linux. Many of the best educational apps that you would miss in a move from W98 were actually ported over from Acorn / Risc-os and it is doubtful if they would ever be ported yet again. There are a number of good windows-on-Linux solutions: Wine, VMWare, Win4Lin, etc.
Is it easier to run a Linux server with Windows workstations?
Nothing to do with computers and networks is ever easy; there are always learning curves which I generally enjoy climbing - unless, of course, I'm stuck in the proprietary, closed source paradigm of the learning curve to nowhere.
I apologise for the general questions, but we are in the early stages and trying to weigh up all options and are trying to gather information from schools who have gone down this road before us. Any info is gratefully received.
Thanks for any replies.
Adam Cripps
On Wednesday 19 September 2001 10:13 am, Adam Cripps wrote:
What is the range of software available for Linux for primary children (I've looked at Fensystems.co.uk and at the moment am a bit disappointed) - will it meet the curriculum requirements for KS1 and KS2?
I think this is the key issue for the promotion of Linux in primary schools. Last week I was at a meeting where we were trying to get a few local schools to pilot Linux. The proposal is much easier to swallow for secondary schools who can rely more on productivity software, but primary schools have a tick list of specialist software they need to use and most of that list is just not there on Linux. I'll declare an interest here - we write and publish My World which is one of the most popular programs in uk primary education. We have done a Java version which I've just checked out, and it runs fine in Mozilla on my Linux box. However, I suspect that won't be many more packages of that ilk which run on Linux. It would be interesting to generate a list of 'must haves' which would turn Linux into a more attractive proposition for UK primary use. Cheers -- Phil Driscoll
It would be interesting to generate a list of 'must haves' which would turn Linux into a more attractive proposition for UK primary use.
From my experiences in the classroom and at home (I have 4 children,
The usual server side things apply - except that many primary schools would not have an IT technicial to learn about things to set them up - so tend to rely more on bought in pre configured machines or similar. My daughters school has no network to speak of and is only just starting to put together a computer lab - its currently all standalone workstations with modems, printers and CDRoms. There are no real servers of any kind for Linux to replace! On the desktop side, key uses of computers in my kids nursery/early years classes uses: 1. early learning multimedia (living books, DK, etc) - most of which I can run under Win 3.11 at home (I have not tried under Wine ...) 2. Old BBC stuff running on RM BBC emulators or native RM stuff 3. Some native DOS shareware type stuff 4. Simple things like notepad and paintbrush type programs. It should be possible to write new stuff for 2, 3 or 4, (like "Linux Letters and Numbers" for example) but I don't know of much of it. There are also basic notepad/painting programs with all the GUI environments (plus cat & mouse type games for mouse practise, etc). Another issue is that using RM or Win 3.11 on machines means that they can get away with running on quite low spec machines - X just wouldn't cut it - otherwise, I would have been tempted to write a few simple kids games in perl/tk for my own family use (basic counting, animation, etc). I was following some of the low spec GUI on LInux developments (QT embedded, frame buffer, small X servers, etc) - but have lost touch, due to lack of time. the oldest is 6) - until multimedia is available, desktops will stay Windows based. There is also the support issue in a school with no real current IT support for Windows (let alone Linux). In our local case, support would have to come from parents (ie people like me) - and those of us interested in Linux, are usually in full time employment anyway doing other things :) Just my thoughts ... Kevin.
On Wednesday 19 September 2001 20:33, Kevin Taylor wrote:
It would be interesting to generate a list of 'must haves' which would turn Linux into a more attractive proposition for UK primary use.
The usual server side things apply - except that many primary schools would not have an IT technicial to learn about things to set them up - so tend to rely more on bought in pre configured machines or similar.
They can do that with Linux and probably less expensively.
My daughters school has no network to speak of and is only just starting to put together a computer lab - its currently all standalone workstations with modems, printers and CDRoms. There are no real servers of any kind for Linux to replace!
Ideal site to start with Linux. No baggage.
On the desktop side, key uses of computers in my kids nursery/early years classes uses: 1. early learning multimedia (living books, DK, etc) - most of which I can run under Win 3.11 at home (I have not tried under Wine ...)
So its easy to maintain these on existing machines and use these as thin clients to Linux.
2. Old BBC stuff running on RM BBC emulators or native RM stuff 3. Some native DOS shareware type stuff 4. Simple things like notepad and paintbrush type programs.
Paintbrush basically teaches the wrong tools to use for graphic illustration at an early age. Ditch it!
It should be possible to write new stuff for 2, 3 or 4, (like "Linux Letters and Numbers" for example) but I don't know of much of it. There are also basic notepad/painting programs with all the GUI environments (plus cat & mouse type games for mouse practise, etc).
Another issue is that using RM or Win 3.11 on machines means that they can get away with running on quite low spec machines - X just wouldn't cut it
Yes it does if you use thin clients. Just done an INSET in a primary with about 16 users on a 1 gig processors 512 meg RAM server with only 50% of processor resources taken with them doing graphics in Star Draw. Much cheaper to build a reasobaly powered server and use the old machines as clients. - otherwise, I would have been tempted to
write a few simple kids games in perl/tk for my own family use (basic counting, animation, etc).
Do it! It'll get used on servers with client machines.
I was following some of the low spec GUI on LInux developments (QT embedded, frame buffer, small X servers, etc) - but have lost touch, due to lack of time.
Not necessary - just use KDE in thin client config.
From my experiences in the classroom and at home (I have 4 children, the oldest is 6) - until multimedia is available, desktops will stay Windows based. There is also the support issue in a school with no real current IT support for Windows (let alone Linux).
Well they can get Linux managed remotely and there is multimedia. Several video players audio etc even across thin client networks.
In our local case, support would have to come from parents (ie people like me) - and those of us interested in Linux, are usually in full time employment anyway doing other things :)
Get the parents to do the easy things like pulling old machines apart to upgrade graphics etc. Pay an expert to manage the servers remotely and you don't need any specialist knowledge and it isn't very expensive.
Just my thoughts ... Kevin.
Thanks for them! regards. Ian
It would be interesting to generate a list of 'must haves' which would turn Linux into a more attractive proposition for UK primary use.
The usual server side things apply - except that many primary schools would not have an IT technicial to learn about things to set them up - so tend to rely more on bought in pre configured machines or similar.
My daughters school has no network to speak of and is only just starting to put together a computer lab - its currently all standalone workstations with modems, printers and CDRoms. There are no real servers of any kind for Linux to replace!
On the desktop side, key uses of computers in my kids nursery/early years classes uses: 1. early learning multimedia (living books, DK, etc) - most of which I can run under Win 3.11 at home (I have not tried under Wine ...)
The main problem with these kind of things is they can contain code to check they are running from a real CDROM drive. Last time I tried one of these with Wine the CDROM support didn't fool the program. -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763
--- Adam Cripps
trying to get a feel for the type of list - it seems quite technical, so apologies if it is out of list policy.
Don't worry about technical issues.... :-)
We're a small primary school who are just about to start work on a new ICT suite. The funding at the moment only covers building and furniture, not hardware or software.
This is really a plea for information/experiences that schools have had with implementing Linux as an operating system - do schools use it solely as a server, or as workstations with server (thin-client)?
At the school that I used to attend (as VIth form), I implemented a squid proxy server (Hi Dave...). Had I have been the Network Administrator, I would replace every OS in the building with Linux...it is soo much more stable than NT as a server OS.
What setup do schools have, and what software did they opt for?
As I say...the role Linux in my school (Purbeck School, Wareham) was as a proxy server running squid and SquidGuard (and a few fantastic shell scripts that I wrote....!!! :-))
What is the range of software available for Linux for primary children (I've looked at Fensystems.co.uk and at the moment am a bit disappointed) - will it meet the curriculum requirements for KS1 and KS2?
It is funny that you should ask this question. Debian (a Linux distro have begun a project called "Debian Jr.", which is working closely with the FSFE (Free Software Foundation and Education) to provide Linux programs for children aged 2-12 years. More information about this can be found at the following Websites: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/
Is it easier to run a Linux server with Windows workstations?
See previous answers.....
I apologise for the general questions, but we are in the early stages and trying to weigh up all options and are trying to gather information from schools who have gone down this road before us. Any info is gratefully received.
Thanks for any replies.
Adam Cripps
You're quite welcome Adam. I hope that I have helped a bit. If you need any further information, let me know. Although I am shortly off to start University at Southampton Institute......I am working with the Debian JR. project leaders..... Regards, Thomas Adam ===== Thomas Adam "The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- www.linuxgazette.com ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie
On Wed, 19 Sep 2001, Adam Cripps wrote:
We're a small primary school who are just about to start work on a new ICT suite. The funding at the moment only covers building and furniture, not hardware or software. This is really a plea for information/experiences that schools have had with implementing Linux as an operating system - do schools use it solely as a server, or as workstations with server (thin-client)? What setup do schools have, and what software did they opt for? What is the range of software available for Linux for primary children (I've looked at Fensystems.co.uk and at the moment am a bit disappointed) - will it meet the curriculum requirements for KS1 and KS2?
Woodlands Junior School down in Kent now have a thin-client Linux system. You are, AFAIAC, welcome to arrange a visit sometime to see it in action. The setup is two servers, 33 dedicated thin-client terminals and somewhere between 10 and 15 legacy RM Window Box machines of various ages, onto which we have installed Cygwin/XFree86 so that they can also be used as thin-client terminals. As for primary software: you will no doubt have read the statement that heads up all the Resource Library search pages: "The Resource Library is currently under construction, and currently contains records for only a few out of the hundreds of packages that will eventually be included. The records that are present may be incomplete." FYI, we have already added all the spelling and maths packages from www.linuxforkids.org into our standard distribution, and these will filter through into the Resource Library when time permits. The linuxforkids packages were added at the request of the IT co-ordinator at Woodlands, and we expect to add more packages as they are found. Take a look at www.linuxforkids.org, or search Freshmeat.net for keywords such as "education". I'm sorry for your disappointment. Perhaps you might consider sending direct feedback? On the funding side: from what I can recall, Woodlands have paid for furniture, server hardware, internet connection and technical support (managed service). Some client hardware was purchased as second-hand kit (not from us) but this has proved to be a poor investment - the bought units were IMO overpriced and have been the least reliable of all the client terminals. Michael Brown http://www.fensystems.co.uk/
Hi all Free Computers for Education is a registered charity which collects computers that are no longer needed by industry, has them professionally refurbished, and then given free oc charge to schools in need through local Rotary Clubs. Although the computers themselves are free, all the previous data has to be wiped, and schools are finding it increasingly difficult to pay the substantial licence fees required by Microsoft (even with the educational rates). We are therefore actively seeking to set up a number of Pilot Primary Schools with an ICT Suite of 15 networked computers using the Linux Terminal Server Project, and would like to hear from schools who might be interested. Regards, Grahame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Grahame Leon-Smith, Chairman of Trustees Tel +44-1932-874066 Fax +44-1932-874068 FREE COMPUTERS FOR EDUCATION Registered Charity No. 1059116 PLEASE VISIT OUR WEB SITE AT < http://www.free-computers.org> and for further information just send a blank email to: < mailto:free-computers-news-subscribe@yahoogroups.com> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Brown [mailto:mbrown@fensystems.co.uk] Sent: 19 September 2001 22:54 To: suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Linux for primary children?
On Wed, 19 Sep 2001, Adam Cripps wrote:
We're a small primary school who are just about to start work on a new ICT suite. The funding at the moment only covers building and furniture, not hardware or software. This is really a plea for information/experiences that schools have had with implementing Linux as an operating system - do schools use it solely as a server, or as workstations with server (thin-client)? What setup do schools have, and what software did they opt for? What is the range of software available for Linux for primary children (I've looked at Fensystems.co.uk and at the moment am a bit disappointed) - will it meet the curriculum requirements for KS1 and KS2?
Woodlands Junior School down in Kent now have a thin-client Linux system. You are, AFAIAC, welcome to arrange a visit sometime to see it in action. The setup is two servers, 33 dedicated thin-client terminals and somewhere between 10 and 15 legacy RM Window Box machines of various ages, onto which we have installed Cygwin/XFree86 so that they can also be used as thin-client terminals.
As for primary software: you will no doubt have read the statement that heads up all the Resource Library search pages: "The Resource Library is currently under construction, and currently contains records for only a few out of the hundreds of packages that will eventually be included. The records that are present may be incomplete." FYI, we have already added all the spelling and maths packages from www.linuxforkids.org into our standard distribution, and these will filter through into the Resource Library when time permits. The linuxforkids packages were added at the request of the IT co-ordinator at Woodlands, and we expect to add more packages as they are found. Take a look at www.linuxforkids.org, or search Freshmeat.net for keywords such as "education".
I'm sorry for your disappointment. Perhaps you might consider sending direct feedback?
On the funding side: from what I can recall, Woodlands have paid for furniture, server hardware, internet connection and technical support (managed service). Some client hardware was purchased as second-hand kit (not from us) but this has proved to be a poor investment - the bought units were IMO overpriced and have been the least reliable of all the client terminals.
Michael Brown http://www.fensystems.co.uk/
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participants (9)
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Adam Cripps -
Grahame Leon-Smith＠FreeComputers -
ian -
Kevin Taylor -
Mark Evans -
Michael Brown -
Nigel Pauli -
Phil Driscoll -
Thomas Adam