Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-edu (17 mails)

[James Tremblay <jamesat@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday 01 January 2007 07:06, garry saddington wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-12-31 at 18:15 -0500, James Tremblay wrote:
> >  I can't think of a good reason to waste time with a windows anything.
> > except maybe shades ;)
>
> One of the main obstacles to anything open source in English schools (and
> this is the only area I know about) are the teachers themeselves. Recently,
> two senior employees of BECTA visitited my school to see how they could
> help us run the new key stage 3 on screen tests because we use Ubuntu
> exclsively and the idiots (RM) programming the tests would not support us.
> Anyway, during the
> discussion about the take up of Linux in English schools one of these
> gentlemen (who are extremely aware of what goes on in schools) said:
> "It does not matter how much anyone in a school wants Linux to succeed
> in that school, the teachers can always find a way to make sure that it
> does not"
> And from their experience this is what has happened!
> The main reason is that the teachers are used to Windows and very
> reluctant to change to anything else. This is why I suggest a Windows
> install initially will have more penetration than if you go Linux from
> the outset. Remove as many barriers first and then gradually add them
> back as you win converts.

You and I seem to be on a different thought process about these programs.
There are all web based programs and therefore the host makes no difference.
The staff and students in my schools are still mostly on M$ machines and until 
I have a decent Client for Netware, are going to stay that way.
What I want to affect is the way schools "run" there records keeping 
operations, If we can build an OpenSource admin suite, and the parts already 
exist, then we should try and help set a standard in place.
Teachers in general are aware of the need for standards and good records 
keeping, as exampled here by Judy Jones 
http://teachersnetwork.org/ntol/howto/implement/standards.htm
what they need is an easy to use and commonly available method to help make 
those records mean something, to them and the teachers those students move on 
to.
Your comments seem to be generated from an experience of trying to move the 
desktop to quickly, I have not tried to move the desktops at all. I have 
however, introduced at the elementary level, LTSP on SLED and it is taking 
off like wildflowers, because with it, I took the student to computer ratio 
from 7:1 to 4:1 and my district is on average 2.8:1 due to a recurring 
purchasing plan I laid out 6 years ago. This plan leverages loans\leases to 
offset the schools buying power by reducing the yearly impact to 33K. 
By shifting the usage paradigm from locally installed software to web based 
lessons, we have increased daily computer usage 3 fold.

I'm not asking that this be done tommorrow, just asking that people join in 
and begin to participate, as you have done.
Please do continue to keep me on my feet. Thanks
James Tremblay


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