... but I will still get the argument from colleagues and parents that the Linux version isn't what the they and the girls are used to at home.
I know. I get it a lot too. I don't want to bore the list too much with it but the answer, which you probably already use, is that that's a good educational argument for using something a bit different at school. The job of the school is to educate them, stretch them, show them the variety of things that are in the world, introduce them to new ideas, new concepts, different way of doing things, get them to think, to puzzle out new things, to question the status quo. Not just to train them to use what they can work out for themselves at home. Indeed, giving them practice in working things out for themselves when faced with a strange new machine is exactly what is needed in schools, unless we assume computer development has stopped and there won't be different ways of doing things in ten year's time. It's worth repeating that last sentence in capitals, but you can re-read it. How often in the past ten or twenty years have we had to work things out for ourselves when faced with a new machine? Do we assume that there will no longer be that need? Is this not a critical life skill now? Can those who do not have it operate a mobile phone? A ticket machine? A car radio? Even a loo in a 747 is a bit of a challenge to those without the investigative and deductive skills required to operate a different sort of computer. -- Christopher Dawkins, Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3JG 01371-820527 or 07798 636725 cchd@felsted.essex.sch.uk