Effectivly there are 3 catagories a) the general office/web browser/email stuff b) software which is specialised but used only in certain departments. Possibly driving specific hardware. c) specialised software which needs to be used by large numbers of people at once.
There dosn't appear to be an easy answer to the last catagory.
I think there is. Have one room which they can book out and use - after all that's pretty much the situation im ost schools now. Have many thin clients all over the place for a) and a few specialised machines for b). If people did this, the sheer volume of take up of the OSS stuff would make it very likely that the b) and c) apps would be ported within a couple of years.
Sounds nice, unfortunatly I don't have the authority to do it. Let alone that it would upset quite a few people, at least short term.
Not everyone can but as I say, fight the battles you can win. I'm in a fortunate position of being able to make people offers they can't refuse ;-)
The model I propose is long term affordable and sustainable and gets the pupil:computer ratio towards 1:1.
Also the amount of usage isn't the be all and end all, Kudos typically sits idle on our system most of the year.
is required is a management perspective in IT that takes a critical approach to the prioritising and deployment of resources. Where ICT is concerned there is rarely the experience or technical knowledge in the decision makers to make good strategic decisions in this respect.
This is not just a problem with schools, LEA's can be just as bad.
Sometimes worse :-)
But saying that upsets them...
Again the art is upsetting those where it doesn't damage the course and cajoling those who can help. More to do with politics than technology. -- IanL Open Source - save money - employ more teachers Use Star Office the free replacement for Microsoft Office