On Tuesday 09 July 2002 21:36, you wrote:
This really needs to be done. Schools have got to see the benefits. I'm about to spend £10 000 on mickeysoft
Seems odd - anyone who believes Linux is more stress than MS products has
only considered the very short term. As a MS trained IT professional, Linux
has been a revelation - available to work out of the box or customised to
your needs.
On the staffing side, I'll get blunter: knowing how to use MS at home, or
even in a business context does not qualify or even prepare you for
implementing MS solutions in a school environment. Believing that it does is
the biggest source of problems for moving IT forwards in schools. Schools
collectively need to accept that an ICT environment with 300+ PCs and 1200
users need to be supported by professionals and that those professionals
will need to be paid 2 or 3 times what is currently offered. At these more
realistic salaries, recruiting replacements will not be so difficult.
Teachers (current company excepted) are not the right people to make IT
decisions as they do not have the depth of knowledge required. IT management
is not a part-time occupation, and your IT manager needs to be involved in
school strategy for the best, most cost-effective and education-effective IT
strategies. And don't get me wrong, this isn't personal; I'm one of the
lucky ones :-)
For compatibility problems elimination, see StarOffice 6. Not just because
of its MS file read/write ability, but because you can supply copies to the
pupils and staff!
Regards
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Colin McQueen
To: suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com
Sent: 7/14/02 9:18 PM
Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] SendMail Relays
In message <20020710164100.EJNR19225.mta07-svc.ntlworld.com@there>
Ian Lynch
Why? You can get round this largely with what we are doing. In East
we installed 120 wireless thin clients and saved about 30k in software ==20 licensing and more in hardware and management time. The kids using it don't seem at all bothered. Also we can manage their servers for them remotely so its very inexpensive to get very expert support. My view is that if you have say lots of Windows 95 machines and they run your curriculum software why change? Very few apps are going to only run on XP so if it ain't broke why fix it? If you use thin client to run your office, graphics, web etc software from servers you then just upgrade your servers every few years and
network is upgraded and the software for all that aspect is free and will remain so. We can make your local Windows proof against hacking and viruses at no extra cost. In the longer term as more develops you will be able to dump local windows altogether because everything will go web based.
no choice I'm afraid.
There's always a choice ;-) Well depends obviously on people above you. We tend to deal with some innovative people who want to be at the cutting edge and tend to be prepared to take what others see as a risk. But then
Hull CLC the whole the only
risk in business is to take no risk.
I don't want to take risks with the limited amount of time we have for ICT in schools. To start running another system (we are just removing the last 3 RISC OS suites) instead of consolidating the system most people have will cause a drop in teaching efficiency for a while at least. It would lots of planning time to try and avoid this. I have too many inexperienced and insecure staff teaching the odd ICT lesson. if they have to cope with something too different to what they use at home they get too stressed. Now I have heard all the arguemts about compatability but on the ground there are still too many problems. We have a need for a pupil to be able to work at home or at any station in school and be able to transfer files about with as few problems as possible. I have worked for 15 years trying to get pupils and staff to understand the ways around filer transfers between different applications and platforms. Its is not something the majority of people have time for. you only end up annouing them because you don't give them the answer they need for a quick fix. "I don't want to understand - I just want it to work!" We have a thin client system. We have been at the forefront. We have struggled to cope, and to relieve the stress on Network Manager, technicains, staff and some pupils, we need consistency. Windows got its foot in because Linux wasn't ready for the desktop in schools. I'd love it to have been different. The most used application after Word in school is Powerpoint, simply because its easy and fun. I realise that the future is the web and MickeySoft's web output is awful for anything but MickeySoft infested clients. But what seems to be at the forefront of the NC in ICT is what the pupils do not what they understand. PowerPoint get's them doing and actually I have been amazed at the innovative work some of them have done. Can I tell the pupils that they can use this Linux box to do the same sort of stuff, so easily AND that it will work at home sp they can continue there?
But it should be about the last until we need to upgrade, We're reaching saturation with 1:5 computer to pupil ratio.
With thin clients the upgrades are much cheaper so if you use a
can demote older machines to thin client and save enough to buy more
mixture you thick
clients without killing the environment.
We may well have done this but the governors came up with £90 000 grand. Coping with NT thin clients and W98 desktops making sure the policies for all the Office products match up on both platforms and work in the same way isn't exactly easy, for schools.
On my model saturation isn't reached until 1:1 - its affordable and
long term
sustainable and we can plan the space management needed.
Good luck. All I can do really is to remind the head and the bods at Hampshire that open source is out there. I'm afraid I can't change our school to it in any form for at least 3 years now.
Well get a toe in the water because it doesn't have to be all one
I'd love to see the planning for space AND electrical power sockets, that doesn't invade some of our class rooms with noise and heat. Then you will also have to persuade our ISP to give us a bigger chunk of IP addreses for their Intranet. We've been given 508 and half of those are on the admin side of the router. thing or
another and if you do change in 3 years, experience will make it a lot ==20 easier.
We have a lot of interest, more than enough to keep us busy so its best if everyone doesn't all decide to try and change at once from my
We've got experience but that may disappear. What happens when I or the Network Manager move on? And at the end of the day I just don't have enough time. My family need me and I'd rather spend more time on planning my lessons when it comes to work. I used to relish the technical stuff ... :( point
of view. Its going to take years but I think that change is inevitable.
Change is but few can predict what will happen ;-) -- Colin McQueen : Using an Acorn StrongARM Risc PC Web Domain : http://www.mcqueen.uk.net/ BSc Zoology + Oceanography : PGCE : MSc in CBL/T -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help@suse.com