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RE: [school-discuss] First the city of Atlanta, next a country!



Yes, see the schoolforge case study site, the brandon web site
(www.morrisbrandon.com) under the technology section, among others.
Feel free to set up a conference call with them that I can participate
in a dialog with them directly.  I'm happy to tell the story, and can
also address any concerns they might have over making the change.
Daniel 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard
Houston
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 9:30 AM
To: schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] First the city of Atlanta, next a country!

Hey Danial,

This is great news. This is a pretty significant move on the devisions
part. Glad that all your hard work has flourishing into something great.

Is there a case study on this which detail what you had to so, how you
got it going and the various benefits it borough? I would love to be
able to put a case study like this in front of the school trustees here
in Manitoba, Canada to show how the use of Foss in schools has great
potential.

Thanks for the update and keep up the great work!


+------------------------------------+
Best regards,
-Richard Houston
-R.L.H.  Consulting
-E-Mail  rhouston@xxxxxxxx
-WWW     http://www.rlhc.net
-Blog    http://www.rlhc.net/blog/


> Fellow Schoolforgers,
>
>
> A quick update on Atlanta public schools and a new project I'm
starting.
>
>
> First, Atlanta schools had a pilot of K12LTSP in 7 schools this past 
> year.  With the exception of one school (where the principal wasn't 
> enthusiastic about the pilot and didn't really motivate the teachers 
> to use the new system) every other school saw significant academic 
> performance improvement on a statewide test relative to their peer 
> schools.  I now hear that APS is planning to roll the system out 
> district-wide, and many other US schools are contacting them to find 
> out  how they did it and what they need to have to do likewise.  A few

> people can make a difference.
>
> Second, one of my teachers did some missionary work in Malawi 
> (southern
> Africa) a while back, and just got back from revisiting there, and was

> lamenting to me about how villages in this very poor country had no 
> idea about the outside world.  For more detail, check out her
classroom blog
> page at http://hultquistthirdgrade.blogspot.com/   Many of these
villages
> have no electricity.
>
> I did some googling, and found schools in India that used solar arrays

> to power a handful of PCs and I started thinking: why not use a solar 
> array to power a satellite Internet receiver, a K12LTSP or Edubuntu 
> LTSP  server, and a handful of thin clients and LCD monitors (to keep 
> electricity requirements low).  Such satellite Internet service is 
> available here in US, Europe, South Africa, Northern Africa, and heck,

> maybe even a spot beam that covers Malawi.  Jim Kinney, the Linux 
> architect that did the APS enterprise K12LTSP version for APS, 
> suggested  a server that boots and runs off of Flash memory to 
> eliminate the hard disk electricity consumption, and the kids could do

> all file storage on the web (word processing, spreadsheet, etc.)
>
> What do you guys think of this idea?  Has it been done anywhere else 
> with lessons learned?  My teacher says the biggest thing these kids in

> these villages could have is to see and interact with the rest of the 
> world.  I can't help but think this is technically feasible and for a 
> fairly modest amount, could invoke a seachange in how these villages 
> educate their kids.
>
> Comments, criticisms, even cheap shots, welcome.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Daniel