[school-discuss] I'm back too; update on Brandon and Atlanta Public School

[Daniel Howard <dhhoward@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Looks like I'm getting schoolforge mail again too.  Here's a quick 
update on Brandon Elementary and on Atlanta Public Schools K12LTSP 
rollout, forgive me if William already posted an update and I missed it 
due to Comcast blocking.

Morris Brandon Elementary now has a 2:1 ratio of students to PCs in each 
class grades K-4 thanks to APS buying all new HP thin clients and HP 
servers for Brandon and 6 other Pilot schools in the district.  The 
other schools love it, and to quote one middle school principal "This is 
the best thing Operational Technology has done for us...my kid's math 
scores are already up, and no one can tell me this is not a good thing 
for schools."  And, our principal has said "TeacherTool is a must have." 
 She also told me that with all the computers in the classrooms now, 
the control/management functionality is critical to making it work. 
Plus, at another pilot middle school, they're using TeacherTool and a 
webcam on a piece of paper projected on a whiteboard to completely 
replace the functionality of SmartBoards for far less cost and greater 
functionality.

Also, we took the existing Ntavo thin clients we had and put a thin 
client on every desk in our fifth grade classrooms.  My mother-in-law 
and I velcro'ed the LCD monitors to the top of the desks, and lashed the 
thin clients to the side of the desks using cable ties.  The keyboards, 
when not in use, are set upright on their short side against the 
monitors of the desk which is abutted opposite a given desk, so when not 
in use, the LCD monitors, keyboard and mouse only take up the top 3 
inches of the desk, leaving enough space for the students to do other 
work.  With a 1:1 in the 5th grades, teachers are using TeacherTool to 
give paperless quizzes and tests, and just the reduction in copying time 
has been a productivity improvement for the teachers.  William is also 
to be credited for Brandon's web site, with drop boxes for teachers, 
students, and parents to easily transfer documents to/from school.

I'm now getting calls from other schools in the US about our rollout and 
how they could do it.  My basic advice is that if you want to roll your 
own, unless you have an equivalent of Jim Kinney here in Atlanta or a 
Steve Hargadon, to do the classroom server model, and still make sure 
you have someone who will support it locally if possible just to replug 
cables knocked out by fidgety feet, or reboot servers, etc.

I have therefore proposed to Atlanta Public Schools that they consider 
hiring a cadre of university co-op students from local engineering 
schools (Ga Tech, e.g.) to do local support for schools.  Most Tech 
students are pretty Linux friendly now.  Further, this creates the 
potential for these students to choose to hire with their co-op employer 
after graduation, thereby infusing new blood into the school district's 
IT department and maybe even encouraging some of them to get certified 
as teachers.  Since last year, the entire state of Georgia only 
graduated 1 science teacher, my thinking is that this is the only way 
we'll get qualified engineers/scientists to choose education: by getting 
them into the schools during college.  Brandon Elementary has already 
decided to do this (since William and I are moving on after this year), 
and the PTA has agreed to fund the co-op student.  Will let you all know 
how this works out.

There's lots more, but now that Comcast has stopped blocking the 
SchoolForge emails, I'll pass on more in subsequent emails.

Regards,
Daniel

--
Daniel Howard
President and CEO
Georgia Open Source Education Foundation