Re: [school-discuss] Philosophy: Teachers with Admin Privileges or Not

[Marilyn Hagle <marilyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Cool!  Sounds great!  I will check out AllPeers.  :)

Quoting Chris Gregan <cgregan@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> Marilyn,
> You may want to look into AllPeers. It's a Firefox plugin where you setup
> personal sharing networks. I'm not sure if it will meet all of your needs,
> but it is a good tool. Moodle may cover the rest. There are several schools
> in my area using it, if you would like some references, I'm sure they would
> be happy to share their experiences.
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chris Gregan
> cgregan@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Open Source Migration Specialist/Founder
> Aptenix LLC-Desktop Solutions
> New Market, MD
> (240)422-9224
> 
> "Open source, open minds."
> 
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marilyn Hagle <marilyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:16:49 
> To:"" <schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Philosophy: Teachers with Admin Privileges or
> Not
> 
> 
> Alan,
> 
> You have eloquently stated this teacher's point of view.  I like your six
> benefits.  I use Linux exclusively because of the cool stuff I can do with
> the
> kids.  Already this morning I have seen students making personal scrapbooks
> using the Gimp and Scribus, building a 3D model of a photograph in Blender. 
> This period students are writing html in gedit, connecting to my classroom
> server and collaborating with each other in Pine, and researching subject
> matter in Firefox, using Wikipedia.  After lunch, students will finish
> their original percussion songs in Hydrogen.  Then they will collect photos
> to
> compile a slide show with their percussion .wav file in the Gimp.  Will use
> Kino for the finishing touches for their first music video.
> 
> I wrote the first part of this email during the school day - now it is
> evening.
> 
> To answer Jim and others, I would say that teachers would love having the
> choice
> of every single useable OSS app available to them.  And then if you had
> collaborative stuff on a server for them - that would be even better!  Why
> can´t we have inter-classroom email and file sharing (monitor it for
> cheating)?
> How about student newsgroups or discussion boards?
> 
> Teachers are all about having lots of stuff to help them teach.
> 
> The more stuff that system administrators can give teachers, the happier
> they
> will be!!
> 
> Marilyn
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Quoting "Alan E. Davis" <lngndvs@xxxxxxxxx>:
> 
> > I, a Biology teacher, have been running GNU/Linux for more than 13 years,
> > and in my own little way, in my own isolated little niche, have tried to
> get
> > GNU/Linux into use for my students.  I have introduced it to teachers, but
> I
> > am not expert enough as a sysadmin to play as big an advocacy role as I'd
> > like.  In general, I run GNU/Linux, and it impacts almost every aspect of
> my
> > work as a teacher, and my personal projects as well.  The potential that
> is
> > unlocked by using GNU/Linux has been huge, for me and for a few students.
> > 
> > But my colleagues are well trained in Micro$oft.  Perhaps I am a
> conspiracy
> > theorist, in believing that their addiction was carefully cultivated by
> the
> > moguls, through donations to schools and the like.   In earlier years, my
> > interest in Free software was met with scorn and derision, or at least
> > disinterest.  Then, a few years ago, people started noticing GNU/Linux and
> > other Free software, and I started meeting a few people who at least were
> > willing to try.  Most of them more skilled than myself.  Somehow, I have
> > only connected with a handful of Free software users over the years.
> > Meanwhile, the software base has improved exponentially from year to year,
> > and I can recommend it to just about anyone.  But on this island, the
> school
> > administration lives in the "windows shop" world, and seems to have fallen
> > into the trap of thinking that Micro$oft is a synonym for Technology.  Or
> > Apple.  One of the Two.
> > 
> > I emphasize that I am not an IT person; my interests are scientific, and I
> > have hoped to utilize Free software to enable my scientific activities,
> > teaching work, and hopefully students.  What I see is a paranoid mindset
> > that seems to pervade much of the educational arena.  Substituting Free
> > software to use the computer in the same old way.
> > 
> > One cannot but appreciate the ability to hook up old equipment to servers,
> > and perhaps it is these servers that are being referred to.  A diverse
> range
> > of applications, and numerous teaching tools are enabled by Free
> > software---software that is Free to share.
> > 
> > "Computer literacy" is taught in our schools.  In our schools, this means
> > Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  Does that suggest to anyone else a sales
> > program?  What it SHOULD mean, in my humble opinion, is knowledge of what
> a
> > computer can do, cannot do, how the computer works (write a program),
> > ability to manipulate the hardware (write programs) with software, a range
> > of application types, how to build and repair a PC, how to make graphs and
> > analyze data, perhaps edit a video.  Free software would enable more of
> all
> > these things, and if we were to leverage the Erate monies our schools
> > receive using Free Software, we would be able to do more interesting
> things.
> > 
> > I miss that spirit in many of the posts to the Linux education lists. 
> Here
> > are some of the benefits I envision to using Free software in schools:
> > 
> > 1.  Teaching tools
> > 2.  Learning tools
> > 3.  Access to sophisiticated applications with a low bar to entry
> > 4.  Access to high grade compilers to teach programming.  (I might add
> that
> > in our school district, only "computer literacy" is taught, and I have met
> > one or two students only over the years who have ever written a
> programming
> > language.)
> > 5.  Freedom to share bypasses the obscenity (in the classroom or ed
> > institution) of expensive software packages with "one seat licenses."  (We
> > were told by the local college that we could not experiment with Photoshop
> > for this very reason.  How can we get the Gimp into the public eye?)
> > 6.  Security.
> > 
> > 
> > I have drifted far from the Original Poster's question.  However, I think
> > that I have arrived at a clearer understanding of the original
> question---at
> > least for me---as well as the responses.  For each response I would ask
> "how
> > does this approach to the use of computers and software in school meet
> these
> > 6 (or perhaps more) needful benefits of the use of Free software in
> > schools.  Are we merely using the same approaches on different platforms,
> > with probably the end result of producing more customers for those
> > proprietary software moguls?  Or what?
> > 
> > For what it's worth, to restrict the software a teacher can install and/or
> > use in the classroom reeks of mind control and top down approaches that
> are
> > an abomination to what I, at any rate, see as the beacon of the Free
> > software community.
> > 
> > Perhaps I am too radical?
> > 
> > Alan
> > 
> > -- 
> > Alan Davis, Kagman High School, Saipan  lngndvs@xxxxxxxxx
> > 
> > "It's never a matter of liking or disliking ..."
> >        ---Santa Ynez Chumash Medicine Man
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 


:)