Re: [seul-edu] Linux in classrooms

[Emilio Gerardo Milian <egmilian@gene.com>]

Hello:
My name is Emilio Milian, and am the Linux instructor at the South San
Francisco Adult Education Center.
Our school just started our first Linux course and we had great turnout,
so much the school decided to add a second class session starting this
November.

In August, I visited Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta. While I was there
I visited the "Red Escolar" in Guadalajara to see first hand their use
of Linux in the Mexican schools. My visit started at one of their
administrative offices, and was invited to return to visit a grade
school. This was in a "humble" industrial neighborhood of Guadalajara,
they were running Linux as a maill server, providing internet
connections to other PC's running Linux and Windows. Their internet
connection  was via dial-up as they still don't have the infrastructure
for ethernet.

Some of the problems as they explained to me was the HP hardware was not
compatible with the version of Linux they were running, also getting
software to run.  A big problem was getting knowledgable people. In this
school of 900 students the "syssops" was a computer instructor who had
been given the responsibility for running the Linux box, no training, no
manuals, yet he on his own has trained himself to use it, and was very
proud to show me how he finally was able to send and receive email.

Similar problems are also encountered by us in the USA, while our school
in South San Francisco is for adults, we still have similar problems. 
One of them is traditional software. I'm learning Linux as well, since
others who have the knowledge have no time or is inconvenient for them
to help us. 
We have installed Star Office 5.2, as root, but unable to use it as
users. I believe the file privileges have to be changed.  Would anyone
let me know what I have to do to have the entire class be able to use
Star Office as regular user?

Our school web site is:
http://www.smcoe.k12.ca.us/ssfusd/as/linux/linux1.html

Thank you

Emilio G. MIlian