Re: [school-discuss] Idea for mobile computer teacher/specialist in enterprise Linux thin client schools

[Marilyn Hagle <marilyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have enjoyed reading this thread.  It is true that when there is overcrowding,
teachers often lose their classrooms.  

This brought back memories of teaching elementary music.  The music room is
often the first to go, and then the teacher gets the pleasure of pushing a cart
of stuff from room to room.  When I was a student teacher, we had to push a
piano.   Yikes!

You might be forced to go to a portable class, if there are space constraints. 
However, for the teacher - it will suck (couldn't think of a better word).  It
wears you out pushing a bunch of stuff around all day.  Organizing your stuff
can be a challenge.  I think the worst problem is usually discipline because
you can't control your environment.

I thought you might enjoy the views of an old traveling teacher.  :)


Marilyn


Quoting Daniel Howard <dhhoward@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> I'm talking to several Atlanta schools now that are expecting the new 
> enterprise thin client system that William and I recommended within the 
> coming months, and one thing that keeps coming up is what happens to the 
> computer lab teacher when there are so many PCs (at least 2:1) in each 
> classroom.  Plus, many of these schools are bursting at the seams with 
> enrollment growth, so the computer lab is a likely target for a regular 
> classroom anyway.  This is what happened at Brandon, e.g.
> 
> One thought I had was the following: suppose the computer teacher went 
> mobile and had on her cart a server that she could use to go into a 
> classroom, quickly connect the thin clients in the room to her server, 
> and voila, she's in command and can run any apps she has on her server, 
> including TeacherTool, etc.  Wireless connection from mobile server to 
> Internet would likely be best to prevent the mobile server from handing 
> out IP addresses to other school computers if miswired, and that's one 
> less wire to mess with too.  At the end of the session, she reconnects 
> the classroom clients to the main school server (single wire from room 
> switch to data port, e.g.), and the kids reboot and they're back where 
> they started.
> 
> Any thoughts from the group, pro/con?  Assume all rooms have the same 
> thin client platform, so a single config with dhcp could be used.
> 
> Best,
> Daniel
> 
> -- 
> Daniel Howard
> President and CEO
> Georgia Open Source Education Foundation
> 


:)