Hi Casey,
they never seemed to take off. I am sure there were a variety of reasons behind that, our high prices as one, but the feeling I got from feedback was that it was simply too complicated.
Strong Agree!
This speaks to many issues like training, change management, teacher motivation, etc. For this to be successful, I think the thin clients would need to boot to a specific server with a specific image that had everything the teacher needed. The idea of your average teacher plugging and unplugging wires isn't going to go very far is my guess. And the idea of every teacher having their own server sounds like a logistical tech nightmare for IT. It really has to be simple so the focus is on the instruction and not the technology.
The technology needs to be practically invisible in education for true success.
Exactly right, IMO. Ubiquitous. Reliable. Well Understood. Well integrated with other classroom activities and curriculum support materials.
Les Richardson Open Admin for Schools
My opinion if it helps! Casey casey@xxxxxxxxx On Dec 12, 2007 3:10 PM, Marilyn Hagle <marilyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: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:)-- Casey Adams 205.612.5489