Re: [school-discuss] Converting 600 old laptops into K12LTSP thin clients for 1:1 ratio at a middle school

[Daniel Howard <dhhoward@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Gregan wrote:
> Dan,
> If I may suggest you try the "SLICK" release of OpenSuse on one of these 
> laptops. It has an optimized boot process as well as other KDE processes 
> to provide a full KDE experience on slower hardware. I have it running 
> on a 500MHz system with decent results considering the resources 
> available. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
>
> The SLICK release can be found here: http://en.opensuse.org/SLICK

Thanks Chris, and thanks to all for the recent responses, we presented 
the ideas to our district school technology folk and we're now 
discussing details of the laptops and how they could best be used.  They 
won't be mobile as it turns out, so we're leaning towards thin clients 
on either tables or laptop carts.  Interestingly, one of the main 
advantages of them is the small form factor of the keyboard, and the 
fact that you can thus fit more of them on the side of a table for 
elementary and middle school kids.  With 2:1 to 1:1 ratio of student to 
PC, the electricity and space in the class and hallway (for the laptop 
carts) start becoming the most limiting factors.

BTW, our principal told us that in nearly all subjects our test scores 
are up this year, and in particular in math by a significant amount 
across all grade levels.  She stated that she feels the new technology 
(K12LTSP) has had a direct impact on improving our academic performance. 
 I know that the kids are on the First-In-Math web site via Firefox 
every chance they get, being early to school, late to lunch and early in 
from recess to get more time on the laptop carts.  All that time 
practicing math has to be good for something.  Also, a very interesting 
benefit is that the fifth grade teachers began a major project on 
Oceanography in the last two weeks of school.  No one else, including 
the principal can recall a time when such a major student learning 
project was begun in the last two weeks of school, normally it's a 
ramp-down time.  I'm guessing the teachers felt confident to commence 
such an undertaking this year because they knew they would have enough 
working computers and a fast enough Internet connection that the 
students could quickly research the topic and quickly put bulletin board 
displays, reports, and presentations together.

What else does one need to convince oneself of the benefits of Open 
Source software and terminal/server architecture?

Best regards,
Daniel