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



This is such a lively thread I can't find a good place to jump in.
Excellent topic, with no easy answer. Needs to be aired out every once in a
while.

First, a humble request. Marilyn, please configure your mail client to
supply your full name (or whatever you want to be called) in whichever
field wants it. One of the standards for mail addresses is

    "Human Readable Name" <mailbox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

The mail I get from you has nothing between the quotes, so my brain-dead
mail client lists you as "". And, in case you ask, that same mail client
will not let me edit my From line, so I don't have the satisfaction of
calling myself "Gary Dunn" or "The Flyn Hawaiian" or "Moon Doggie."

<marilyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

..
> Since I have your attention, I am going to make a suggestion.  
< This is the
> system that I think would make both teachers and system 
> administrators the
> happiest.  :)
> 
> I think all student stations should be run with live CD/DVDs 
> or other bootable
> media.  Data should be saved on flash drives or whatever 
> (network storage would
> be OK too).  I think that student stations should not have 
> OSs installed on
> them at all.
> 
> There should be numerous choices of live CDS.  They should be 
> topical according
> to subject area.  They should include every possible relevant 
> available Open
> Source Software Package. 
..

I think this is a wonderful idea that needs to be tried. I hope it works,
or leads to a successful outcome. However, I could not disagree more.
Please allow me to explain.

I think every student should carry their own PC. No books, no forty pound
knapsacks, just one small slate device.

Every student should have full admin rights on their own slate.

Servers should be distributed around the school to avoid bandwidth
congestion and a single point of failure.

Servers should be maintained by an elite group of students, typically 11th
and 12th graders. Teacher or staff supervision need not be technical. I
don't mean to bruse any egos, but it is really easy to be a system
administrator and every school has a group of really bright kids fully
capable. Yes they will make mistakes. That is why we call it school.

Elementary and middle schools will partner with neighborhood high schools
and receive admin support from them. They will need someone capable of
turning things on -- even sixth graders can do that.

As to having every student exposed to every FOSS application and teachers
loving diversity, I think this makes the computer the subject being
studied, and this is wrong. This is a common mistake. The computer is
simply the means to interact. A way to receive information that takes the
place of books and audio and video. A way to communicate. A way to organize
and collaborate. Every student should know something about what makes it
work, and those who are interested should be allowed to go as far as
possible. But, the purpose of the tool is not the tool.

I think that where Marilyn speaks for many others who love FOSS and long to
share this wonderful crazy world with everyone, I long for a repository of
student developed, peer reveiewed educational content. In some cases this
will consist of specially constructed applications, but much of it will be
content delivered by a small, standardized set of applications. Hypercard
comes to mind, and in that context I speak of Hypercard stacks. 

I realize that this sounds like sci-fi, but like any good sci-fi story much
of it is real.

Gary Dunn
Honolulu
Open Slate Project 
http://openslate.sourceforge.net/