[school-discuss] New direction . . . is anyone else doing this?

["" <marilyn@linuxinartsed.org>]

Hi there folks!

I have been off the list for several months . . . too busy.  I have been a
teacher for 22 years and now for largely personal reasons (taking my oldest
child to Kindergarten) I am working out of my home office selling products to
education.

My company, GMx solutions, http://hagle.com/gmxsolutions, a division of GMx
technologies, http://www.gmxtechnologies.com, offers middleware - software,
hardware - and consulting services.  I am employed as a salesperson, but if I
find some interest will also offer OSS/Linux consulting services to schools.

My personal contribution will be very simple seamless integration of OSS into
educational curriculum, using bootable CDs in the classroom and then the Linux
desktop.  If I find interest in server migration and other heavy duty stuff, I
will have to bring in the big guns from my company.

I've been advertising and sending email all summer.  Now that it is September
(schools are back in progress and they can spend money again), I have been
contacted by seven Texas school districts - large & small - just last week, and
have a couple of appointments this week.  It will be interesting to see what
happens - several of the schools are interested in OSS.  One school told me
they are already implementing some OSS things - although most have still never
heard of it.

Anyone out there doing OSS/Linux consulting for schools in other parts of the
country?

I actually think I can have greater impact spreading the good news of OSS in
this role than I ever could as a teacher.  We'll see.

Marilyn