Re: [seul-edu] Re: [K12OSN] Linux in Education Book?

[David Bucknell <david@members.iteachnet.org>]

Dear John McQuilliams,

I was just looking at your post on seul again and was struck by what you 
were trying to do with 9th graders. Your description is very close to 
what I am doing at Rose Marie Academy, basically for free. I host 
Manhattan Virtual Classroom (our school has ADSL, not a permanent line) 
zwiki, FLE and Geeklog on a remote server (iteachnet.org) and do _all_ 
of the things you wanted to do in a very user friendly way. Locally, we 
run all free software (on Windows): now, we are moving to k12ltsp (v. 3) 
and nfs on Linux clients instead of samba file sharing for windows 
clients. It works and the educational apps are a _great_ start on your 
dream. Download it now.

David

Quoting John McQuilliams <mcquill1@juno.com>:

> 
> Hi All
> We have now come to a item close to my heart, Computers in Education. I 
> am a member of retired professionals who formed a focus group to bring 
> our local high school into a paper-less school.
> We found all systems go with one exception, that of qualified software 
> that meets both teachers needs and the school qualifications. Primarily 
> that of teachers preferring to write their own curriculum and the need 
> for measuring accomplishments. We were in hopes of implementing this 
> program in 9/04, but the district is still afraid of placing any program 
> due to cost, even though we showed them how to start the program without 
> asking the parents or governments for help.
> 
> We have been researching for over 3 years, listed below is some of the 
> information and costs we found.
> 
> (1)   A tablet type PC with notebook capabilities ( I:E LCD display of 8 
> 1/2 X 11, 5 gig hardrive, 128 meg memory, modem, CD ROM RW/ DVD 
> Play,)These units would survive the idiosycrancies of the typical 14 
> year old, and would be used as texts and notebooks in the classroom 
> ,Cost under $500.00 on orders over 2000
> 
> (2)   Full servers and routers to service a 2000 student High school, 
> Cost $55,000.00,
> (3)   We programmed a cost of a split position for a combination IT 
> Manager (this manager would eventually assume the position of the entire 
> district)and Teacher carrying 2 classes per day of computer related 
> subjects. Cost $65,000.00 per year
> 
> As stated earlier one of the primary problems is that of qualified 
> software, in that there are no progressive learning programs worth there 
> salt. We have looked at several Linux programs on the web, none met our 
> standards of reporting.
> 
> What we had envisioned was, a student in class with a portable PC taking 
> notes from a lecture type presentation, homework would be done on the 
> computer and sent to the teacher via the web, the server would correct 
> and evaluate the answers for the teacher ( Easily possible in todays 
> technology )
> 
> Our presentation was based upon starting at the freshman level and 
> building to the senior level, a year at a time. The figures we operated 
> on were $185.00 average lottery money received from the state per year,+ 
> $223.00 average book allowance per student per year.
> 
> We polled the parents as to an amount they would consider fair to bring 
> there high school into the modern education, average was $180.00 per 
> year in assessments, this is over and above the local tax rate to 
> education of 51% of assessed tax basis.
> 
> The question asked was, Do you believe that your tax dollars are being 
> used wisely in regards to education, how much would you pay to improve 
> your childs education.
> 
> Our focus group was immediately considered persona non grata by the 
> local district, we were told they would decide how the tax dollars were 
> distributed. Needless to say school board elections will change things.
> 
> In writing this missile it is evident that we must bring  the outlying 
> groups together and form a single group with a single purpose, the 
> larger the number we speak with the more our decision makers will conform.
> 
> To those of you who agree get back to me and lets go to work!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> John McQuilliams
> 
> 
> 


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