Re: [seul-edu] Becoming reporters: was:[why schools don't adopt OSS]]

[Dave Prentice <dprentice@uno.edu>]

David,
    What kind of things do you want to know? (If it's not of interest to the
whole seul list you can email me privately.)
    By the way, my school got a phone call today from a casino that wants to
donate 45 PCs to us for a tax writeoff. They have no monitors, and the lady
didn't know if they have an OS installed. Guess who gets to set up all 45?
This is on top of the 18 laptops on which I need to install Orinoco wireless
NICS and make sure that they connect to the network. Sure would be nice if I
had time to teach occasionally.
    Anybody want to drive to New Orleans and help set this stuff up? I can
set you up with a sleeping bag in my classroom.    ;-)
Dave Prentice
prentice@instruction.com

-----Original Message-----
From: David M. Bucknell <david@members.iteachnet.com>
To: seul-edu@seul.org <seul-edu@seul.org>
Date: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 4:48 AM
Subject: [seul-edu] Becoming reporters: was:[why schools don't adopt OSS]]


>I'd love to do a/some story/stories on what you (and other schools) have
done,
>Dave. Let's start the publicity with an an interview that we'll publish on
>opensourceschools.org first and spread around. We need a catchy angle,
right?
>Suggestions?
>
>Another good story would be to embarrass US schools with how great
Michael's
>Autralian school is at saving tax payers money and being more effective.
Would
>you be able to get us info on that, Michael?
>
>And how about these great projects in Mexico, France and Colombia I've seen
>posted on SEUL? Let's report on those.
>
>Newsforge says if we find _news_, then they'll want the "scoop" so we just
>need to turn into reporters, I guess.
>
>David
>
>Michael Hall <admin@openlearningcommunity.org> said:
>
>>
>> I know where you're coming from Dave ... even though our state system
>> actually uses Linux and OSS, they don't make much of it. They're all into
>> image ... "We've spent X million dollars on blah blah blah" ... the
>> details just don't matter.
>>
>> Mick
>>
>> On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Dave Prentice wrote:
>>
>> > My 2 cents:
>> >     As a teacher in a 1600+ student public school, I find that most
>> > technology decisions are made for reasons of image and politics. For
>> > instance, the technology situation in my school district is a mess. The
>> > solution? The district administration decided to name one teacher per
school
>> > as the Technology Coordinator. Each of us T.C.s has to serve as the
liaison
>> > between our school and the tech support department. If anything acts
up, we
>> > are supposed to check it out. Tech support will not respond to service
>> > requests from anyone but us. Despite getting all this additional
>> > responsibility, we still have to teach the same class load as all the
other
>> > teachers, and get no more money or designated free time to handle the
>> > responsibilities. The higher-ups look good because they came up with a
plan,
>> > but it's shadow without substance.
>> >     More image manipulation: the district just spent tens or hundreds
of
>> > thousands of dollars getting a bunch of new computers for my school.
The
>> > local news media come out and take pictures of all the new equipment.
Isn't
>> > it great? We're spending all this money on our kids! Meanwhile, I have
set
>> > up a 20-machine Linux network in my classroom using old donated
equipment,
>> > at ZERO cost to the district -- and it works just as well as all the
new
>> > hardware. But will anybody from the district or the media even come
look at
>> > it? No, because it's not new and flashy. They'd rather get publicity
for all
>> > the money they spent than all the money they DIDN'T have to spend. What
a
>> > waste of money! It's all politics.
>> >     The point is, decision-makers are very often influenced by what
LOOKS
>> > best, not what IS best. If we want to make an impact, we need to come
up
>> > with something that looks and sounds good to the public and to the
teachers
>> > that will use it, then find ways to publicize it. We need to show that
OSS
>> > can do anything that high-cost software can do, only better and
cheaper.
>> > Also, as others have hinted at, we need to offer more or less a turnkey
>> > distro for the sake of the personnel who have to do the installations.
An
>> > education distro should install on just about any hardware, be
virtually
>> > hassle-free on installation, and have lots of useful features built in
so
>> > that teachers can use them with little or no extra training. For
typical
>> > teacher/classroom machines this would require at minimum a GUI such as
gnome
>> > or KDE, a word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation software,
and
>> > web browser. All of these should work like the Win programs teachers
and
>> > students are used to.
>> >     The key to success is getting the public's attention so they will
>> > pressure the decision makers. A tall order indeed.
>> > Dave Prentice
>> > prentice@instruction.com
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Doug Loss <drloss@home.com>
>> > To: seul-edu@seul.org <seul-edu@seul.org>
>> > Date: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 10:31 AM
>> > Subject: [Fwd: Re: [seul-edu] RE: [why schools don't adopt OSS]]
>> >
>> >
>> > >-------- Original Message --------
>> > >
>> > >From: Jim Thomas <jthomas@bittware.com>
>> > >To: seul-edu@seul.org
>> > >Subject: Re: [seul-edu] RE: [why schools don't adopt OSS]
>> > >
>> > >Jay Sun wrote:
>> > >[snippage]
>> > >> However, schools waste fair amount of money at same time,
>> > >> especially at district administrative level in public schools.
>> > >> you are right that schools use other people's money, so there
>> > >> are a lot of things that are purely political, and the OSS
>> > >> just don't make much sense in those situations.
>> > >
>> > >I keep hearing this (that public schools spend other people's money)
and
>> > >I feel compelled to respond to it.  I agree - it's very difficult to
get
>> > >a public school (in the US at least) to adopt open source.  The "free"
>> > >argument doesn't go very far.  We have to tout *other* benefits of
Open
>> > >Source to get into that sector, such as stability, viral resistance,
an
>> > >actual security model, and capabilities.
>> > >
>> > >It might be easier to start with private schools - especially
non-profit
>> > >denominational schools, which operate on tight budgets and are
somewhat
>> > >smaller than the public behemoths down the street.  These people
really
>> > >do care about saving money, and they are not hobbled by large
>> > >bureaucracies either.  Once enough private schools adopt OSS, we can
>> > >collect their case studies and have a body of evidence to present to
the
>> > >public sector.  Perhaps these arguments  apply to for-profit private
>> > >schools too, but I think this is a smaller slice of the pie.  I say
>> > >start small and build momentum.  This approach lets us work out the
bugs
>> > >before tackling the giants.
>> > >
>> > >Unfortunately, this strategy takes more time, and we're trying to
>> > >"strike while the iron's hot."
>> > >
>> > >I still think the community needs to come out with an Education
>> > >Distribution to ease installation.  As I see it, there are three types
>> > >of installations required in an edu environment: student machines,
staff
>> > >machines, and servers.  When you install RedHat, it prompts for the
type
>> > >of installation and suggests Workstation, Server, etc.  This doesn't
>> > >make sense for an edu distro.
>> > >
>> > >Right now it is no easy task to set this up.  The packages are
>> > >available, but not on a CD.  The installation procedure goes like
this:
>> > >1) Choose one of a myriad of available installations
>> > >2) Install it, choosing packages from a tremendous list of confusing
(to
>> > >the uninitiated) options (what does ypbind do?  do I need it?)
>> > >3) Locate educational packages
>> > >4) download and attempt installation, only to discover dependencies
>> > >5) Figure out what those dependencies are
>> > >6) Locate the package that will satisfy the dependency
>> > >7) Go back to step 4, and repeat as more dependencies are discovered.
>> > >8) Confiure the application
>> > >
>> > >This is a lot to ask from a person with little or no *nix experience.
>> > >An edu distro would reduce these steps to
>> > >1) Get the edu distro
>> > >2) Choose student, staff, or server installation
>> > >3) Choose applications (which should be well described)
>> > >4) Customize the configuration (but it should work pretty well without
>> > >this step).
>> > >
>> > >A student installation would include:
>> > >Web/email client
>> > >Office suite
>> > >Educational apps (select by grade level and subject)
>> > >Games (this may be important for fostering acceptance)
>> > >What else?
>> > >
>> > >A staff installation would include:
>> > >same as student install plus
>> > >courseware
>> > >gradebook
>> > >Internet usage monitor
>> > >Account management SW
>> > >What else?
>> > >
>> > >The server installation would be tailored for school use.  There could
>> > >possibly be more than one type of server too, such as a lab server
(NFS,
>> > >NIS, DHCP) and a gateway server (firewall, httpd, email server,
>> > >squid/squidguard).  A library app (such as Koha) should also be
>> > >available for the server machine.
>> > >
>> > >I have installed Linux at a private school, and the effort has largely
>> > >been successful.  Linux has still not achieved acceptance by the
staff,
>> > >but I'm still working on that.  I'd like to introduce linux to other
>> > >schools too, but managing the one I'm involved with now still requires
a
>> > >huge committment on my part (and I'm just a volunteer).
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >--
>> > >Jim Thomas      **    Principal Applications Engineer ** Bittware, Inc
>> > >703.779.7770    **    jthomas@bittware.com **  http://www.bittware.com
>> > >The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that is even worse.
>> > > - Calvin's dad
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>>
>> --
>> ################################
>> Michael Hall
>> admin@openlearningcommunity.org
>> m.hall@latis.net.au
>> http://openlearningcommunity.org
>>
>>
>
>
>
>--
>David M. Bucknell
>http://members.iteachnet.org/~david
>http://www.OpenSourceSchools.org
>http://members.iteachnet.org/webzine/
>Fax: (US) 775-244-0803
>
>
>