Re: [seul-edu] Linux for Georgia Schools [OT?]

[aaron <aaron@pd.org>]

On Monday 02 September 2002 11:46, you wrote:
> Look at Linux Terminal Server Project and its links, especially to
> K12LTSP, which has a Red Hat distribution for schools which costs
> $15.00 on a set of disks (open source - of course you could download
> for free) and allows use of old PCs as terminals, even without hard
> drives (noisy and failure-prone) and floppies (BTW running RAID on
> the server is faster and safer than using hard drives on the
> desktop).  With icewm, as small window manager on the server, and
> bootable NICs the LTSP clients can be up in seconds -- see for
> example the site of the Yorktown High School Linux User Group (in
> Arlington Virginia, not Yorktown VA).

Thanks for the pointers on LTSP. One of our members has been doing LTSP 
installations and support as part of his consulting business, so that 
direction is being promoted heavily in our group. I can definitely see 
how a server / thin client configuration could offer a lot of solutions 
to both the political and technical challenges of bringing Linux into 
certain school environments.

However, while we will surely be considering options like LTSP in our 
delivery evaluations, our project outline suggests that making those 
evaluations effectively calls for a couple of prerequisite steps. First, 
we want to make a reasonable, general analysis of which Computer/IT 
application areas are currently proving successful and useful for the 
various constituencies of K12 schools. Second, knowing the preferred 
application goals and our available abilities, resources and 
technologies, we want to set the target criteria for selecting the 
institution or environment for our "proof of concept" installation.

Basically, before we chose between horses, mule team or dog pack, we want 
to generate a good description of what the driver, cargo and the terrain 
factors are going to be. Admittedly there is a lot of interdependence 
across the factors that makes their order of evaluation somewhat 
arbitrary, but we had to choose to start somewhere!

Again, any directions or links to existing reports, research and 
evaluations on the state of general Computer and IT use in K12 schooling 
would be most helpful. Also, as this thread isn't directly connected to a 
SEUL-edu project and may therefore be considered OT by the list 
providers, please use your discretion and reply privately (aaron@pd.org) 
if you feel that's more appropriate.

Thanks!

peace
aaron

---------------PS / OT
> NAMES (Names Are My Excellent Specialty):
[...snip: many other amusing acro-names...]

All I can say is Ouch! And then Ouch Again! :-)
Thanks for list of Name & Acronym suggestions. You have conquered the 
seemingly impossible task of making our LINGAS idea seem truly 
inspired and respectable. :-)