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On Mon, 2005-10-24 at 17:58 -0400, Joseph Bishay wrote:
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Hello,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Hope all is doing well.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">So tomorrow I have to go into the school and meet with the new</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">principal, where I have to defend that the linux lab has some sort of</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">educational value. As the message that was left for me said, "All the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">educational software on the market is for Windows." This is</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">independent of the fact that the lab was running for the past year and</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">a half under the old administration, supporting their educational</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">needs with no problem.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Part of the problem is that she has a trusted advisor (not at the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">school) who seems to have a lot of experience (years and years) with</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">computers is pushing this idea onto the principal. Seems they both</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">feel that only Windows can support the educational software that they</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">have heard of.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">This seems to be an urgent issue, as they were about to go ahead with</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">the dismantling of the lab without even talking about it, so I only</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">have one chance before they decide to change all the machines to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Windows 98 (I have no idea how they will go about doing this, but the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">machines cannot support anything more and that's what they have</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">suggested).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">So what do you all think? This is a small elementary school and I</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">know many other schools out there use k12ltsp - how do you deal with</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">this situation? I'm thinking 2 things - 1) many applications may</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">already exist for linux that I just need to show them or</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">download/install and show them and 2) maybe you know about windows</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">programs which could have previously required installation but now run</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">through a browser off a website and therefore no longer need Windows.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">help!</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Joseph</FONT>
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Point her at this article. Better yet, print it out and have her read it in front of you. It is an interview with a classroom teacher (Paul Nelson, Riverdale School District) that addresses exactly that point.<BR>
<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/advice/ask_pnelson.html">http://www.redhat.com/advice/ask_pnelson.html</A><BR>
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--TP
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