[K12OSN] LTSP Teacher forums

John Baillie jbaillie at stmarys-school.org
Fri Dec 3 00:17:35 UTC 2004


R. Scott Belford wrote:


Huck wrote:
        What does it take to set one up?
        What kind of bandwidth consumption would we be looking at?
        (ballpark figure)
        Would a host like 'netmar.com'($10 a month for webhosting with
        "unlimited bandwidth"[however that's calc'd]) suffice?
        If a meager DSL line would support it and there isn't a huge
        crushing requirement on the server side...we might be able to
        throw something together collectively...eh?

It does seem that Red Hat would continue to support the community by
simply adding a new mailman list. (k12osn-educators) The overhead is
inconsequential. What I wonder is, who started this "party" and can they
request that Red Hat start another?

Since I am a far cry from a teacher, I'd love to understand their issues
as expressed in a user-focused, teacher forum. The research value is
huge and it would only make the project stronger.

        --Huck

--scott

Hello Scott,

I'm not a teacher either but my wife is and I work very closely with the
teachers in our school. When I first started working here they hired my
wife and I as a team. She as the tech coordinator and I as the tech
specialist. Budget crunch came and they couldn't afford to keep both of
us. Now I wear both hats and it keeps me very busy but gives me first
hand knowledge of what teachers are looking for. At any rate I was
discussing this topic with her and her opinion is a bulletin board would
be better because it helps keep subjects organized. I tend to agree.

Here is a prototype.

http://www.stmarys-school.org/k12ltspteachers/index.php

Our school does not have computer classes per say. The teachers are
required to incorporate technology into their regular lesson plans. So
there is no set schedule where Mrs. Smith has computer lab every
Wednesday at 10:00 am. I may not see Mrs. Smith in the lab for two weeks
then I might see her four days in a row.

>From my experience, incorporating technology into their lesson plans is
a chore for quite a few teachers. Don't get me wrong, our teachers are
good with computers and when I've seen them in district technology
in-services they stand out in the crowd. But non the less it is still a
chore. My cousin has been a TC for 25 years and she has always done all
the planning for the teachers. When my wife was the TC here she assisted
the teachers with incorporating technology into their lessons but now
that they are on their own, so to speak, I see what a chore it is for
them.

Here's what I know for sure. If you give teachers a lesson plan using
any piece of software or even the frame work of a lesson plan they will
flock to said software and embrace it.

We have one teacher that questions why we aren't using "main stream"
software in the lab. I made a couple of templates in OpenOffice for her
4th grade class to use in their studies on US states. She was tickled to
death and didn't give me that "I wish we were using the software I have
at home." look. 

I'm now working on making her some lesson plans to incorporate kstars,
wikipedia and OpenOffice.

Teachers have a pretty full schedule and any software that has lesson
plans as part of the package will be embraced. 


John




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