[K12OSN] LTSP Teacher forums

[R. Scott Belford]

John Baillie wrote:
> 
> 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.

Not to gloss over the rest of your brilliantly informed email, but what 
you just said is the Holy Grail of OSS adoption in our schools.  I've 
only recently understood this.  I have long known that giving away 
computers and software is only 16% of a successful computer lab 
deployment and that the rest is support and education.

I think our better-funded proprietary friends get this.  So many lesson 
plans just happen to use expensive software.  Hence the need for it.  We 
must change this as vigorously as developers have changed the paradigm 
of software development.  Whether community or privately driven, or 
both, the Killer App for the widespread adoption of OSS is the Lesson Plan.

I have and continue to make the case anytime that I can to our larger 
corporate friends at HP or IBM or Novell or RedHat or Sun that the 
K12LTSP and Skolelinux distros are Monumental Drivers of hardware and 
software sales.  By sponsoring these developers and complementing their 
work with Curricula and Lesson Plans, we have the cost effective way to 
Smack Down the NCLB, build literacy, and train tomorrow's OSS workforce.

--scott


-- 
R. Scott Belford
Founder/Director
The Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation
PO Box 392
Kailua, HI 96734
808.689.6518 phone/fax
scott at hosef.org