[K12OSN] Given this situation, why bother continue with LTSP (on my soap box)

[John Baillie]

Prof,

Bare with me if this ends up being rambling and not well organized.

I understand your dilemma. Pardon me if I am wrong but I get the
impression that you are not totally sure which direction to go. You seem
sort of torn. I have been there and vacillated too at times and I always
come to the same conclusion, stay the course.

My informal survey indicates a 3 to 1 ratio and up of students to
classroom PCs is where they become useful to the teachers. (Can you
afford that with MS) Less than that and use drops off. Ask your teachers
if they would rather have another lab to free up scheduling or more
computers in the classrooms. My bet is they would rather have more in
the classrooms.

Some questions: 

Is there anything that needs to be done that cannot be accomplished on
Linux in a reasonable manor?

What is the cost of a given deployment over the next eight years?

What is the goal for the schools computer use / acquisition over the
next five to ten years?

The beta version of OO 2.0 is very windowish as is the beta version of
Acrobat Reader 7.0 and gimp 2.0 is feeling a little less foreign to our
users also.

We have been using k12ltsp at St. Mary's school for over 3 years in the
lab (40 seats). We have been piloting it in three classrooms since
January. We have 7 k12 terminals in each. One for the teacher, 6 for the
students. It has been a success thus far. The administration will review
it next month and discuss furthering the deployment over the summer for
next year. Admittedly we had to add a Windows Terminal server to provide
a few windows only apps to the desktop but it is almost seamless and
everyone is happy.

I often wonder when / if that one, must have, windows only web site or
application is going to come along and put the kibosh on our Linux
deployment. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. The only
thing that seems shaky in my humble opinion is streaming media. This is
the Achilles heel of terminal services not Linux. Someone please correct
me if I'm wrong. Streaming media is the future of computers and
education. Picture a classroom with a 3/1 or 2/1 or even 1/1 student to
computer ratio. A lesson is presented to the class by the teacher. The
lesson is also available on streaming media accompanied by on-line work
sheets, quizzes and the like. Students lagging behind can review the
lesson, accelerated students can forge ahead and not get bored. The
teacher can look at the stats for the quizzes and monitor the classes
progress. The teacher will be free for more one on one. I have yet to
see the killer app in a K - 8 school that if removed from the curriculum
the school would fall behind all others. But if or when streaming media
and course offerings mature that would be it in my estimation and if
terminal services wouldn't work I'd use what ever does. Another thing be
on the lookout for is the web sites that are provided by the text book
publishers. Sites incorporating some Macromedia files may not be Linux
friendly and could be a problem.

I'd like to see a survey of K - 8 teachers and ask how much time is
available to students per week for computer use. Out of that time how
much time will be alloted to each of the various apps. Does the amount
of time and money to support said app justify its deployment?


Something else I have been thinking about. We are a Christian school.
Much of our funding comes from donations as the tuition does not cover
expenses. If we were to retool our school to the latest and greatest
windows how much would it cost? We have about 200 PII / PIII computers
on line and a smattering of P4 with XP. $300,000.00 , $400,000.00? Where
is the real benefit to the students? I love technology but I see it's
limitations in our environment. If I was a parent at the school and I
saw my tuition increase next year to pay for this retool I'd be asking
some serious questions. How is this going to benefit Billy and Betty?
Can the benefits be measured? How long is this investment going to be
good for? With Betty being in PreK are we going to be making this
expenditure again before she graduates 8th grade? How else could we
spend this money? Would our students benefit more from say adding more
personnel and reducing the student to teacher ratio? Would our Christian
mission be better served by giving tuition assistance to needy families?
Would this money be better spent enhancing Art, Music, Phys Ed needs?

Even with the deep discounts MS offers schools it's still costly as
compared with the k12ltsp paradigm. Then when you factor in the hardware
upgrades that are required to jump to the next latest and greatest
version of Windows the savings are even more. Just how much difference
does a computer network make in the overall scheme of things in a K4 -
8th grade school? How many hours a week does each student use a
computer? How many times a week does a given application get used by a
student? What applications are used the most? K12LTSP wins hands down.
Not to mention the ease of service, lack of virus threat, spyware and
the like. 


Regards,

Johh