[K12OSN] Defending education usage for k12ltsp

[Paul VanGundy]

Joseph,

There are several things to take into consideration when going before the
new principal and defending K12LTSP besides software. 

Software:
Granted, there is a lot of educational software for Windows, but the
majority of "educational games" are geared towards K-6 on the K12LTSP
distro. There are apps for K-12, but the majority of games are for K-6 (my
opinion). The kids love the edugames that come with the distro such as Tux
Paint and Tux Type. G Compris is also a game of choice with students at the
elementary school. Software is there, just a little research will help.
Check out Wikipedia as they have a large list of proprietary software
equivalents.

Hardware/Network:
By far a terminal server is much easier to maintain than have 40 independent
or domain clients throughout a network. All hardware upgrades are on the
server, backups are on the server, new software and package installations
and upgrades are done on the server. The only thing that you really need to
worry about at the client level is NICs, monitors, and power. Due to the
terminal there is a lot of man hours saved. 

I know there are many more reasons and to me this is a no brainer as K12LTSP
has saved school districts thousands of dollars and helped increase student
access to technology. Hopefully this helps you get started.

-Paul

Paul VanGundy
Technology Coordinator
Epping High School
Epping Middle School
P: 603.679.5472 x219
F: 603.679.2966
vangundypw at sau14.k12.nh.us

-----Original Message-----
From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf
Of Joseph Bishay
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 4:58 PM
To: Support list for opensource software in schools.
Subject: [K12OSN] Defending education usage for k12ltsp

Hello,

Hope all is doing well.

So tomorrow I have to go into the school and meet with the new
principal, where I have to defend that the linux lab has some sort of
educational value. As the message that was left for me said, "All the
educational software on the market is for Windows."  This is
independent of the fact that the lab was running for the past year and
a half under the old administration, supporting their educational
needs with no problem.

Part of the problem is that she has a trusted advisor (not at the
school) who seems to have a lot of experience (years and years) with
computers is pushing this idea onto the principal. Seems they both
feel that only Windows can support the educational software that they
have heard of.

This seems to be an urgent issue, as they were about to go ahead with
the dismantling of the lab without even talking about it, so I only
have one chance before they decide to change all the machines to
Windows 98 (I have no idea how they will go about doing this, but the
machines cannot support anything more and that's what they have
suggested).

So what do you all think?  This is a small elementary school and I
know many other schools out there use k12ltsp - how do you deal with
this situation? I'm thinking 2 things - 1) many applications may
already exist for linux that I just need to show them or
download/install and show them and 2) maybe you know about windows
programs which could have previously required installation but now run
through a browser off a website and therefore no longer need Windows.

help!

Joseph

_______________________________________________
K12OSN mailing list
K12OSN at redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>