[K12OSN] Defending education usage for k12ltsp

[Terrell Prudé, Jr.]

On Mon, 2005-10-24 at 17:58 -0400, Joseph Bishay wrote:

> 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



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.

http://www.redhat.com/advice/ask_pnelson.html

--TP
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/k12osn/attachments/20051024/95491871/attachment.htm>