Getting (Ed)Ubuntu into a charter school

[TheShadow99]

Hello,

As I think I've mentioned in a couple places on here before I'm the network admin for a charter school. I'm trying to convince them to install Edubuntu linux on our old windows 98 machines to make them more functional and provide the teachers with more options. I have 55 windows 98 machines scattered among 12 or so rooms.

However my current stumbling block is convincing the principal to do this. He wants to talk to other principals for k-12 schools already using linux. This is proving to be harder than it sounds. I can't seem to contact a lot of the ones I find that do have linux solutions. Mostly because the person/place listing the schools linux solution is not the school and so lists absolutely no contact info.

So I'm hoping some nice people out their that know of K-12 schools running linux may be able to help me find contact information for these schools. If you can help please let me know!

[Bagboy23]

Hold on a minute. I don't like the topic title as I've already assumed something off the bat.

Before you go subscribing a solution do you know what applications they will be running that will be in sync with their curriculum? This is quite a responsibility and should be considered carefully. The last thing you want to do is migrate to the Linux platform and find out that the kids are failing to maximise on their education because of a technology implementation failure.

I would actually talk to the principal then work out all the alternatives for each and every application. If the applications stack up, then it'll be a lot easier to convince the principal and other teachers of the change.

This is quite a big project, and though I do not mean to sound harsh, I think you should maybe put the kids education first and then tailor the solution to that. After all, technology should not dictate what people can and cannot do, it's there to support existing processes.

This post is not a pro-[insert OS name here] opinion, but quite a significant one that will have some future bearing.

[ubuntu27]

You haven't found antyghins on the folowing pages yet?


http://k12os.org/

http://k12linux.org/

[TheShadow99]

Before you go subscribing a solution do you know what applications they will be running that will be in sync with their curriculum? This is quite a responsibility and should be considered carefully. The last thing you want to do is migrate to the Linux platform and find out that the kids are failing to maximise on their education because of a technology implementation failure.

I am their network admin... I install all the software on their network, I fix every computer on the network, I fix the network itself...

As I think I mentioned... "I'm trying to convince them to install Edubuntu linux on our old windows 98 machines to make them more functional and provide the teachers with more options" They gain everything linux offers, they keep everything windows offers (due to terminal services + Seamless rdesktop). Those machines OS-wise need phased out because they have to little ram to run win XP, crash nearly constantly because the teachers often don't ever shut them down, and they can't exist on the planned Win 2k3 network the school decided on without asking me (because it was an update of their existing plan). We can't afford to replace them... So as their network admin it's my job to come up with solutions... Which I did. Edubuntu works better than windows 98 on them, allows teachers to finally do away with floppies (they've been begging me for thumb drive support since I started here), They keep access to their normal windows apps (Accelerated Reader, Star Reader, Compass Learning, etc). Apps like AR & Star would work regardless of platform (since they are web based) if they would upgrade to the newest version from Ren.

I would actually talk to the principal then work out all the alternatives for each and every application. If the applications stack up, then it'll be a lot easier to convince the principal and other teachers of the change.

The two ciriculum directors (elementary and middle school), both support it as a means to increase functionality on machines they were expecting to have to find a way to replace (at the cost of the vendor I'm not allowed to change which would mean 55 x $1k or $55k that doens't exist in the budget). The principal wants to know what it's like from someone in his position though, technical merits and application usability mean very little to him... If what he hears about it is really positive, he also wants to know if we should migrate the entire network to it in a long term plan.

This is quite a big project, and though I do not mean to sound harsh, I think you should maybe put the kids education first and then tailor the solution to that. After all, technology should not dictate what people can and cannot do, it's there to support existing processes.

It's a 250 computer network, if I was converting ever PC to linux I'd make a longer plan. 55 outdated systems isn't that big a deal when you figure I have them in and out of my office as often as once a month as is because windows 98 dies... Heck today I went around by hand to adjust the time on all 55 machines because of the DST change since their is no update for windows 9X (it hasn't been supported in years after all). Installing Edubuntu on them isn't that much harder then what I deal with already...

[TheShadow99]

You haven't found antyghins on the folowing pages yet?


http://k12os.org/

http://k12linux.org/

I have contacted 30 schools listed from those projects. Mainly the 30 I could find contact info for. However only 1 school so far has gotten back to me (& I got another response telling me the contact no longer deals with that school). The positive reply was from the school Linus's kids attend btw. & I thank them for their quick response. I just want to make sure my principal has more than one other principal to talk to and answer his questions...