deadimp
February 26th, 2008, 06:37 AM
EDIT: I made my presentation yesterday ( 04/03/08 ), and I have posted some of the details on this reply (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4653824#post4653824).
Later I will post the small slide show I used on this main post.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm not sure which forum this exactly belongs in, or if I should be posting this in a different community.
I searched around on the Ubuntu forums, and on the wide open range of the internet, couldn't find anything that really handled my situation, so here it goes.
Warning: Long post, not for the faint of heart
EDIT: Make that massive.
Background / Situation:
I am a senior in high school, and I attend public school in the United States. I'm a computer nerd, and I've done a little programming as a hobby. I'm a fan of free software - the kind that is 'free' as in 'free speech' and 'free beer'. I have Windows XP and Ubuntu on dual boot with GRUB, and I'm getting to use Ubuntu more and more. The only proprietary software on my computer is Windows itself, and a few old programs that are used in school (such as Logger Pro Demo, Chem Skill Builder, and NuCalc from EPGY). Everything else is free software, with a smidgen of freeware (which kind of counts as proprietary, I know).
About June last year there was an open invitation (for around 15-20 people) to help serve on the Technology Steering Committee for my school district. My mom suggested that I try it, and so I did. I figured I could introduce some free software maybe influence its use in our school / district.
Problem was, I really didn't know what to do, and even now I still don't have a complete idea. I've attended about two of the four or so meetings that have been held (due to other responsibilities) and to be honest I didn't really contribute anything, I just sat there. Only thing I said was, "there might be some open source software for that" once or twice.
The head of the committee is the school district's Director of Technology Services, and he seemed to be pleased that a student (I'm the only one as far as I know) was participating in it. He also seems to be open to the introduction of new technologies and all that. Hopefully these are positive signs, that there may be a chance that the school district may use free software.
I wasn't able to make the last meeting on Valentine's Day (reason implied), and emailed the Tech Director telling him I wouldn't be able to make it. I also asked what I could do next time, and suggested that I could present some open source software.
He replied and said that I could talk about open source software in the meeting this March.
Topic at Hand:
What I need help with is what software to present to this committee and how to present it, so that they could see that it can be easily used, maintained, and so on. Depending on that, I'll need help on how to continually show the power of open source and free software, and how it could be used in the school system.
I would prefer constructive and understandable criticism, nothing like "lol ur not g2 do that". If you feel that this can't work from any standpoint, say so in a way that could help.
I don't want to be blindly-idealistic and pretend like this is going to be accepted with open arms.
I know that people will want to remain with familiarity. This is why I'm asking for help - I'm hoping that someone could give me some pointers on how to possibly sway them and put them at ease.
I know that there won't be a massive switch from proprietary to free software. I'm not asking for a radical revolutionary switch, that everyone should take all of the proprietary software and cast it into the furnace (would be cool if we had one, though) - just a slight nudge towards free software to give the district a taste of free software's potential.
I feel free software should be introduced for all levels of public education: the students, teachers, and all other staff - school administration, tech administration, etc.
I'm looking for software that will be user-friendly. This is for a public school system, not a magnet school. Most people at the school, including the teachers, don't know how to get down-and-dirty with their machine. Heck, I hardly know how to. As long as there is an ergonomic and intuitive GUI that's easy to use, I think they'll be good.
Not only user-friendly, but also stable and maintained. It doesn't have to be updated every day, but if it hasn't been updated in around a year or so, I don't really want to consider it. There also needs to be an active community for the software. A mailing list will do, a forum better, just some sort of basic interaction.
Strategy:
One method I've thought of for presenting it would be to get a basic machine, some outcast from a lab or a laptop (if they're in a trusting mood) - low-level to show the breadth of support - and install the various applications at home, work out the kinks, etc. Then take it to the meeting and just do something quick. I'll probably only have a few minutes of presentation time - I don't want to bore them. Just connect the machine to the projector that'll be there, maybe amaze them with the driver support (if it works, and if they pay attention), and click around. Make it an active presentation, nothing like a PowerPoint (or OpenOffice Presentation) fraught with mundane bullet points with the occasional screenshot. (I would have to make myself a guideline, though.)
They should have some sort of interest during the presentation, since they're (hopefully) willingly participating in a Technology Steering Committee.
The audience for these meetings involves the Tech Director, about 10 or so various teachers from various schools in our district - some of them I know - and myself. I want to cater this first presentation to them, just throw out options, give an overview. Something quick, to 'whet their appetite'.
After that I'll mainly try to communicate with the Tech Director, send him a little information concerning the stuff I went over, but not spam the living heck out of his mail box. That, and I'll try to involve some of my friends to look at it, maybe talk to my old CS teacher to see what can be done. Keep on going with the tech meetings, etc.
Nothing big, just start out small.
The free software that I've considered presenting:
[ Cross Platform Applications on Windows ]
Like I said before, a slight nudge. Staying in Windows could maintain a comfort so it wouldn't scare the living crap out of people.
If these applications are used, switching to something like Ubuntu shouldn't be difficult since there will be that reassuring familiarity.
To elaborate: Internet Explorer is still the default browser on all of the systems. Microsoft Office is the reigning tyrant. The teach-to-type software looks like it was written in COBOL, Fortran, or . The computers for our Computer Science class use *shudder* TextPad for Java. VisualBasic *shudders again* is still being used to start off in CS (though they're using Visual Studio Express, which is a little better).
I could possibly introduce Firefox (I'm sure they know something about this), the OpenOffice.org suite, and one of the many development suites
(I doubt they'll focus on development that much, however... I'm not sure how much to focus on this aspect.)
Windows is my primary goal, since I'm using it write now *slaps own hand* (though using Programmer's Notepad). It is, unfortunately, popular.
[i][ Ubuntu ]
I know that none of the teachers will lunge at getting accustomed to an almost entirely new OS. Plus, the tech administrators at the schools won't think too fondly of this.
However, testing it out couldn't hurt any. The Ubuntu-based distros seem extremely easy to install and use.
Plus, there's Edubuntu, which doesn't seem to cater to high school students, but could be used for those in elementary and middle school.
The tools offered in the KDE education suite seem very promising. I'm just wondering to what extent these and other apps, such as OpenOffice, can go for teaching basic technology classes like BCIS or Typing. Heck, something like Kalzium could help replace ChemSkill.
Plus, I got bored yesterday and decided to watch the KDE4 Release Event Keynote (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UneGtZlehTU) on YouTube yesterday. The mention of KDE on Windows (http://windows.kde.org/) intrigued me, so I downloaded it to try it out. Only problem was, I was just fooling around and wasn't researching anything for education - I know I probably could have downloaded the education package off of the server - I'll need to do that. Problem is, it's still in its earlier stages, the apps were a little shaky for me, and I could only start up a few programs. I'll need to go into that more.
One of the problems I read about, while searching around, with BCIS is that some schools aren't teaching typography as much as they're just teaching how to use Word [I think this (http://www.networkworld.com/weblogs/smb/2006/012877.html) is the article - Dean Masalsky's comment, though the others gave me insight on other issues].
I fear this is kind of the same problem, and it will be a big problem if they want to teacher Word and someone tried to introduce OOo.
I'll also try to present other common technologies, such as Java. I'll probably end up using Sun's Java engine instead of GNU's, just for the sake of stability. Same thing with the flash - Adobe instead of Gnash.
About my school / district:
. We are not starting our technology system from scratch - unlike other schools that I've read about who had success in setting up an open source system. The keyword in this context is 'introduction'.
. I'm pretty sure that all computers (K-12) are now running on Windows XP ('98 for the old ones). No more iMacs or what have you.
. . We got new computers at the beginning of last year for my high school's computer labs. They're nothing fancy: ~80GB hd, 1.6GHz processor, on-board graphics card (with DirectDraw / Direct3D / OpenGL either gone or disabled! :( ), 512MB of RAM, 'Built for Windows XP' - just a little better than the old computer I had, with the exception of the graphics card.
. . . I haven't tried running a LiveCD on any of them. I don't take CS anymore, and I only go the labs to practice for CS UIL some (where we always get killed in Regionals by the magnet schools).
. I have no idea what kind of vendor licensing my school / district is in. I don't know if there's a contract that locks us into using only certain products across the school. I'll need to ask the Tech Director about this.
. One of the main 'campaigns' is to get a projector into each teacher's classroom. I'll have to figure out what kind.
. Many of the teachers (mainly those teaching math/science AP) are getting tablet PCs. I did a quick search about this a while back, and it seems like there isn't any mainstream free software for written character recognition...
. . Maybe a modified version of Inkscape or another graphics program could be used for this. The most I've seen the teachers do with this is draw/scribble notes and diagrams out, nothing that simple mouse/click gestures can't take care of (assuming the drivers for the pens are working, which I saw were).
. I don't know about our financial situation. We're not poor, we're not filthy rich. However, finance shouldn't matter for the free free software that's out there. Maybe support later on.
. As for the district's web needs, the majority of the pages are static, managed using FrontPage. Shouldn't be that hard to replace the tools, but might be living heck to rearrange the content
The main concerns with a large amount of new free software would be security vs. freedom. Obviously, the school administration is going to want the students to have limited access to the resources at hand. It's a valid precaution.
The only problem is whether or not the tech admins
will knock out so much functionality that they destroy the freedom for the students...
Maybe this is just being paranoid on my part, I don't know. I just didn't enjoy not being able to access development sites because of WebSense's filter. Maybe there could be more of an open system, where input from the teachers (most importantly) and students can be easily handled.
Then again, it's at a public school. It's hard to adjust an environment for a wide variety of people, especially high schoolers. I won't lie: some of the kids in my school are complete morons (for lack of a better word). I don't know how we would protect against all abuse.
And there are the occasional crackers/hackers (the malicious kind)/script kiddies, and I don't know how exactly they would be handled.
Most lab computers have DeepFreeze on them. I tried searching for an open source alternative for this, but couldn't find anything. I don't know what layer the application works on, but I did look on the website and it said that it works for Linux, so if worse comes to worse, there shouldn't be too much to worry about - assuming OpenSUSE isn't the only *nix platform they support...
Another foreseeable problem would be updating - how that would be handled. Security is a main focus, but updating every week wouldn't be all that practical with large amounts of computers. It may be with the lab computers, but I don't know.
Other Problems:
. I really should have started doing this earlier, when I started in the Steering Committee. I probably should have
. . Plus, I should have posted this before now. The Tech Director replied at the beginning of the month, and I did the research a few weeks back. I've only just now decided to get off my bum and ask about it.
. Obviously, I won't be here next year, so I'm not sure how to ensure that anything put in place won't fall apart. I don't really know anyone who might be able to help with the adoption of free software at my school. I know one other Linux user, but I'd have to ask him about it and see if he wanted to help - haven't yet.
. Some of the kids might not have the know-how, an internet connection, or a computer to use these resources.
. . A way of distributing this might help, if this ever starts to catch on. Start out with the people in the computer classes, work your way down.
. . Find some sort of packaging system for Windows
Stuff I've looked at, considering:
[i][ Apps and Tools - From all around ]
. [See those mentioned above]
. Graphics: GIMP, Inkscape, k-3d
. CAD: QCad, CAELinux (just saw this while browsing the forums)
. Communications: Moodle
. School Admin: Focus/SIS, Open Admin, SchoolTool, Scribus
. Development: GCC, Eclipse (PDT, Aptana, ...), Mono, Code::Blocks, KDevelop, Geany, God knows what else
. . Web: Bluefish, KompoZer, some sort of WYSIWYG...
. . Probably too advanced for any mention in any small presentation... Maybe much later
. Networking / IT: Spiceworks (for school?), managing network updates?
. . I don't have any experience with this
. . Servers: ?, for the web - secure W/LAMP solutions - probably not XAMPP
. . Firewall: SquidGuard - something like WebSense for basic content filtering?, ClamAV (if Trend Micro doesn't get its way)
. Library: Evergreen, Kohla, ... (those listed here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=648456&highlight=school))
. . Porting data might be a pain
. Random: TestDisk, Launchy
[ Links - Googled "open source school" and some of this came up ]
. http://edge-op.org/grouch/schools.html - Browsed around a few of the links here
. http://www.oktech.ca/index.html - Looked at some of the solutions on the sidebar
. http://schoolforge.net/ - Found some tools for school administration
. http://k12edcom.org/
. http://www.linuxjournal.com/taxonomy/term/25
. http://www.fossed.net/
. Software directories:
. . SourceForge, LaunchPad, FSF Free Software Directory, Ohloh, Google Code, Savannah, Gna!, ...
. . http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/tools.htm - Found it while searching the forums once more
Forgive my writing skills - they kind of lack coherence - and my use of emoticons. Also, sorry for the large post. Better organization will hopefully come to me.
Took me well over three hours to try and put this post together... Lots of revision. Lots of time.
Maybe I'm delving too deep into this before it's even gone anywhere, but I want to get my thoughts and situation across.
Please correct me if my terminology isn't right. I know there is a difference between just 'open source' and 'free software', I just used them interchangeably in this context.
Also, point out any breaks in thought. I might have forgotten to continue a section.
For the future, I might just start up a small site, maybe with a secure wiki, concerning this on a free host, probably my current one. Nothing big, just to give it a little more space. If any one has an idea for a better place to put this, please mention it.
[Igh... Gotta finish up scholarship applications now, and read a book for English... Got caught up in this, now it's late... Forgot about school almost :) ]
Later I will post the small slide show I used on this main post.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm not sure which forum this exactly belongs in, or if I should be posting this in a different community.
I searched around on the Ubuntu forums, and on the wide open range of the internet, couldn't find anything that really handled my situation, so here it goes.
Warning: Long post, not for the faint of heart
EDIT: Make that massive.
Background / Situation:
I am a senior in high school, and I attend public school in the United States. I'm a computer nerd, and I've done a little programming as a hobby. I'm a fan of free software - the kind that is 'free' as in 'free speech' and 'free beer'. I have Windows XP and Ubuntu on dual boot with GRUB, and I'm getting to use Ubuntu more and more. The only proprietary software on my computer is Windows itself, and a few old programs that are used in school (such as Logger Pro Demo, Chem Skill Builder, and NuCalc from EPGY). Everything else is free software, with a smidgen of freeware (which kind of counts as proprietary, I know).
About June last year there was an open invitation (for around 15-20 people) to help serve on the Technology Steering Committee for my school district. My mom suggested that I try it, and so I did. I figured I could introduce some free software maybe influence its use in our school / district.
Problem was, I really didn't know what to do, and even now I still don't have a complete idea. I've attended about two of the four or so meetings that have been held (due to other responsibilities) and to be honest I didn't really contribute anything, I just sat there. Only thing I said was, "there might be some open source software for that" once or twice.
The head of the committee is the school district's Director of Technology Services, and he seemed to be pleased that a student (I'm the only one as far as I know) was participating in it. He also seems to be open to the introduction of new technologies and all that. Hopefully these are positive signs, that there may be a chance that the school district may use free software.
I wasn't able to make the last meeting on Valentine's Day (reason implied), and emailed the Tech Director telling him I wouldn't be able to make it. I also asked what I could do next time, and suggested that I could present some open source software.
He replied and said that I could talk about open source software in the meeting this March.
Topic at Hand:
What I need help with is what software to present to this committee and how to present it, so that they could see that it can be easily used, maintained, and so on. Depending on that, I'll need help on how to continually show the power of open source and free software, and how it could be used in the school system.
I would prefer constructive and understandable criticism, nothing like "lol ur not g2 do that". If you feel that this can't work from any standpoint, say so in a way that could help.
I don't want to be blindly-idealistic and pretend like this is going to be accepted with open arms.
I know that people will want to remain with familiarity. This is why I'm asking for help - I'm hoping that someone could give me some pointers on how to possibly sway them and put them at ease.
I know that there won't be a massive switch from proprietary to free software. I'm not asking for a radical revolutionary switch, that everyone should take all of the proprietary software and cast it into the furnace (would be cool if we had one, though) - just a slight nudge towards free software to give the district a taste of free software's potential.
I feel free software should be introduced for all levels of public education: the students, teachers, and all other staff - school administration, tech administration, etc.
I'm looking for software that will be user-friendly. This is for a public school system, not a magnet school. Most people at the school, including the teachers, don't know how to get down-and-dirty with their machine. Heck, I hardly know how to. As long as there is an ergonomic and intuitive GUI that's easy to use, I think they'll be good.
Not only user-friendly, but also stable and maintained. It doesn't have to be updated every day, but if it hasn't been updated in around a year or so, I don't really want to consider it. There also needs to be an active community for the software. A mailing list will do, a forum better, just some sort of basic interaction.
Strategy:
One method I've thought of for presenting it would be to get a basic machine, some outcast from a lab or a laptop (if they're in a trusting mood) - low-level to show the breadth of support - and install the various applications at home, work out the kinks, etc. Then take it to the meeting and just do something quick. I'll probably only have a few minutes of presentation time - I don't want to bore them. Just connect the machine to the projector that'll be there, maybe amaze them with the driver support (if it works, and if they pay attention), and click around. Make it an active presentation, nothing like a PowerPoint (or OpenOffice Presentation) fraught with mundane bullet points with the occasional screenshot. (I would have to make myself a guideline, though.)
They should have some sort of interest during the presentation, since they're (hopefully) willingly participating in a Technology Steering Committee.
The audience for these meetings involves the Tech Director, about 10 or so various teachers from various schools in our district - some of them I know - and myself. I want to cater this first presentation to them, just throw out options, give an overview. Something quick, to 'whet their appetite'.
After that I'll mainly try to communicate with the Tech Director, send him a little information concerning the stuff I went over, but not spam the living heck out of his mail box. That, and I'll try to involve some of my friends to look at it, maybe talk to my old CS teacher to see what can be done. Keep on going with the tech meetings, etc.
Nothing big, just start out small.
The free software that I've considered presenting:
[ Cross Platform Applications on Windows ]
Like I said before, a slight nudge. Staying in Windows could maintain a comfort so it wouldn't scare the living crap out of people.
If these applications are used, switching to something like Ubuntu shouldn't be difficult since there will be that reassuring familiarity.
To elaborate: Internet Explorer is still the default browser on all of the systems. Microsoft Office is the reigning tyrant. The teach-to-type software looks like it was written in COBOL, Fortran, or . The computers for our Computer Science class use *shudder* TextPad for Java. VisualBasic *shudders again* is still being used to start off in CS (though they're using Visual Studio Express, which is a little better).
I could possibly introduce Firefox (I'm sure they know something about this), the OpenOffice.org suite, and one of the many development suites
(I doubt they'll focus on development that much, however... I'm not sure how much to focus on this aspect.)
Windows is my primary goal, since I'm using it write now *slaps own hand* (though using Programmer's Notepad). It is, unfortunately, popular.
[i][ Ubuntu ]
I know that none of the teachers will lunge at getting accustomed to an almost entirely new OS. Plus, the tech administrators at the schools won't think too fondly of this.
However, testing it out couldn't hurt any. The Ubuntu-based distros seem extremely easy to install and use.
Plus, there's Edubuntu, which doesn't seem to cater to high school students, but could be used for those in elementary and middle school.
The tools offered in the KDE education suite seem very promising. I'm just wondering to what extent these and other apps, such as OpenOffice, can go for teaching basic technology classes like BCIS or Typing. Heck, something like Kalzium could help replace ChemSkill.
Plus, I got bored yesterday and decided to watch the KDE4 Release Event Keynote (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UneGtZlehTU) on YouTube yesterday. The mention of KDE on Windows (http://windows.kde.org/) intrigued me, so I downloaded it to try it out. Only problem was, I was just fooling around and wasn't researching anything for education - I know I probably could have downloaded the education package off of the server - I'll need to do that. Problem is, it's still in its earlier stages, the apps were a little shaky for me, and I could only start up a few programs. I'll need to go into that more.
One of the problems I read about, while searching around, with BCIS is that some schools aren't teaching typography as much as they're just teaching how to use Word [I think this (http://www.networkworld.com/weblogs/smb/2006/012877.html) is the article - Dean Masalsky's comment, though the others gave me insight on other issues].
I fear this is kind of the same problem, and it will be a big problem if they want to teacher Word and someone tried to introduce OOo.
I'll also try to present other common technologies, such as Java. I'll probably end up using Sun's Java engine instead of GNU's, just for the sake of stability. Same thing with the flash - Adobe instead of Gnash.
About my school / district:
. We are not starting our technology system from scratch - unlike other schools that I've read about who had success in setting up an open source system. The keyword in this context is 'introduction'.
. I'm pretty sure that all computers (K-12) are now running on Windows XP ('98 for the old ones). No more iMacs or what have you.
. . We got new computers at the beginning of last year for my high school's computer labs. They're nothing fancy: ~80GB hd, 1.6GHz processor, on-board graphics card (with DirectDraw / Direct3D / OpenGL either gone or disabled! :( ), 512MB of RAM, 'Built for Windows XP' - just a little better than the old computer I had, with the exception of the graphics card.
. . . I haven't tried running a LiveCD on any of them. I don't take CS anymore, and I only go the labs to practice for CS UIL some (where we always get killed in Regionals by the magnet schools).
. I have no idea what kind of vendor licensing my school / district is in. I don't know if there's a contract that locks us into using only certain products across the school. I'll need to ask the Tech Director about this.
. One of the main 'campaigns' is to get a projector into each teacher's classroom. I'll have to figure out what kind.
. Many of the teachers (mainly those teaching math/science AP) are getting tablet PCs. I did a quick search about this a while back, and it seems like there isn't any mainstream free software for written character recognition...
. . Maybe a modified version of Inkscape or another graphics program could be used for this. The most I've seen the teachers do with this is draw/scribble notes and diagrams out, nothing that simple mouse/click gestures can't take care of (assuming the drivers for the pens are working, which I saw were).
. I don't know about our financial situation. We're not poor, we're not filthy rich. However, finance shouldn't matter for the free free software that's out there. Maybe support later on.
. As for the district's web needs, the majority of the pages are static, managed using FrontPage. Shouldn't be that hard to replace the tools, but might be living heck to rearrange the content
The main concerns with a large amount of new free software would be security vs. freedom. Obviously, the school administration is going to want the students to have limited access to the resources at hand. It's a valid precaution.
The only problem is whether or not the tech admins
will knock out so much functionality that they destroy the freedom for the students...
Maybe this is just being paranoid on my part, I don't know. I just didn't enjoy not being able to access development sites because of WebSense's filter. Maybe there could be more of an open system, where input from the teachers (most importantly) and students can be easily handled.
Then again, it's at a public school. It's hard to adjust an environment for a wide variety of people, especially high schoolers. I won't lie: some of the kids in my school are complete morons (for lack of a better word). I don't know how we would protect against all abuse.
And there are the occasional crackers/hackers (the malicious kind)/script kiddies, and I don't know how exactly they would be handled.
Most lab computers have DeepFreeze on them. I tried searching for an open source alternative for this, but couldn't find anything. I don't know what layer the application works on, but I did look on the website and it said that it works for Linux, so if worse comes to worse, there shouldn't be too much to worry about - assuming OpenSUSE isn't the only *nix platform they support...
Another foreseeable problem would be updating - how that would be handled. Security is a main focus, but updating every week wouldn't be all that practical with large amounts of computers. It may be with the lab computers, but I don't know.
Other Problems:
. I really should have started doing this earlier, when I started in the Steering Committee. I probably should have
. . Plus, I should have posted this before now. The Tech Director replied at the beginning of the month, and I did the research a few weeks back. I've only just now decided to get off my bum and ask about it.
. Obviously, I won't be here next year, so I'm not sure how to ensure that anything put in place won't fall apart. I don't really know anyone who might be able to help with the adoption of free software at my school. I know one other Linux user, but I'd have to ask him about it and see if he wanted to help - haven't yet.
. Some of the kids might not have the know-how, an internet connection, or a computer to use these resources.
. . A way of distributing this might help, if this ever starts to catch on. Start out with the people in the computer classes, work your way down.
. . Find some sort of packaging system for Windows
Stuff I've looked at, considering:
[i][ Apps and Tools - From all around ]
. [See those mentioned above]
. Graphics: GIMP, Inkscape, k-3d
. CAD: QCad, CAELinux (just saw this while browsing the forums)
. Communications: Moodle
. School Admin: Focus/SIS, Open Admin, SchoolTool, Scribus
. Development: GCC, Eclipse (PDT, Aptana, ...), Mono, Code::Blocks, KDevelop, Geany, God knows what else
. . Web: Bluefish, KompoZer, some sort of WYSIWYG...
. . Probably too advanced for any mention in any small presentation... Maybe much later
. Networking / IT: Spiceworks (for school?), managing network updates?
. . I don't have any experience with this
. . Servers: ?, for the web - secure W/LAMP solutions - probably not XAMPP
. . Firewall: SquidGuard - something like WebSense for basic content filtering?, ClamAV (if Trend Micro doesn't get its way)
. Library: Evergreen, Kohla, ... (those listed here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=648456&highlight=school))
. . Porting data might be a pain
. Random: TestDisk, Launchy
[ Links - Googled "open source school" and some of this came up ]
. http://edge-op.org/grouch/schools.html - Browsed around a few of the links here
. http://www.oktech.ca/index.html - Looked at some of the solutions on the sidebar
. http://schoolforge.net/ - Found some tools for school administration
. http://k12edcom.org/
. http://www.linuxjournal.com/taxonomy/term/25
. http://www.fossed.net/
. Software directories:
. . SourceForge, LaunchPad, FSF Free Software Directory, Ohloh, Google Code, Savannah, Gna!, ...
. . http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/tools.htm - Found it while searching the forums once more
Forgive my writing skills - they kind of lack coherence - and my use of emoticons. Also, sorry for the large post. Better organization will hopefully come to me.
Took me well over three hours to try and put this post together... Lots of revision. Lots of time.
Maybe I'm delving too deep into this before it's even gone anywhere, but I want to get my thoughts and situation across.
Please correct me if my terminology isn't right. I know there is a difference between just 'open source' and 'free software', I just used them interchangeably in this context.
Also, point out any breaks in thought. I might have forgotten to continue a section.
For the future, I might just start up a small site, maybe with a secure wiki, concerning this on a free host, probably my current one. Nothing big, just to give it a little more space. If any one has an idea for a better place to put this, please mention it.
[Igh... Gotta finish up scholarship applications now, and read a book for English... Got caught up in this, now it's late... Forgot about school almost :) ]