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Addison UK Server Roadshow for Schools
NeTraverse writes "Addison UK is doing a Linux server roadshow demonstrating Linux at schools throughout the UK. This is a easy way for schools to see how Linux could be implimented in their school. Nice resource for those schools thinking about becoming enlightened. They are demonstating thin client computing using Linux and Windows-to-Linux migration software WinLin Terminal Server from NeTraverse..."
With the Windows License (EULA) is there any cost benefit in using Linux as a thin client? We evaluated Citrix and discovered the opposite.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
This is a good idea - and reading it over it seems to be aimed at the non-savvy user. That being said, do you think they will get confused when they click on contact us and there is no actual contact information?
none, zip, nada. Not even an email address or a mailto: link...
Anyway - good idea, just don't be surprised when the requests *don't* flow in...
Create music
I know of a distro at ofset.org that is available. It is being used at quite a few places in india to demonstrate linux and its capabilities for school children.
I work in several Primary schools in the UK and, although this is a step in the right direction, it doesn't stand a chance.
Most schools have already got full networks with windows. They won't be interested in replacing them.
Even one of the local "showcase" schools which doesn't use the Research Machine software which is all-but monopolistic in British schools (thanks to government approval), has a massive RM network with Windows. The windows licenses are already paid, the hardware is already there, the thing is configured and working and cost a lot of money to put there.
Schools are kept in a constant upgrade cycle to meet new pupil/computer ratios all the time (yes, even Infant / Junior schools). That means they are spending £10,000 a year or so by just keeping their networks up-to-date enough to run the latest kids software, putting enough machines it. There is certainly a need for a thin-client structure here, especially with all the old donated machines etc.
But, they won't be interested in re-training / hiring staff that can work the server or in "yet another" network upgrade. They won't be interested in replacing their systems with an "unknown".
Most schools are currently being offered and considering, as well as actually buying, XP upgrades for their RM networks (we're talking in the region of £40-50,000 for a small, suburban infant school, here). Thin-clients alone would save costs, certainly. Thin-clients on a Linux-based server is even better.
Even if you could convince the board of governors and the school itself to make such a quantum leap into the unknown, they won't know what it is, they can't/won't see the benefits and they can't afford the downtime.
I am hired purely because the networks they have are in and working. Most of the problems I run across are basically things which teachers can do but just don't have time. Most secondary schools have IT-specific staff and I'm proof that the Infant/Junior schools are heading that way.
Once they have trained, knowledgeable IT staff with ***purchasing power***, we can start.
They also should have started publicising earlier... it's coming up to end-of-term and most schools already have their full upgrade for next year planned out and paid for. One school I work in has their entire IT budget for the next three years planned out on 100BaseT CABLING.
This project could also be helped along by things like Tesco's Computers For Schools voucher schemes etc. Free computers if the kids parents spend enough in a supermarket.
Basically, I'd love to see this. My day is filled with silly nightmarish systems that make simple changes virtually impossible (e.g. taking 8 hours to set up a wireless network between an outdoor classroom and the internal network... gave up in the end due to software problems, old hardware, poor network configuration and the red-tape associated with getting new IP addresses).
Thin-clients, on a stable Linux base is a dream for me. Unfortunately, I have to deal with "manager-style" staff in schools who ask "can I get onto the internet if I log in to the hard drive?" and "I've always wondered what the little wheel in the mouse did" (TRULY). These are the people with buying-power.
These people aren't gonna have a clue what we're on about and certainly won't part with the time or the money required to have someone come in, format ~100 computers back to basics, install a network server and have someone on hand to maintain it all.
It's a nice idea. I want them to try to convince people. Unfortunately, it's gonna be a very rough ride for them while RM still has a monopoly and while the government and local education authorities does little to try to educate them.
I don't know how the funding of computers in schools works, but I assume MS must get their cut somewhere, and as a taxpayer, I don't think that would represent a good use of my money.
As regards the 'well, the real world uses MS stuff', firstly I didn't realise that the purpose of schools was to churn out a bunch of MS-using automata and secondly, if the children are taught the principles of the various packages (i.e. what a word processor is for, the things that it ought to be able to do, how to look for help) they ought to be able to adapt their skills to proprietory alternatives over the course of a wet Wednesday afternoon.
If the UK government wants a competitive and innovative IT industry, it ought to recognise that getting kids into computers via stuff you can actually tinker with would probably be a good start :-)
there are such things as timezones you know...
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
I think you are missing the context which the poster advised was required...
Many years ago ('82?), the BBC launched the "BBC Microcomputer" (a rebadged Acorn machine based on a 6502). It quickly became the ONLY computer you'd find in any sort of educational establishment. It was backed by TV series & all sorts of other material, and was probably the best of the 8-bit micros in the UK (and this from an ex-Spectrum owner!)
Very few people in the UK moan about the BBC - and most of those who do don't complain about political bias, but the fact that we have to pay a license fee to fund it. What complaints there are about bias tend to come equally from both extremes of the political spectrum, which is probably a good sign
James
The BBC never produced a single computer, they just held a competition which was won by something that was extremely powerful at the time. However, once they had selected their system from the competing designs, they produced a series of programs which were linked to a UK govt initiative to get computers into schools.
It was far from perfect, but it worked and it was quite successful. Now they don't need to worry about a platform. They don't have to worry about the software (or even the packaging - think of Knoppix or the more configurable Morphix). All they need to do is to select a basic minimum system to present and to help out with broadcast material.
See my journal, I write things there
This line:
The whole thing cost them £400 in software.
should have read:
The whole thing cost them £400 in
hardware.Obviuosly. Just to clarify, that got us a cheap box with an AMB Duron 800, 512MB ram, 2x80GB hard disk, 3xRTL-8139 network cards, PCI 128 sound card (sound cards are useful in servers, particularly when you don't normally have a monitor attached - for £15 for the card and some speakers you can program the thing to literally speak to you whenever there's a problem - handy and easily done with Linux).
We also had a problem at Moor Park with kids wasting vast amounts of printer paper and ink all over school. I wanted to use LPRng and Samba to make every workstation print to printers via that server, and that way we could use printer accounting to track/limit what individual kids could print out, and/or bollock them or charge them when they print too much. Unfortunately after discussions with the headteacher I still had to spend every break and lunchtime standing in a library telling kids to take their coats off - in addition to taking my own breaks and lunches.
If your network is well isolated from the Internet (i.e. no-one can initiate a TCP/IP connection from outside), and security isn't your main concern, get yourself a copy of TightVNC (I used 1.2.6, which worked fine for me), and install it on a few workstations. By making a few changes, you can then make the TightVNC server run completely silently in the background (provided you disabled Task Manager for kids, and they can't get a process listing any other way). A few extremely rushed notes from my manual on how to do this:
As local administrator:
Now you can call up the desktop of any workstation in school by running vncviewer and typing in the machine name of the computer you wish to view. By giving computers sensible names corresponding to their location around school (such as librarydesk1, room21row2col3, food, room18, etc), you can suddenly call up any kid's desktop and see what they're up to. Serious privacy and security concerns, but very useful when weighed up against having to run around the place like a headless chicken all the time because someone else doesn't know what the cAPS lOCK does yet!
If you're running Apache, you can then write a CGI script that gives you a map of all the workstations in the school (formatted, for example, as HTML tables). For each computer on your map, make it link to:
http://10.67.24.116:5800/?password=p5a2s78s243w2 d
- and then you have a clickable map which will bring up the display of any workstation in school in any java enabled web browser. But that's almost completely unsecure, so the risk is your own. Make sure you pick an extremely hard password and that said webpage isn't accessible by kids. Make sure also that no-one can see the password in the URL as they look over your shoulder.
Just to reiterate, that's nothing more than a fun but messy unsecure hack. Don't do this unless at least 50% of your kids have learning/behaviour difficulties...
--
Andrew
It is a shame this is not further reaching, something that has always amused me about Windows, and this is all versions including XP is that it is not properly localised.
I have XP, on my work machine, set up to have my locale set to English [United Kingdom] and yet it still manages to put "Color" into dialogs. It must be rather fustrating to try and teach kids to spell colour in the English way and yet have to use a computer that does not spell it correctly from the UK point of view. If my Gnome2 desktop knows how British people spell Colour, why doesn't XP?
Ever heard of Lunix?
I can only speak for my county (in the top three for IT support in the country according to government figures released recently - we all have an extra day's leave this year as a performance bonus), but it is Windows all the way. I know of only one school in the county that has a Linux server and they are going to swap it for a Windows server because they can't get any support for it - it was installed by a parent of a child who has now left the school).
Using Linux on an admin system is just out of the question - most UK schools run SIMS: 'School Information Management System' and won't even consider buying a system that won't run this software. The curriculum software market is dominated by RM. Their SchoolShare and StoreBox" systems are very popular with primary schools due to the large amount of pre-installed educational software that is strongly tied into the National Curriculum and their Community Connect 3 systems are common in larger schools.
I can't see many schools choosing to go with Linux when Windows is so ubiquitous - it would mean giving up just about all local government IT support other than hardware repairs and going it alone and I just can't see that happening in more than a handful of schools.
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