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Hawaii Puts Old Computers To Work in Linux Labs
johnp pastes "'As pressure mounts to meet state-mandated educational technology standards, some Hawai'i schools with limited budgets are getting updated computer labs at a fraction of the typical costs.'"
A more interesting question is total cost of ownership; i.e. how much money this really saves over the long run (factoring in things like the fact that the PTA is probably giving the schools grief because the students are learning Office or similar skills that will help them get jobs... believe me, this happens). I'm sure someone has opinions (and hopefully data) related to that.
An even more interesting questions is why our schools aren't adequately funded...
Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
Now that's out of the bag, Redmond will be on the phone by the end of their week with their Hawaiian office to offer "discounts" to the schools.
The thing is, schools are starting to realize they don't "need" new computers for what they are teaching. Unless they are having classes that require lots of computing power. Most school computers get used for, writing papers, surfing the net, learning basic computing and in some cases a bit of programming. Universities and colleges are another matter though.
As far as I'm concerned it's a good thing the money can be used in other areas.
I'd be happy if they were Mac labs even, just something other than MS. Kids need to be non-polarized.
No, you just want them to be polarized towards something other than MS. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but don't kid yourself.
The first database software I used - well before I started high school - was MySQL. On Windows. Call me wierd, but I didn't find it hard to learn the nuts and bolts of that at all. MySQL is quite well documented.
Then again, I suppose I was quite a bit more motivated than your run-of-the-mill high-schooler is.
IMHO, the best way to teach people to use a database is via the backend-to-a-website route. Get them to make a website, and then keep asking them to add/remove/update pages. They'll soon be begging to be taught to add a database backend
Pirate Party UK
I would like to see some open-source based companies do exactly what Microsoft is doing; after all, if pre-loading school kids with Microsoft product experience is considered beneficial to Microsoft in the long run, why would the same model not apply to RedHat? Granted, RedHat and others don't have lots of expensive products to sell, but having more people in the population that have been exposed to open source will probably (long-term) create more demand for their services and products.
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You can learn concepts of point-and-click, copy-and-paste, desktop metaphor, and most importantly how to use a help system on any OS. Schools that take the perspective of "we have to teach them system X because that's what they'll use in the 'real world'" are thinking wrong. Teach kids how to think not just which widgets to click.
And if they weren't screwing around in HyperCard on a Mac they'd be screwing around in Solitaire on in Windows. HyperCard may not be an application used in business today, but the kids learned some skills that can be applied elsewhere. If the teachers stressed that aspect of it, the kids will be OK.
Constitutionally Correct
That's not how they treated Philadelphia and other school systems they sued.
It's funny how the administrative people are afraid of free software because they are afraid someone is going to have to fix it. No vendor ever back software and all will charge you to fix it. Given M$'s terrible record with visuses worm and all that which has cost everone plenty, the case for reliability is firmly on the free software side and the costs of switching will probably be lower than the cost of continued upkeep, let along upgrade.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You mean someone realized that they could get a comprehensive solution for extremely little money by NOT buying windows?
What they should have done is phone up Microsoft and say that they were going to upgrade to a Linux lab for $3,000 instead of the conventional $30,000 and they were going to tell the media about it. Bill Gates would have flown in personally to cut them a "charitable donation" cheque for $31,000 on the condition they go the conventional route. Net profit: $1,000. Staying with Windows is cheaper if you play the game right.
I disagree. I'm a teacher in a mixed Linux/Windows based school. All students learn to use both system for basic tasks like word processing and file management. The ultimate idea is to teach them generally about computers so they are better prepared for whatever new systems they might encounter later.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
And that's it. Personally, I don't subscribe to the idea of Linux being superior to everything else. But the idea is to break the "Windows OS is the only OS" notion.
I remember years ago, when people weren't so tied to "Microsoft this" and "Microsoft that". MS stuff was just one option - often a very good option, but not the sole option.
That's what we need back.