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Setting up Linux in an Inner City Public School?
Richard Finney asks: "I have a friend who is retired. He was the chief scientist on the Landsat program. Instead of just belting down scotch and cashing social security checks, he is volunteering at Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School #122, in Baltimore. He's trying to set up some old donated computers from the Windows 95 era. Rather than fight with Windows, he's decided to install Linux. How would you set up these systems for these little kids to use and learn about computers using Linux?"
If he is looking at donated computers truly of the Windows 95 era, he may not be doing the students, nor linux any service. Consider the standard requirements for a Windows 95 "era" machine: (from the Microsoft knowledge base article)
System requirements for installing Windows 95:
Not saying it can't be done with Linux, but this person is choosing Linux to avoid the hassles of Windows? With machines as lean as these, and today's Linux, he may be getting more hassle with Linux than the old Windows.
Even by Linux (assuming 2.4 or higher kernel, with associated standard Gnu distro packages) standards, these are pretty stripped down machines, and would be likely to be balky even running Linux. There may be some instructional "stuff" you could do with Linux and these machines, but I'd be inclined to steer clear... there's a reason a lot of these machines are donated.
An alternative would be to look for some kind of community "donation", or a grant, where half decent computers could be drummed up -- a decent computer today can be obtained for much less than before -- why not order a bunch of components from Newegg, or somewhere similar, and build computers as part of the education exercise?
Freeduc Live CD for primary schools
You might want to bring a bulletproof vest. They're free (as in speech) for the most part. You can take them apart, learn how they work, etc.
*ducks*
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I've tried pushing Linux in inner-city schools. It's hard to get support for anything new or different, even with the price advantage. If you've gotten past that hurdle, I'd suggest trying to make a good first impression. Choose a very friendly distro (Ubuntu perhaps) and configure it as trasparently as possible. Ensure that the basics (web, email, productivity, multimedia) just work and ensure that getting help is not a task in itself. While we would all like to seee opendocument being used, it's probably best to set openoffice to default to the M$ formats to easy compatibility.
The trick is not so much teaching Linux as ensuring a good first impression. The OS is there for those who want to learn, don't force it on the others or you'll risk rejection and difficult times in the future.
Let us know who it works out too.
-Tim Louden
Then get a few newer boxes and run Discoverstation or look at the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) which basically pulls off the same thing. But I really don't think that's what this guy was asking. I think he was probably more concerned about how the workstations were going to be used with students. How do you interest them? That part is hard. The ones who would be interested won't know it until they try it. The ones who just want to play games, and surf for multimedia will probably lose interest quickly. In my opinion, the best use is to just offer them as Wordprocessing/Spreadsheet/Presentation tools with "light" web browsing (meaning that there isn't as much access to multimedia) and e-mail. So they are more utilitarian tools than boxes to have a lot of fun with.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
These machines (from Windows 95 era) are far too weak to run decent desktop Linux. In fact they will run windowing system and graphical mode fine, but when it comes down to applications it will be *VERY* painly to run Firefox or OpenOffice.org on them.
:)
Instead you can turn the old machines into thin clients. So they will serve only as an display and input to applications that will be run on more powerfull server. You need to set up a fairly capable server (the ammount of RAM matters) - dual P3 with 1GB RAM and decent big disks will do for a handful of clients. The clients can boot of minidistribution installed on them locally, from live CD or via network (netboot). Network option will be probably best but not all systems (meaning PCs) will support it.
This way all the old machines will do is connect to that server and display appliations run on the server. When one such thin client breaks (the old machines *WILL* break often) you just replace it with another one and it is basically it. Also management of such system is much simpler than managing network of Windows 95 - all apps and all user data is on the server, so you have only one place to look after, only one place to manage software, only one place to backup etc.
There are various Linux distributions build for education. F.e. I would take Edubuntu for a spin (for starters):
http://www.edubuntu.org/
http://www.edubuntu.org/Screenshots (these speak for themselves)
Thera are also few ways for managing terminal server/client network, one most well known solution is the Linux Terminal Server Project - have a look at their documentation, it is fairly complete:
http://www.ltsp.org/
http://www.ltsp.org/documentation/index.php
Also if you are looking for help seek your local Linux community. Linux servers are extremely easy to manage remotely so you can probably find some kind admins/gurus that will want to help you pro bono.
Good Luck.
INNER CITY KIDS DON'T USE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
Because you can't steal it.
I jacked a motherfucking Emacs from a motherfucker, but I couldn't C-X C-c the fuck out fast enuff, so my black nigger ass got busted by the StallMan.
Having helped install some of the new fiber/CAT-5E networks in schools like Lombard Middle in Baltimore, I have to question the goal here. We built a basically state of the art network and there isn't ANYTHING in the building really worth hooking up to it, including the administrative machines.
What is the point of using PCs for grade school kids? I don't understand the reasoning.
Unless the classes are about computers, the platform doesn't matter, its the apps that really count. So what applications are desired?
Adorable urchins in inner city schools do not need computers, and they do not need Linux. They need TIME. Time from adults who care, time from adults who can mentor, be debate team coaches, chaperone kids on field trips to the Aquarium, etc. Frankly, some engineer who worked on Landsat has about nothing in common with these kids, and it shows:
Impoverished children with no family life and no school supplies? Why, I'll install some trendy Linux distro, walk away, feel smug, and leave the PCs to ultimately rot!
Those schools are resource starved, not Intarweb starved. Give them books before you give them shitty old PCs.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
That would actually be Insightful (mabye Funny) if the title wasn't caps.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Factor in, also, that most liveCDs *require* 192Mb RAM to run but won't tell you this.
Ubuntu Breezy's install CD (curses, not GUI) spent three hours attempting to install itself to a G3 PowerBook, and left it in an unusable state upon reboot. The Win9x kernel is not wonderful, but like OS 9 it *is* designed to run inside a frighteningly small amount of memory. Gnome/KDE based distros fail this miserably.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
1) Try to work with the district IT people, but if they aren't responsive then continue to go it alone - WITH the support of the principal which hopefully he's already gotten. Having BEEN the red tape wielding corporate goon, don't necessarily expect a lot of help and possible some resistance. But you never know. In particular he needs to be aware of significant liability if the computers are connected to the Internet. He *MUST* provide filtering, or blocking of "unwholesome" sites otherwise it risks the school's federal funding. Typically he should be able to get Internet access either through the district or other routes including the filtering for close to free.
2) There are quite a few charitable groups that should be able to supply solid computers of better vintage, and possibly some support. At the very least check with the National Cristina foundation (www.cristina.org) Machines in the 300Mhz-800Mhz range are pretty readily available. 5 year old servers can also be gotten via charity and these days are monsters like dual 1Ghz XEON's with 2-4GB of RAM and frequently several hundred MB of SCSI RAID - more than enough for the server for this.
3) I'll second the recommendation for the k12 linux terminal server project. Also check out edubuntu (www.edubuntu.org) as it comes pre-packaged with a LOT of good stuff, but he'll need machines like those mentioned above. edubuntu site has some good getting started and how to do this type of guides.
4) Check with www.eduforge.org - there are a lot of experienced people there in the discussion sections to help out.
5) Forget about "teaching about computers". At the K-5 level it is more about using the computers as learning tool for other more practical subjects. Any learning about computers should be distinctly secondary as a result of the computers being used. Kids will pick up basic keyboarding, mouse and other skills as the use the software that helps them with other projects. No need to "teach about Linux" or any other technology as such. You want kids to be able to read, write, figure, and think, not turn out 9 year old Linux sysadmins. The national (and state and I'm sure local) standards for kids need to know about technology are a joke. If the kids are useing the computers a couple hours a week from 2nd though 5th grade, they'll meet the standards, or at least as much of them as make sense.
6) Target two specific types of activities for different purposes:
a) Drill and kill. I hate to say it, but this works for things like basic phonics, letter and word recognition, and arithmetic skills. Doing it on a computer isn't any more effective than work sheets in the classroom, in fact some studies indicate it is less effective for time spent. BUT, doing it on the computers gets the kids excited so they actually do the drills. These kinds of drills are particularly important for the children likely to be in these schools since they are starting off "behind" and typically don't get the necessary reinforcement at home. Not the most popular way to use computers, but you have to deal with reality.
b) Constructivist activities. Using a word processor to write a "paper" (typically 2 sentences qualifies in 2nd grade) and illustrating it with a basic drawing program (e.g. tuxpaint) is well within the capabilities of the machines and students. They will pick up those computer skills as they use these programs for class related activities.
7) Programs like tuxtype not only teach touch typing - something they don't really need until middle school, but help a lot with letter and word recognition. Therefore they can be used even in lower elementary grades effectively, just don't worry about typing speed.
8) Finally if for some reason you absolutely positively have to teach "computers"; Again, forget about teach "linux". Instead starting in the 4th or 5th grade look at one of the great Logo implementations (e.g. education.mit.edu/open