Slashdot Mirror
How To Help Our Public Schools With Technology?
armorer writes "I'm a programmer engaged to an inner-city public school teacher. I've been thinking for a long time now about what I can do to help close the technology gap, and I finally did something (very small) about it. I convinced my company to give me a few old computers they were replacing, refurbished them, installed Edubuntu on them, and donated them to her classroom. I also took some vacation time to go in, install everything, and give a lesson on computers to the kids. It was a great experience, but now I know first-hand how little technology these schools have. I only helped one classroom. The school needs more. (Really the whole district needs more!) And while I want to help them, I don't really know how. With Thanksgiving a week away and more holidays approaching, I suspect I'm not the only one thinking about this sort of thing. I know it's a hard problem, so I'm not looking for any silver bullets. What do Slashdot readers do? What should I be doing so that I'm more effective? How do you find resources and time to give back?"
Look for old computers on freecycle/craigslist that you can put Edubuntu on and what-not. CRTs are hard to get rid of so I've found them being given away for free.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Why are these PCs on the internet? I bet if they were firewalled off and actually used in class they would be a boon to education, not a liability. If the teacher needs a site for them to use it can be whitelisted. Its incredible how thoughtlessly PCs are deployed in schools. You need access and internet controls from day 1.