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Open Source In Public K-12 Schools?
MissMachine writes "I'm a computer science major who has been recently getting involved in local grassroots politics in my county and state. I've been discussing the idea with some of my state legislatures of submitting a couple of resolutions, opening up to the idea of switching to open source software in our state's K-12 schools. I'm looking for more information/literature about this topic, open source solutions in public K-12 education, pros and cons, studies that prove or disprove many of the assumptions of open source and linux in public schools. Any help in this field?"
This looks helpful...
You don't state a reason why you think it is a good idea to switch.
How would you like it if the government just decided to repave the roads with coral and rubber? Wouldn't that be great!
One thing you really need to make sure, is that the teachers know that OSS is better. Far too often I have seen people who look at Linux and think that the school could not afford MS products or Macs, not that Linux is better than MS products. Also, make sure that you aren't losing money by going to OSS. For example, if your school just bought brand new Vista machines and Office 2007 licenses for all of them, you might be out of luck. On the other hand if your school uses P4 or slower CPUs and XP or earlier, Linux might just be the thing it needs.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I know you're scared, but with that attitude, you'll never get her back to your mom's basement.
"You don't state a reason why you think it is a good idea to switch"
..'
'View a cost comparison chart (pdf) that shows how open source solutions can leverage your costs'
'The use of open technologies in education is now commonplace throughout the world with one notable exception, the United States. School and district technology leaders need to become aware of how these other educational systems are leveraging the use of open technologies to improve student learning, engage parent and community interest in education, provide home access to technologies used in school and use their financial resources in the most effective way possible. Consider these possible benefits
* Cost: License Fees and TCO -
* Data integrity/interoperability -
* Independence and Flexibility -
* Stability and Reliability -
* Broader Access to Information -
* Community Support -
* Engage Students in Collaboration -
IMHO, the biggest problems with any computer deployment in our K-12 classrooms are always support and training. If a school district adopts Linux and open source then who is going to be the admin in charge of updates, patches, server, network, and desktop maintenance, etc? Competent Linux admins are harder to find than people with at least basic knowledge of Mac and Windows and are likely to cost more too. So unless someone within the district, who will not be any worse off for saying no, wants to step up and take on the task of learning to be a Linux admin who is going to manage the whole affair? Also, how many teachers know how to use Linux or are willing to invest the time required to learn? After all, they cannot teach their students that which they themselves do not know. These are not insubstantial difficulties.
in the UK there is Schoolsforge-uk a grassroots non-profit collective of interested parties who are trying to push this kind of stuff to the same age group courses schoolsforge.org.uk
Lets face it, Linux users are probably the most intelligent people around. I mean, anyone can learn to be a plumber or electrician, or learn law and become a lawyer, or pick up biology and become a doctor, but having no social skills is something that has to come from inside, and cannot be learnt. Trying to teach OSS ideals to the average student would be a waste of time, they just aren't bright enough to get it. Indeed, as others have said before me, its not that Linux isn't ready for the desktop, people just aren't ready for Linux, and quite frankly the vast majority of the human race never will be; they simply aren't as clever as the average Linux user.
But I'm happy about being a Linux user, happy about being in the 1% of the population intelligent enough to think for themselves and not follow the hurd. The clever people will find Linux, forget the rest, they don't matter.
I made this video in order to promote OSS for a class. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4M9KJpDJL4 Make something like this...Argue licensing for MS, software, etc. Versus Linux = FREE.
For me the Pro's and Con's are about even. I use Linux as my main OS, but I don't think that it is ready for 100% mainstream use yet. I think that Linux should be used in labs that are mainly used for browsing the Internet and writing papers. Unfortunately in education there are alot of specialty software programs that are needed by the teacher, and WINE... well, its nowhere near where it needs to be for something like that. I also don't like the idea of teaching kids how to use an OS that isn't used in the workplace. Schools are for preparing kids for life and work. But I also think that if Linux was taught, It would be more widely accepted and some of the other problems would fix themselves. I guess my recommendation is to have Linux in Internet labs, and Computer Science classrooms, and have knowledgeable staff available to help students transition if they want to
Make sure you understand that you have a very, very, very wide range of users. I deal with non-tech graduate students all the time(the same age as the youngest teachers in the field) and they are not tech savvy. They can myspace and youtube, and maybe superpoke someone on facebook, but that's it. Don't expect the youngest teachers to be the most techy. You'll find good, older teachers near retirement that can give you a run for your money.
Be aware that most k-12 schools have almost no budget. They can get money for hardware/software purchases, but a *good* tech to handle some of the idiosyncrasies of F/OSS is out of their budgets. A 50 computer lab on a 4 year rotation(many schools would kill for computers that new) only costs around $15,000 a year. They'll come with an os installed and maybe a cheap educational copy of office. To hire someone, say 40k-50k a year + benefits, to put a different os on the desktops is a huge expense.
My suggestion would be to start small. Make the decision making process open and transparent. Ask schools to have a cost/benefit analysis of the software purchases. You'll see your biggest savings in server apps, not desktops.
See if you can get schools to have a traveling tech, consolidate servers, etc. This can be difficult. A lot depends on what state you are in. A midwestern state, with lots of small schools with low enrollments(30-50 in a graduating class) may be better served by server consolidation. On the other hand, if you are in a big city where the graduating class is bigger than the entire k-12 school I graduated from, you'll have a bigger budget and a better chance of getting an onsite tech.
Show them security. Student records are highly confidential. Show them how spending less on the server software can increase their security.
It really comes down to knowing your audience and what they want and expect.
You have an entrenched base of Mac and Windows-teaching teachers in the K-12 system (and *nothing* says "entrenched" like a US Public School System teacher). Who's going to convince the union that they should switch their curriculum to an Open OS and Open Apps? You? Stallman? And since the majority of parents (and teachers) view K-12 computer class as akin to Home Economics or Auto Shop (i.e., teaching the kids something "practical, real-life, that they can use") where will that sudden groundswell of support for open software come from? The children, who are anxious to play all those linux-based games? Oh, wait...
This is one change that, if it comes at all, will not arise up out of the schools, but downward from business. When the moms and dads get linux-friendly at work, and can see the value of their children learning the apps in "computer shop," you may see some change.
Hi, I'm a college nerd and I like Linux.
I want to "get involved" and "make a difference" as many college kids do.
How do I go about doing this?
Admittedly, I don't know many K-12 IT folks who are open-minded about FOSS & Linux. There is a guy a few towns away from me Chris Dawson who writes a blog on ZDnet that addresses his concerns and experiences. Here is a blog that talks about the subject. Browse around some of his back editions, you'll find more info.
I don't know of any such research and studies specifically, but I'd suggest that asking educators and their IT folk about what problems they are trying to solve before offering a solution. Are they trying to run specific Windows-only software? Does that software have a Linux equivalent (browser/office apps)? Can it be run under WINE with no problems? Look at their infrastructure to see if a thin client/LTSP solution for classroom PCs might save them electricity and upgrade costs over the long run.
Do a pilot program in a couple schools, and use them as the basis for further proposals to legislators and other school districts.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
You have a bit of a chicken and egg problem when it comes to open source in K-12. The argument (and it's a good one) for using Windows in schools is so kids will be familiar with it, which is critical in the workplace since 99% of workplaces uses Windows extensively. At the same time, workplaces aren't going to switch to Linux because 99% of their potential employees know only Windows.
Of course, in theory more workplaces would eventually start to move to Open Source if more students came out of school knowing how to work in that sort of environment, but most schools don't want to take that gamble. If the schools did switch everyone to Linux, for example, but the vast majority of the workplace is still on Windows, you now have a bunch of people entering the workforce that are ill-equipped to work with the technology therein, and your school takes the hit for not properly preparing them. Likewise, if you're a business, you have a disincentive to switch to Linux because then you'd have to spend millions training people who grew up using Windows how to use it. That isn't even taking into account the old problem that all the software companies develop for Windows first and, usually, only.
Saving money is an argument that usually works very well in the cash-starved education system, but when it runs up against the need to make kids into well-qualified workers, things get messy.
They are currently working on a similar process to get a unified platform created with Linux to lower the costs in schools. I know they have been working on it the last 2 years but do not know the status of the project currently.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein
I believe there were a couple of articles in Linux Journal written by an admin that also moved his school over to OSS. I also think he referenced his pros and cons in making the decisions, and the final outcome once complete.
http://www.classroom20.com/profile/AlexInman
Start by presenting information from Microsoft's Get The Facts campaign. Only remember to do it on opposite day.
I sell a closed source educational software product and I've seen the insides of a lot of schools. I know that any teacher or school IT coordinator is going to hate to see their known infrastructure replaced at the whim of the state legislature by something they had no say in.
You need to be talking to the people in the schools first, not the people making the laws. Odds are you can find some problems that Open Source software can help with and a few IT coordinators who are on board with it. Then evangalize your local success, highlighting money saved and better student performance, and you'll start opening up a lot more people's minds to open source software.
But top-down through the politicians is not the way to go (case in point).
If you really want to change the landscape, though, find a way to actually fund open source educational software development. It's a shame that we don't have something like a PBS for educational software. I'd much rather write software that everyone can have for free.
GollyGee Blocks -- 3D creativity software for kids.
In my limited exposure to K-12 systems I have noted that in every district I've seen, there has been a software package in use for grade/attendance tracking, etc. that requires either Windows or Mac. Aside from the non-trivial issues of training, we really need an open-source alternative to the proprietary systems for this that are out there now. Of course, I'm no expert and there very well may be an open source project. If so, I'd be interested because the cost savings to my local school district would be huge I suspect.
Try Chris Dawson who blogs on ZD net. He is an IT director in education and seems to want to work with Linux et al
Hi,
I was involved in one such project in Finland over ten years ago. At this time Linux was just starting to take off but was robust enough to be used even then. We had one server (NFS, bootp, email, web etc.) with over 100 PC hooked up to it (we also built the basic local area network there with students; 50 ohm coax at that time ;-). Students could connect the machine using dialup (and our outside internet connection was 64kb/s!). Most computers in individual class rooms were running windows but we had two student classrooms that ran both windows and linux (about 50 PCs). I also created a simple linux based boot floppy (bootp was used to ID machine specific configuration) that could restore workstations from the server. Another floppy could be used to generate a model computer image to the server.
Few observations:
1) Before this, it was impossible to let students work in the computer classrooms without someone sitting behind them. Otherwise the windows systems just got killed on few minutes. After this new setup, we were able to let students use the classrooms at any time. If they killed windows, we could restore it in 10 minutes with the linux based boot floppy. The linux side, which many students started using, would run for months without problems. Also network printing worked very smoothly (compared to what they had previously).
2) There were problems getting teachers (except the ones teaching computers) to use linux. At that time linux desktop was not ready for casual users. The current linux distros are much much better. While I was happy with LaTeX, it was obvious that most people could not use it. There was some version of wordperfect available (through SYSV emulation) but it was buggy.
3) Linux was a great environment to get students to learn basic concepts in programming. For example, I had couple of 7th graders who became quite good programmers in a very short time.
4) All this pretty much ended when the school district got a "common information technology strategy". They required windows based solutions etc. These people were complete morons. Supposedly trained computer experts but they could hardly reinstall windows if asked. I think the most difficult problem is to find people who actually know something about computers. Somehow one should make sure that computer illiterate people don't make all the important decisions.
bad day at the office?
"For me the Pro's and Con's are about even. I use Linux as my main OS, but I don't think that it is ready for 100% mainstream use yet"
...
In a school environment, what isn't Linux yet ready for.
"Unfortunately in education there are alot of specialty software programs that are needed by the teacher"
Apart from this 'specialty software', what other educational software could provide similar functionality that isn't yet available under Linux.
"I also don't like the idea of teaching kids how to use an OS that isn't used in the workplace"
You're kidding, once a kid learns how to use one desktop GUI, s/he's learned them all.
"Schools are for preparing kids for life and work"
As far as I could see, schools prepare kids for passing exams
For a second, I thought I submitted this question. You sound a lot like me!
I fancy myself knowledgeable, so I'll share.
The spread of open source software must come as a means to an end, not simply as an edict from the state legislature or DoEd. Remember that legislators move slow and what they write is law. The DoEd moves even slower. Campaign locally--get some success stories at one or two districts, then work on the DoEd and beyond. If you really want to, get yourself elected or appointed to the school board and work from within. However, watch conflicts of interest, as those are a political downfall.
Saving money on licenses for software should be a primary talking point for any advocacy of open source software, not just in education.
It is probably best to work in phases. In the first phase, do top-down, easy replacements: Firefox, OpenOffice. In the second phase, identify other education domain-specific software which needs to be replaced and try to find replacements. In the third phase, try a small lab with Linux and all non-replaced software running with Wine.
There will be software which simply doesn't work on Linux. A part of the planning is figuring out how to handle those cases. Photoshop cannot be replaced with GIMP, no matter how much anyone would have you believe this. GIMP suffices for many, many things, but Photoshop has a stranglehold which GIMP cannot ever break (if you don't know why, you've never worked in a printing or graphic design place).
Do not push Linux as a part of the first phase. It's too much of a change at once and could put a bad taste in administrators', teachers', students', and parents' mouth.
A smart move may be to convince some intrepid students to be the first to switch at home, thus proving that the students are capable of using open source software for educational tasks. Do the same with a few teachers.
Interoperability is key. If student would need to work on something at school then take it home, the student must have access to the same software in both places.
A point to hit for the state legislatures is the local developer factor. Buying Microsoft software benefits Redmond, Washington. Paying for open source software may benefit local developers, especially if there is a provider of Linux support nearby.
In summary, the my heaviest point is this: means to an end, not a solution looking for a problem.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
With all the shortcomings in Open Source's ability to open Microsoft Office's documents, I wish you luck.
In my experience, school officials are so biased against anything not Microsoft that convincing them is almost impossible. I wish you luck man.
This KDE developer has something that would interest you.
Maybe it's not such a good idea.
Seriously, keep your politics away from my kids' education.
The servers were all either Win2k workstations set up to run as "servers" or old 200MHz servers running Netware 4.11 with Groupwise.
They had no money to upgrade and the infrastructure was in really bad shape. I took some of the better workstations, loaded them up with salvaged RAM and hard drives and installed CentOS on them. All the servers did was file sharing (via samba) and DHCP. The schools web hosting ISP provided free POP/IMAP accounts so we got off Groupwise and used Thunderbird for their email. The whole setup was very very simple and when I quit, I left very detailed and simple to follow instructions on how to manage and maintain things.
Within a year they called me absolutely desperate because they were having issues (from what it sounded like, possible hardware issues, and some permission issues with samba). I pointed them to various resources where they could get help but in the end they paid some consultant to come in and replace everything with a Windows server running Exchange because they simply could not find anyone to help them with their Linux issues for the prices that they could afford.
One of the most useful OSS packages for education (K-12 and college) is http://www.ilias.de/
Hmm, stop copping out and using english, use your own fucking language!
Maybe she (could be male) has already tried, or maybe she doesn't have the time. If you get subpoena'd, is your immediate reaction "pfft, fuck it, I can do all this lawyering myself", it's part of the foundation of society, families, employers, and employees, we all can't do everything, so we specialize, and use those specialties where applicable, otherwise we ask for help, as long as there is someone to ask.
But, who asked is irrelevant, the idea behind questions being posted on Slashdot, isn't really to answer that one persons request, but also to answer other peoples, and get more peoples attention on the matter, which means more people investigating, a broader base of knowledge, eventually it's common knowledge, and no one really needs to do your own fucking research. Hundreds (thousands?) have people have done this already, and considering it's not physics, or chemistry or anything, chances are whatever their conclusion is, is perfectly usable, but since it's not commonly known yet, it still needs "advertising".
Or in brief: this doesn't hurt anything, it's making people think about a (plausibly) good thing (education, better/cheaper/more efficient/more open), so stfu.
The site http://k12ltsp.org/ discusses the how and why of a charter school that switched to Open Source, running decent servers on the back end, and dumb/cheap clients on the front end. There is quite a bit of discussion on the site about the benefits, and challenges that you would face.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Sorry to say this, but Microsoft will own you. They may well destroy your career and attack members of your family:
Only take Microsoft on if you don't care about your family, they will get personal, and everything they do is legal, as the state generally agrees with them. See the Mass. ODF affair for example, they've also been allowed to attack charities and bribe officials. Frankly, it seems their strong-arm tactics mean most legislators are scared of Microsoft.
Good luck. You'll need it.
http://www.k12openminds.org/ and http://community.k12opensource.com/ Open Source in schools is a great cost saver, but you need to support it and not just throw it over the wall. Look at K12LTSP/K12Linux or virtualized desktops. There is a good chance that e-rate funding will cover 90% of the install costs. Watch out for Education ISV's, you are taking food out of their mouths. Don't forget Moodle.
For K-12 the OS is less important than the apps.
I'm teaching my 5, 7 and 9 year old how to present and argue for an idea with Google Docs. Today the kids are learning how to model in Sketchup.
They will show presentations on the solar system tonight in Presenter.
All that on an Ubuntu machine upstairs or an XP laptop downstairs accessed through Firefox.
I was just musing the other day that the next OS war will likely be between Linux and BSD.
Everyone is starting to wake up to OSS, and Linux is getting all of the attention. I like FreeBSD better, but so many people are not yet exposed to this.
All well, progress is progress.
I worked with someone who used to work for a company that installed open source software in K-12. Some issues that have been mentioned already came up, especially with respect to lack of tech savvyness of teachers, but one of the biggest issues was that virtualization was not good enough (this was 4 years ago) to run standard educational software teachers used in the classroom without major annoyances experienced by the teachers.
Educators believe in experts and paying for expertise. They want to be able to call someone to fix a problem so they can get on with their job. They don't want to spend hours reading community forums for things to try.
Schools are a bureaucracy. Everyone in a bureaucracy wants to cover their butt with warranties and by using "industry standard" materials, software and equipment.
Last I knew, software and hardware companies provide their products to schools at HUGE discounts, and for FREE in poor districts.
Also, the equipment they are using is NOT their own. Risking failure by using what is generally perceived by the masses as "freebie experimental stuff that isn't good enough to sell," is NOT seen as a risk worth taking. Telling your boss the computer doesn't work, and you were trying out "something I downloaded for free," will not get you a pat on the back for your creativity and willingness to try new things!
Finally, the teachers and students who use the computers are taught how to use them in a classroom setting. The software they BUY usually comes with instructional materials, and it isn't hard to find someone to teach the classes. Usually teachers are sent to conferences to learn the software, then come back and teach the others in the district.
Before you comment, know this: I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I am just telling you the facts of the situation.
This pops up on slashdot every couple of months. Let me outline the reasons this is difficult from the perspective of one school. It sounds like you're trying to push forward an unfunded mandate. You're going to get a lot of pushback once people realize what you're trying to do.
- Apps. Educational software is often poorly written, and is written for mac and windows, not linux. One of the k-12 schools I work with has 350 applications, perhaps 330 which would have to be replaced under your plan. The K-5 students don't use openoffice, they use Reader Rabbit, there is no OSS substitute, and forget about making it work under wine. 6-12 use some generic office type apps, but also educational software. Keep in mind that entire curriculum and courses are sometimes tied to an app. You're not just replacing an app, you're asking teachers to re-write their curriculum. We're not just talking about typing software, we need software that keeps track of students performance and can run reports showing progress, comparing classes, etc...
- Hardware. IT budgets in schools are often small. You can get E-Rate money for some servers and network gear, but printers, digital cams, etc... are often old. Will your hardware work with Linux? What about the hardware your teachers use without your knowledge. Can you afford to replace it? If you replace old printers, you'll end up throwing away all your stock of ink, plus the ink you didn't know the teachers were hoarding. Some hardware is directly tied to an app for a class, you'll have to throw it away, you run into the same curriculum issues as with the software.
- Support. You'll need to support it. This means replacing or training your existing (unionized) staff. My experience is that schools typically employee underqualified staff. Clicking on things is rough, editing text files is really rough. If the staff can't handle the new tasks, can you replace them? This is a union and politics problem, and not an easy one.
- Training. You need to retrain teachers and staff. You'll again run into union issues, teachers are only required to do x hours of professional development per year, they simply won't take training classes, no matter how easy you make it. Keep in mind that teachers are continually asked to do more work with the same or less time/money, and you'll be asking them to relearn to do things. You might not be making any friends here.
Here how this does work, it'll take a few years...
First, do your TCO studies, show how there are no licensing issues. Licensing is a huge headache, solving that issue will win you friends it makes rolling out apps faster. Make sure the administration is onboard and working toward your goal. Doing all this is pointless if the superintendent comes back from a conference and decrees that everyone should have application X, which only works under Windows.
Modify your technology plan to require that any purchased software is web based and standards compliant. I've worked with "web based" apps that only work on IE, or require special plugins and etc... You'll end up losing a lot of functionality.
Take existing apps for which there are no good web based substitutes and see if they work with wine.
Roll out both of the above to one or two labs. Run them that way for at least a month. Make sure that your lab has an assigned lab aide, someone who takes ownership of the lab and is physically present when classes are using it. Keep on top of things, people probably won't report problems. When there are problems, solve them quickly.
When I was in high school, all of the computers were extremely locked down (couldn't do anything except internet + word processing). It sucked. I'm not sure that schools would be willing to adopt a platform unless they'd be able to lock it down similarly (for reasons they'd cite as security, cost, whatever). Presenting up front the ways that you can control the user experience might be a good way to sell open source.
(to be really honest, my initial reaction was: no! open source software can't be locked down! school's will never use that! ... then I thought about it, and realized that someone had probably designed a way to do it )
I see a bunch of you telling the OP why/why not Linux, when she is asking for OPTIONS.
On topic, I know my friend's father, a teacher outside Charlotte, NC, uses Linux in his science class for Lego Mindstorms, showing the kids how to write basic functions and control the robots. These are kids in middle school, in the lower strata, and are a cultural mix. They consider it their favorite class, and have no care whether it is Windows or Linux.
As far as tech support options...any IT worth anything will know enough code to learn Linux quickly enough. Cert classes are on a par, if not cheaper, than most Microsoft courses. If they are any good, you won't have to pay for a new tech just to run Linux. A good tech will spend most of his time outside the GUI anyway.
As far as comments about compatibility with MS, those are issues five years old. I've attended college courses using Open Office(OOo) and just had to select the MS Office XP format after I was done to send assignments. Open Office offers all the options you need for school work, and there are some great options for email management. If your whole school is using OOo, there is no real reason to worry about compatibility issues where your kids are concerned, as all of their work will be done in-house.
Kids aren't like adults. They can be very open-minded, and don't worry about what OS they are using. It's the teacher that makes the class, after all, and using open source gives you a wide variety of tools to use.
I know that a trite Ask Slashdot combined with the fact that it's posted under news all topped off with kdawson as the poster can be enough to make the best of us rage, but please, it's not worth wasting your karma for.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
What computers/software a school uses should be a school or school district issue, not a state issue.
The only issue for the state could be to mandate that open standards are used for intercommunication, which means that the state shouldn't send out Microsoft Office documents, for example.
This reminds me of English versus metric, how most of the world uses metric measures, whereas in the US (and elsewhere?), feet, inches, quarts, and pounds persist. Sounds like now might be a good time for MS to lock up rights to the english measurement systems, convert all Windows coding to those standards, and start charging activation fees to use a foot-long ruler . . . keeping unilateralism alive and well.
http://opensourceschools.org.uk/
It has a link on there to case studies as well.
I work in the IT department for public schools. I know first hand that we HAVE to teach the students with the software and OS that they will most likely be using in college.
If we fail to do this, students come back from a semester in college wondering why they were less prepared than the other students.
School Comity gets word of this and there is them massive changes that need to be made.
There are far too many entrenched consultants making millions for it to be anything but Windows.
I'm a Linux user who did computer support for a K-8 school for a number of years. Frankly, Windows is an incredible mess and virtually unsupportable. But Unix probably is not an answer -- at least for desktops. There are a number of issues.
Many teachers -- especially in lower grades -- have a substantial investment from their not very generous classroom discretionary budgets in CDs of various Windows 3 era educational software. I have never tried to run any of it under WINE, but given that much of it barely runs on Windows even after bashing the Registry, etc with a large hammer, I suspect that much of it will not work in Unix. Maybe in a virtual machine? Possibly. If their PCs will support virtual machines.
The school I worked at had a diverse collection of hardware acquired a few PCs at a time. I think that the largest number of identical machines was about 15 -- out of around 120 total PCs. Many of the machines were very old. We were finally able to get rid of the last Windows 3 machines around 2003. There were still some W95 machines when I retired in 2005. Just load Ubuntu? My bet is that even if Ubuntu always installed correctly (It doesn't BTW) many machines in many schools will not meet its minimum hardware requirements, and many others will have driver problems. Much of that is fixable. But fixing it wouldn't be cheap.
Teachers have lesson plans and they will not be pleased by the idea of having to change those to suit new software which -- from their point of view -- gives them no benefits and substantial grief.
School administrative software is just plain awful. It is a melange of software -- much of it very old. In many cases, using it is not optional if the school wants to get whatever funding it comes attached to. Working out of the box is something of a rarity for this crap. And newer doesn't necessarily mean better. It seemed to me that the newer and shinier, the more likely it was to work poorly. It almost all assumes Windows. Some of it has Apple versions. Linux? What's a Linux?
OS and MSOffice for schools is relatively cheap thanks to educational discounts. Open Office actually does work pretty well and might be a viable substitute for MSOffice if none of the administrative software uses VBA scripts. I actually installed both on many machines because users didn't find much difficulty switching and sometimes OO will read screwed up Word or Excel files that the Microsoft programs won't. But the savings from using Open Office instead of MSOffice would have been minimal and the grief could be substantial if MSOffice is needed and isn't available.
On the server side, I think open source might be fine . I actually kept a Linux server (A 386SX33) around and backed up the system to it every night because reading our recovery tapes was problematic when the tape drive worked at all (we went through several under warranty and several cheaper ones when the warranty ran out). And recovering files from Linux was far easier than arguing with BACKUP EXEC.
The only plus for Unix. Much less malware susceptibility. Many users will click on anything in an eMail and teachers are far worse about that than students. Schools are supposed to have filtering software. But of course -- like antivirus programs -- it costs too much, screws things up and doesn't work very well.
Overall. K-8 IT is a mess. And Windows is in no small degree responsible. But switching to open source probably won't solve the problem(s).
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Why decide on what software to use based solely on a single criterion? Of course open source should be used in schools. And closed source should also be used in schools. And big programs, and little ones. And green ones and red ones.
Use open source where it is appropriate. If the school wants to use Microsoft Office because that is a great program and it is available on Mac and Windows, and that is good enough: fine! It's not a security issue, so who cares? On the other hand, if Office is too expensive, then use OpenOffice. Great!
If this is a computers course, they should use Windows. And Mac. And Linux. Because those are things relevant to the course. Use Linux not because it is OSS, but because it is relevant for students to learn on. Or for the price.
Unless the focus is security, or it is a programming course, the state of the source code should not be the main deciding factor.
Linux Terminal Services allows me to provide a 2:1 student:productivity station ratio. It's the only way I could afford to provide the high level of infrastructure. Students LOVE linux!
They've taken technology from other projects (ie Linux Terminal Server Project) and built a great package. It's being used in schools world-wide. Here's the link:
http://k12ltsp.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
For 2 years out of undergrad, I taught high school. You know, giving back. My undergrad was in business, so I was a "Business Education Teacher," and, in my class, every student had a PC. To leverage this resource, I ran Moodle. I hand graded one test my entire two years.
However, the other "Business Education Teachers" taught people how to be secretaries. Students should achieve 40 WPM, and put it on their resumes. Students should know the ins-and-outs of Word and Excel, and skim over Access, since it is nothing more than a spreadsheet. 50% of the teachers had a 10-year tenure, and they yearned for the click-clack of typewriters.
To their defense, teachers have little time and encouragement for continued education. A standard day for a teacher is: 8 hours of instruction and classroom management, and 1 hour of "planning" (when you just wanted to relax). On the Friday after teaching my first week, I picked up a six pack and flowers for my wife, who had previously taught for 3 years. I then told her "I understand." I'm not a teacher now, and non-teachers do not know the continuous physical and mental effort it requires. You have to be "on" for 8 strait hours: standing, talking, controlling, watching, patrolling, inspecting, walking, cleaning, hollering, and protecting yourself legally, all at the same time.
Lastly, school management is composed of individuals who were teachers. They don't know what a cost-benefit analysis is, or a business process efficiency application, or an ERP. States shoved new requirements on school management every year, and school management response is reactionary. Administrators and teachers have initiatives come and go before, and they will again.
To introduce OSS to a classroom, you have to lead a classroom. To introduce OSS to a school, you have to lead a school. Similar to the other 100 new requirements for school administrators, a requirement of "OSS Implementation" will be lost in the shuffle. When next year comes, they will forget the OSS requirement, and handle the next 100 things.
Chris Winslett
Indiana schools have been experimenting with a state-wide network with Linux clients since at least 2005. If you're serious about this, check out the website and consider contacting people who were involved for advice.
I would highly recommend Ubuntu and Edubuntu for your attempts. They offer the ease of setup and selection of basic software that most schools want. Edubuntu would be especially helpful for students in primary school.
Myself, I managed to convince my school to consider Open Office for their next software cycle instead of Microsoft Office 2007. However the school is really low-tech and it was hard to get them to attempt a partial switch to Ubuntu - one computer teacher, one IT technician, 600 students.
Stephen Hawkings must be a NetBSD user then.
Hey, for anyone who's not busy and has the energy to dig it up: I remember there was a big reply post either here on /. or at Blog of Helios when that school teacher confiscated some Linux discs off a school kid and threatened HeliOS guys with lawsuits and whatnot. The post was from somewhere in Finland where the writer had just organized a FOSS transition to a few school districts and there was english/finnish documentation online... Hope someone finds it. Was a pretty good story and I'm sure it would help alot.
One of the primary focuses of my business is to deploy Linux LTSP in schools. From my experience so far, it's been absolutely great for the students (and the district's budget). They were on the verge of having to upgrade all 7 schools' computer labs, classroom PCs etc. for Windows Vista (they were currently on Windows 2000 Pro). I got involved and about a year later, 7 schools were running LTSP on their existing infrastructure (minus server purchases). Now we're just making improvements (things like automated thin client shutdown at night via cron, and automated bootup in the morning via WoL) so they can save money on electricity.
It's nice to focus on improvements to the overall system, and not chasing malware threats and borked systems. The LTSP community (#ltsp on Freenode) is absolutely phenomenal, and great people to work with on a day to day basis. I have nothing but good things to say about the project, the people and the benefits to schools and education. If you want, shoot me a message and I'd gladly talk to you more about it.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
This is one of those situations where a government mandate would go a long way. There should be state and federal laws requiring all government agencies to use OSS whenever possible. Unless a school is giving a class, specifically, in MS software then OSS systems should be used in the classroom. Personally, I do think high schools should maintain a MS Windows based lab (or dual boot) to teach basic workplace skills but that should constitute the only ~30 MS operating system licenses that school district should ever own (per high school).
This has nothing to do with liking or not liking Microsoft. Personally, I run Windows on my home computer and would find it impossible to run Linux because of the things I like to do (games). Even if I didn't game, I would still, probably, stick with Windows for compatibility.
My justification for requiring OSS systems, whenever possible, is based purely on cost. I believe that the schools in this country are horribly under funded. I think we get away with this because we allow upper-middle class and wealthy people in this country to make direct donations to their districts among other ways that school districts in well off areas end up providing an unfairly better educational experience to their students. However, while I do think we should be spending much more on our schools (and controlling how that money gets distributed better) I also think we need to be very smart with how we use the money we have.
Companies like MS will be quick to claim this is unfair competition on the part of government and that this will hurt their bottom line (and the economy by extension). While that might be true, any government money going to such companies represents corporate welfare. Perhaps, we will find it advantageous to provide such welfare but I believe that, if we do, it should be as obvious as possible so we can more easily quantify how much they are getting. We should be working to make government less convoluted, more transparent, and easier to understand. By running our schools in the most cost effective manner possible (in this case, the IT department), while leaving corporate welfare in the hands of other government departments, we help to make the true cost of education more clear without confusing price inflation.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Let me start out by saying that I am a high school teacher and yes the first time I tried Linux it came on about ten 5 1/4" floppy disks. I remember when education was dominated by Mac's and the switch over to PCs with Windows. I have followed quite a number of the posts about how the "American Education System" is trying to prevent the movement to FOSS. The reality of the "American Education System" is that it isn't a system. It is much more like a bowl of pea soup flung at the educational map and where you land is what you get. The average teacher is simply trying to deal with all of the constantly changing rules and regulations set up by what ever random politician was elected. This goes back to State's right vs. Federal power issue. School curriculums have been controlled at the local or now at the State level.
Probably the single biggest road block to any change is time. Many of us here are math and science people, so let me throw in some numbers. I see between 170 and 210 students a day (depending on the year). Each of my classes has about 33 to 38 students and they are 56 minutes long. That means that I have less than 2 minutes per day per child on average. I also get 180 school days (I suppose we could subtract out the days I lose because of weather, students absent, other teachers' field trips etc., but I won't). So, if I assume that I get 2 minutes per day that is 360 minutes for each child each year to teach them my subject matter. 360 minutes is six hours per child per year. Hey this numbers stuff is fun!
How about this, I get to school at 6:45 am and leave at 3pm (I used to leave at 4:30 but I have a 1 and 3 year old right now BTW technically my day goes from 7:30 to 3pm but I get there early to tutor students for free). When I assign something if it takes me a single minute to grade it, at 180 kids that is three hours. Guess how many of my assignments I can actually grade in one minute? So now my day is no longer looking quite so short. By the way, I keep getting told about this mythical 3 months off, but strangely enough I haven't seen it yet...I'm either taking classes, working on projects for the next school year, or teaching summer school to help pay the bills.
The third problem is that I have yet to find a program that compares to my windows based grading program (yes, I've tried OpenGrade book, GradeL, etc.). Likewise, I have yet to find a good substitute for OneNote (and yes, I've tried Basket, Xournal, Grounal, etc.). How about Logger Pro for my probeware (which I had to buy with my own money since the school didn't have the money to buy it) Why would I use programs that do not work as well simply to use Linux in my classroom (which I actually do on occasion anyway)?
The final point is that computers are NOT really taught in schools. Yes there are a few computer graphic classes and a few computer applications classes, etc., but as far as I know there are NO programming classes and no computer theory classes.
Oh and to the people a few months ago who implied that the Unions had something to do with staying with Microsoft...I have been involved with my local union, my state union, and the National and strangely enough not once did any of them ever mention what I should or should use...funny that.
The municipality of Noormarkku won an award at Best Practices 2006 competition for their work in bringing Linux and FOSS to the school district. Head over to http://www.tietoyhteiskuntaohjelma.fi/parhaatkaytannot/en_GB/2006_awards/ and scroll down to Penguins in Schools or contact the project manager directly: Municipality of Noormarkku, Education Services Principal Esa KohtamÃki esa.kohtamaki@noormarkku.fi
"most of the world uses metric measures, whereas in the US (and elsewhere?), feet, inches, quarts, and pounds persist. "
USA, Burma, and Liberia are the three countires that use Imperial measures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units">A few other countries use Imperial measures alongside metric but officially, pretty well everywhere uses metric. Certainly if you were sending a contractor the specification for a job in all the countries apart from USA/Burma/Liberia you'd be doing so in metric.
Hi there, I am currently employed by a k-12 school as an admin/all around support guy, and I have successfully introduced a linux lab this year...and they love it!
:P ) and the constant uptime, and the superintendent LOVES it for monetary reasons.
I'm not sure the amount of time that you or the people who would be doing the deployment are willing to invest in the project, but I created a very simple distro, with the intention of using cloud computing tactics on it. The students are using google docs/gmail/gcal and the spreadsheet and presentation tools google also offers. The kids love the lab because its fast and easy, the teachers love it because of how easy it is to share (that's all google however
This lab was actually created with old crud machines, ones that would have been thrown away. The fact that it's now a fully functional place for teachers to bring students is really opening everyone's eyes. With the majority of k-12 kids just using the computer to type and get on the net, there really aren't compatibility issues (other labs are obviously still windows for speciality software).
I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you have some old machines lying around, try scratching an itch. Tell staff that you can pull a new lab out of thin air, and they won't have to fight to sign out the few available ones to have kids go in an type papers. You get the idea, it sounds corny, but its worked for me.
Anyhow, this lab has been a huge success, and I already have the go ahead for another, and very possibly single workstations for teachers rooms as well, I only hope that others can manage to do the same.
Eternalelegy
Well, I'd have both OSes at a school. While the CSRs and network admins will hate you for it--I think both OSes provides the healthiest learning environment. Every kid is different. Some get things quick, some don't. Personally, I think you should just make the resources available to the students, and then let them decide what they want. That will be more informative to you about whether or not its a good idea. If you put in Linux machines, and none of the kids use them--then take them out and say its not worth it. If you put them and Windows almost never gets used, then take the Windows machines out. Trying Open Source is really very cheap. For an entire school district, you could probably have one or two Linux guys set everything up for you within a month or two.
K12Linux.org
K12LTSP.org
edubuntu.org
skolelinux.org
all come to mind off the top of my head as people already doing this kind of work.
A good starting point is the OpenEducationDisc and here in the UK the guys at http://opensourceschools.org.uk/ are thinking about exactly the same sort of thing. This topic and similar come up a lot on Slashdot, as yet I feel the OSS community lacks a coherent response.
"all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
Check out https://fedorahosted.org/k12linux/
Honestly, the training of new admins shouldn't be hard, if you actually understand how a computer works. Most sys admins are gonna be comfortable enough with a command line that even if they haven't used linux before, they'll pick it up pretty fast.
Given my district's hardware choices, linux would be ideal on many machines, in particular a lot of the older computers that the elementary schools have inherited.
Biggest concern for a switchover for us would be plugins like flash not functioning. Renaissance Learning makes heavy use of that in particular, and that's the core of the curriculum at the elementary schools.
Then of course there's the difficulty of retraining every teacher in the district, plus breaking the news to them that their favorite games don't have a linux equivalent, the retraining on how to use Office, because even though OO only has a slightly different UI than what they're used to, you'll get the teachers who complain because it is different. and judging by the number of times I have to sudo on ubuntu to do anything of substance, the teachers at least will need superuser permissions...Oh the horror.
I've worked in IT for a school district for four years. We use Linux on a couple of servers and for Telnet servers, but that is all we've been willing to use. We use open-source where we can, but we recently dropped OOo because of its deficiencies compared to MSO.
The applications being used at universities and in the workplace are predominately NOT open-source. We're teaching Adobe CS and MSO. Those aren't available on Linux.
I'd love to make Linux and open-source alternatives available to students and if they'll ever approve the stipend to pay me to take over the technology students' association I will probably start teaching interested students about it, but we don't have the resources to offer both, and it would be a disservice to the students to use open-source applications they might never see in the real world.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I work at a school district in the technology department and I think the biggest concern that we run into with OSS is support. There needs to be some kind of (paid) support to fall on when we need help. Sometimes there is a company willing to do this, sometimes not. Not that this has stopped us, we do use some OSS w/o paid support but there is a large enough community to rely on. IMO
Curriculum
You have to change a schools curriculum to change to open source. Many schools like the one I work at have their entire curriculum based on specific applications like MS Office and would have to be adjusted for open source applications. Also re-training of the faculty and staff on computer use. Educators are not the smartest people in the world when it comes to technology (no offense to any educators out there).
I'VE BEEN THINKING ALOT ABOUT THIS FOR OUR TOWN
some points
kids rise to responsiblity; seniors in HS are quite capable, with the right teacher of maintaining most of this - and what great job training, both in th nuts and bolts of computers and in work ethic
it may sound wacko, but i think the hs seniors could maintain the school email, web site, everything but hr and payroll, where there are legal issues
cost - teachers are mostly not into computers, esp the older tenured senior ones with influence, and the people on the school booard are mostly retired - who else has the time - and not yet computer xsavvy
so, you need some SIMPLE carrots
cost - find oout how much the school is paying,a nd with a little bs, say, we can save youa bundle
all that software the kids need we can now afford
and the training they will get - can you imagine the value these kids will have if they are not intimidated by writing debugging and compiling a little C program to do something stupid
would look fabulous on a college resume
a variety of reasons why OSS is not making success in the educational sector. Here are my thoughts:
1.) Setting all technology discussions aside : our educational system is broken. Period. (Assuming you are talking about the US of A) Our society places more value on celebrity escapades and sports figures than it does education. No amount of technology (windows/linux/???) will improve a broken system.
Having said that:
2.) For most school districts, changing from Windows to Linux is like asking a Navy to completely change battle-platforms (hardware) in the middle of a Pearl Harbor firefight. Notwithstanding the ideological differences, the everyday lack of resources, time and inter-compatibility almost makes moving to Linux a non-starter before you even begin.
3.) Schools have a long history with brand name "for pay" software (Microsoft, etc). Breaking out of that mindset is extremely difficult. I had no problem talking to my asst-superintendent showing him the cost savings of open source software,.. but what overwhelmed him was the amount of work it would take to convert all of our data, procedures and environment over to accomodate the proposed changes. In a school district its VERY hard to change the status quo. (which is not suprising considering the whole point of american education system is to preserve the status quo). You might say that Linux is just a little bit to "liberal" for the traditional approach most often seen in educational systems. I'm not sure society is ready for linux (as others have said) in this regard.
4.) Linux (in my opinion) has made great improvements and usability tweaks in the past 5 years-ish,.. but it still has a ways to go to be "drop dead simple". In a school environment, software solutions should be GUI driven, not some arcane command line voodoo. No, I'm not saying teachers are dumb and cant learn, I'm saying they dont have the time or desire to. I think sometimes Linux programmers forget that the majority of the people on this planet are NOT happy sitting at a command prompt. Period. Its not because we are dumb and refuse to learn CLI, its because we dont think we should have to in order to keep an OS running.
5.) On a software level,.. I'm not sure I have an answer to the question of: "What OS do you teach in school if the job market is predominantly Microsoft?"... thats a head-scratcher. Our educational system quite simply doesnt have the "bandwidth" (time or resources) to teach multiple Operating systems. (can you imagine trying to teach an "Introduction to Business" class for 25 high school sophmores in a computer lab where 5 machines were Windows, 5 were Mac... 5 were Ubunutu...?... no way would that work. As it is, Teachers arent meeting their professional requirements in an all Microsoft environment.
Before leaving the school district,..I had some plans to setup a few small Ubuntu labs (3 to 5 computers) as an experiment to see how they would get used and what worked / didnt work. Unfortunately, I never got the chance.
I wish I had a better answer.. but the problem is multi-faceted, complex, and like a box full of network-cable "spaghetti". Its going to take many long years of dedicated (and possibly volunteer) work to sort out the issues. I loved working in the K-12 environment because I think education is vitally important. But it burned me out and is so damn full of politics and lack of resources that it really needs to be nuked from space.
openSIS, Moodle, Mahara, Elgg there is a ton of internationally based open source products for education
I tend to agree with the folks who have said this would be better as a grassroots thing rather than a top-down decision.
Some things you should probably find out before you start pushing:
* How much money does the state spend on non-OSS software for the schools? Most folks aren't OSS activists or care about the "freedom" of students and teachers and are going to look at OSS strictly in terms of dollars and cents. Also, Microsoft will probably be giving generous discounts to the state -- especially if you become successful in sparking interest in changing things. In fact I wouldn't be too surprised if you found "allies" who really are only concerned with getting a better deal from Microsoft.
* The replacement cost will have to include the cost of training and administration -- do you know what computers are in the school system, who has responsibility for them, what software is loaded on them, how they are used (in practice, not as documented)?
* Do you have a group of parents and teachers who want or are willing to change? The teachers especially can make your plan fail pretty easily if they feel pushed into something.
* How much software is legislatively or bureaucratically mandatory? Is there a State-wide software package (or packages) that the schools have to use? Did the state create this software themselves? Will it run on the end-user systems with the same reliability that it does now?
* Are you going to replace the servers and server software or just the end-user desktops? What part of the State bureaucracy runs the end-user stuff and what part of the State bureaucracy runs the servers (would not be surprised if it were different people)?
* What are the end-user computers used for? Will there be an untold number of overly-complex MS Office forms that won't be formatted properly in Open Office (the answer here is "yes," by the way)? How will those documents be handled? Are there any difficult to replace software packages used by the teachers? How much of the teacher's training materials will have to be fixed or dumped and re-written and how much staff time will that take? Are there gadgets that you don't care about that the staff does that may not work as expected with OSS computers?
Note that you cannot *just* aim for cheaper or "freer" (although it better be cheaper) you will need to be able to prove that OSS will provide a better experience for the admins, teachers, students and taxpayer.
-- I browse at +5 with stripped sigs
For my senior project I requested a donation of PCs from a local business, and they granted it, and I grouped up with a underclassmen (He then used it as his senior project the next year, maintaining it). But we setup Fedora on 32 PCs and setup a server using a form of UNIX I forget. The lab worked perfectly, we were even able to use wine to emulate programs that the school required for testing purposes. It really isn't too hard to convert, you just have to make a convincing argument in a way that people who don't understand open source, will understand IE money.
Having just tried Linux myself, I didn't find it easy to use, simply because I didn't know how to use the CLI.
Depending on what Linux distro and how it is setup Linux can be just as easy as Windows. Years ago Linspire offered a distro that resembled Windows but was easier to use. PlugNPlay worked right out of the box, literally. I bought a new PC with Linspire preinstalled. At home I unpacked and set it up. When I booted up it automatically detected my cable modem and external hard drives. I didn't have to do anything to configure them. Once it was booted up it offered to connect to the net, download, and install updates. With CNR, ClickNRun, you simply choose what software you want to install. CNR supports both open source and proprietary programs and to install one all it takes is to click on the program. To uninstall a program is just as easy. Using Ubuntu installing programs are just about as easy. If you want to use CNR with Ubuntu there is a client you can use, it also works with a number of other Linux distros.
You can embrace OSS while still sticking with the familiar windows or macintosh environment.
I think is a better approach to introducing open source than switching to Linux. With OS X and Windows a lot of proprietary can be easily installed and used to fill gaps that open source leaves open.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
How about an honest to God statewide initiative to provide 1:1 desktop computer access to all secondary students? Indiana's leading the way, boys. As a resident of Minnesota with a couple kids in junior high, I'm extremely jealous.
I teach in K-12 schools (specifically, the 9-12 region).
Consider how most teachers use computers in school. If you live in a relatively wealthy area, they might offer a computer-based class or two (or require typing/etc.). If you go to the majority of schools, there are public labs available for typing papers, "researching" online, and such.
In the former case, where you have a computer-literate teacher with learning/literate-students, go for the open source ideas. It's definitely good skills to have if the kids are going to continue in computer-oriented stuff.
In the latter case, teachers NEED the computers to 1) work, and 2) work in a way familiar to the students so that they don't have to teach kids how to navigate an operating system, use an unfamiliar (and slightly different) word processor/spreadsheet/whatever. It's really time-consuming and frustrating for the teacher to have something not work AND not know how to fix it.
Also consider the kinds of things the computers are needed for, ESPECIALLY standardized tests (which are required thanks to No Child Left Behind). I'd wager that most standardized tests are now given via computer and probably run on Windows-based platforms only.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein
is to get the software adopted in the first place. what might seem like a positive point, the low price of the application, can turn out to be an obstacle. Assume a physiological amount of bribery to exist in every country, a low sales margin means less to go out to whomever orders the software as well as to the sales guy sealing the deal. And bribery doesn't need to be in the form of a monetary exchange either, can be something as simple as finding a job for a friend or some other favour, that won't result in any accounting mishap and won't be easy to find. Low profit margin or power of exchange make the operation too dangerous, and intrinsically favour expensive solutions.
Glad to see that open source textbooks are being mentioned.
You can find a math text book I'm trying to make here. Feedback is appreciated.
My best and only piece of advice on the topic is to get in touch with places that have deployed OSS software in an educational environment.
I have 2 places in mind to give you:
- Gould Academy (prep school in Maine, www.gouldacademy.org): their entire infrastructure runs on Linux (or did at one point), and they used LTLP (www.ltlp.org) a lot, for all the classroom workstations. Good ways of recycling aging hardware.
- OMSI, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry: their computer lab demoes many systems, in equal amounts (Windows, Mac and Linux), and while I was working on a project there, I noticed that the linux boxes were often more crowded than the others, simply because of the availability of edutainment games on the platform.
Other universities may also have Linux deployed in their CS department, and they may have tips as well. Contact them fishing for tips and info, you'll probably get better information than here anyways.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
It should also be noted that getting a bachelor degree at a state university is quite cheap.
While college education is an investment that pays off in the long run, college costs aren't cheap. According to the College Board a year at a state university cost $6,585. While someone from the middle class should be able to afford that many low income students can't. Now what could help those students is if they attend a 2 year community or jr college the first two years.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
taking 2 courses a summer (very conservative plan) at a local community college, they can get a MA or MS in 5 years.
Doesn't a Master degree require 5000 and 6000 level classes? What community college teaches those?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'm in Atlanta, and our CS undergrads start at around $45 or more (now). Also, notice that the *average* salary includes NYC and San Francisco and such :)
Yes, teachers have more vacation than most, but they're definitely underpaid (with rare exceptions)
I am a high school student. I love my Arch Linux box, I am involved i the high school computer club. I think tech is horribly underused at my school. With the computer club, I am making some efforts to get some Linux boxes out there, and I think they could really help the situation (many computers are simply too slow to run Windows). But please, do not try to force this issue at the state level. The result will be science labs unable to use expensive lab equipment just because it uses Windows-only drivers, SMART boards going to waste, ect. And the advantages will not be felt unless there is someone in the district who actually knows what they are doing. But if you want to get involved at the local level, go for it. My only advice is to try to get the computer club(s) involved as much as possible. They need something to do, and would be happy to built computers, set up servers, ect.
technology department. Teachers want Microsoft Office. Not Open Office, not lotus notes. Microsoft Office. They don't want to learn, they are more worried about their kids passing the state tests, and getting tenure.
K-12, as I understand it (it's a US term, and I'm not intimately familiar with the US educational system), ends at age 12.
No, K-12 means kindergarten to 12th grade and most people are about 18 plus or minus a year when they graduate 12th grade
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Linux Terminal Server Project
LTSP
K-12 LTSP
K-12 Linux in Oregon
Linux Journal
Don't spend your life lamenting your life.
http://easterbridge.com/ http://easterbridge.com/files/free-software-in-education.pdf Anne's been presenting on this stuff for quite some time and her work is great. She's got a large compilation of studies and anecdotes from around the world and, if you email her, she'll prove to be a great resource. The Skolelinux guys have been great to work with as well: skolelinux.org One of the hardest challenges is Flash Animations. Lots but lots of educational materials are written in flash and that's often been a limit for educational systems like the OLPC. This is something Gnash has been working diligently to support, but there is a lot of material out there!
It seems that most of the posts here have totally missed the point. The question wasn't about free software, where the "zero price" definition of free is meant. The question was about OSS, i.e., Open Source Software. This means software whose source code is open and available for examination. And in the schools, the justification should be obvious. Just utter the canonical "Think of the children" mantra.
The reason one wants open-source software is that you want to be able to examine the software to make sure that it really does what it's advertised to do, and nothing else. If your software is closed-source, it can (and probably does) have a number of unadvertised "features" that you can't know about. You should ask yourself "Why doesn't the vendor want us to know about those additional features of the software.
And we have lots of experience with answering this question. It's fairly common for proprietary, binary-only software to collect information about its use and report them back to the vendor. In the case of proprietary educational software, this means that data about your child's behavior is being collected and sent to a remote database that you have no access to.
Closed-source software should be automatically considered a tool for collecting data about the users. So you should be asking the school admins "Do we want to allow software that collects data about our children, and keeps it hidden from us?" Explain to them that unless the software is open-source, they have no defense against such data collection. Only open-source software is available for examination to determine what it's really doing.
Get people thinking this way, and you can probably get them out chasing after the closed-source suporters with pitchforks.
(If you succeed, try to get videos. A lot of us would like to watch the fun. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
commodore64_love > You don't have to use the CLI with the latest Linux Mint distro or even Mepis, PCLinuxOS. Seriously the command line is only for the uber geek linux users. I don't like the CLI either and I've been using linux for 9 yrs now. In the past I've had to use it and I'm learning it inside and out only for my LPIC, but my wife hasn't ever used it and she does everything I do but she does it in GNOME and if she's missing something she opens up SYNAPTIC (the GUI for apt). Unless you have some odd hardware that is not Open Source friendly you should never have to use CLI. There's a GUI for everything.
Give up. Here in NY State, people are still being coerced to shell out $150 for a TI-83 calculator for Jr. High Algebra. Even some state college professors insist all papers / spreadsheets / presos be handed in using a specific MS Office release. Why do you think they care what a student, parent or taxpayer has to pay?
I can't believe I read through so many posts and found so little actual information. So here's one.
Schoolforge/
once more into the breach
I work in IT at a County Office of Education in California. There are a few main reasons why it is a hard sell to get open source into the schools.
1) M.S. cuts us a huge deal on the licenses. I pay about $50 for a full copy of Office. It is hard to sell someone on moving to Open Office (even though you and I know it is at least just as good and easy to use as MS office) when there is only $50 at stake. It will cost more than that to deal with just a few interoperability complaints (even if they are unfounded).
2) (this has been mentioned a lot above) people / unions / etc... are afraid to change and don't want the extra work.
3) Nobody gives kids credit to figure things out. 'If we don't teach office, how will they work when they graduate?' Never mind the fact that office will be different by that time. And really, is there any difference in usability between a new version of MS Office and Open Office?
I used Office and Open Office in the above examples but the same comparison goes for any replacements you may want to make.
I think that we are doing a disservice to our kids by not exposing them to more than one way to do things.
The good news is that, I assure you, there are people in IT and elsewhere who are doing what they can (some more than others) to get Open Source tools into the education system.
I knew people at the jr. college I went to that were paying about $10 for a semester... even books were paid for. I am from the middle class, so I wasn't eligible for that financial aid, my costs were still really cheap though.
Before I ever started college I thought it was terrible to go to a community college, "who would go to a baby college?" My parents were lower income, my father enlisted and retired from the US Air Force and my mother worked her way through a two year tech school to become an assistant in a hospital lab. So they didn't have the money to pay for college for either of my sisters, I have 2, or I. Even though I took some advanced classes my grades in high school weren't good so I didn't qualify for scholarships and I didn't know about need based financial aid. So I decided to enlist in the military to save money so I could go to college. When I went into the Army I signed up for VEAP, Veterans Educational Assistance Program, and had money deducted from my pay. When I got out my younger sister had registered at the local community college and talked me into at least going there to look it over. My thoughts about them changed after that. For lower level courses I think community or jr colleges are actually better. The classes are smaller in general, and the professors are there to teach, not do research while grad students teach. And the tuition was maybe 1/5 of the tuition at the state university.
All that said, even at $6500 (does that include room/board?) per year, we're looking at what, $15,000 for a four year degree?
Yes the $6500 does include room and board, I didn't think it did at first. However for 4 years that's $26,000.
$31k can go a long ways, especially if you are single.
I agree, I scrape by on about half that but I wouldn't wish my life on my enemy.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Uhm, would that have anything to do with the reason that the computers used for record keeping at the schools where I work are on completely separate networks from the ones the students use, and from the ones the teachers use to make teaching materials?
(And that is with a company hired to administer the networks. On MSWindows, of course.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Anyway, the lathes would be a problem.
Software doesn't have to be.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
But there will usually be one or two students in each class interested enough in learning the how and why, and that's all it takes.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
i have raised this question yesterdy in Apple Streaming-server-users list because of an statement of Obame about Barack Obama proves the power of Open Source http://www.opensource.org/node/372 i thought to myself that opensource is the only solution for evolving and learning in an university enviroment, but thats the only reply i got:
-- The reason why open source software is poorly adopted is because of freetards like you. You just have to push your opinions at every chance, even when they are clearly unwanted, such as in a technical listserv. People like you give OSS a bad name. You are rude, so OSS becomes associated with rude advocates like you who think that software quality is dependent more on arcane licensing issues than on pure functionality. Some of us have JOBS and have to solve technical problems to pay our rent. We may choose to purchase commercial software because it is an efficient solution to our problems. You can be part of the solution, or part of the problem. Your political rants are not contributing to any solutions. If you want to turn people away from OSS, then just keep doing what you're doing, act like a freetard, and give the world another reason to believe the whole realm of OSS is run by demented socialists and hippies. http://lists.apple.com/archives/Streaming-server-users/2009/Feb/msg00140.html
Opinions expressed may not even be mine by the time you read them, and certainly don't reflect those of any other entity
I'm working toward the same goal here in North Carolina. One of the bigger obstacles is overcoming the technical side of building, maintaining the applications. However, if Kansas like many other states including North Carolina is investigating "cloud" computing for K-12... then the Open Source build/maintain/manage issues become very much less of a problem since instead of the burden being laid upon local school districts the systems administration can be done for them. This also lends itself to a much less expensive desktop client machine requirement as a Browser becomes the basis for most of the applications that get used. A good example of this would be to do something similar to what www.jumpbox.com does. Check out their "virtualized" version of Moodle here: http://www.jumpbox.com/product/Education Moodle's open source and there would be nothing to prevent Kansas from building their own apps like Moodle and hosting it in a "cloud" for the K-12.
Everyday teachers should solicit WHY type questions (both rational and irrational) from children and disclose them in school notice boards or in a website.
I believe this will enhance intrinsic motivation of children.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Computers can be tools or toys. An OS is an OS when it comes to educational tools. Young people (my 13 year old twins) are agnostic when it comes to computers. That is until they hear opinions of people that only know how to use one OS. We have Macs, Windows and Linux boxes at home and my kids learned to use Linux at the same time they learned to use the other OSs. The sub $300 netbooks with Linux will change everything, as kids get them at a young age and learn Linux as their first OS. Schools can benefit from Open Source, because the basics needed for education are free. I'd bet they could get 2x-3x as many computers, or save over 50% if they started using Open Source.
I can tell you from personal experience, that not only can Linux be used for a K-12 school computer system, it's the best solution.
I've helped over the last three years to build a Linux Terminal Server to serve thin clients to a charter school of 350 students in Oregon. Using LTSP to serve the desktop up to the clients, LDAP for authentication via a separate server, and Ubuntu as the OS, we have made a stable, low maintainence, and most importantly CHEAP solution that requires almost no adjustment for the end users. Out of the kids who come to this school, only a few of them had even heard of Linux beforehand and none of them had used it, and the learning curve was virtually nonexistent.
All in all, we have spent $10,000 over the last 7 years on computer tech, and spend about 30 minutes a week on maintenence. The rest of our time is spent finding ways of improving the system.
The clients themselves are fully fuctional Gnome-based Ubuntu desktops. They can even mount local USB drives!
I'm basicly rambling at this point, but the point is, Linux is applicable in the educational environment. If you want more information on it, feel free to email me, I can give you a more complete picture of what we've done up here.
If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention.
This has all been done. You just grab a disk and install it. Call Ubuntu support when you get stuck. Use Moodle for LMS, and there you go. Problem solved. You don't need legislation, discussions, etc.
I work in a public secondary school in Thailand. When I started, the computers were all pirated windows, adobe, office, etc and had viruses, malware, no updates, etc. The network was unusable as well as the internet thanks to the botnets. After we got an open minded computer teacher, he spent a month reinstallingOS, removing viruses, etc. We plopped down a $200 server and installed Moodle. Previously I was just using my laptop.
Anyhow, here's how it goes: You get everything working, set up a curriculum, everyone gets envious, and suddenly an ass-hat swoops in to claim credit for everything. You lose your job/ get outsourced to India. Some company comes in and sells the school on their fee-based open source solution, and then everybody gets screwed while one person gets rich.
Oh and by the way, I use open source for everything I do in my job. Since I can't print to the networked printer(worked fine then stopped, it's on an XP box) I use my thumb drive to go over and print from that machine which promptly copies a virus to my drive. Isn't that special?
I've been a MS user all my life, and after first loading up Ubuntu, I could figure out where Firefox, the office applications and the games are within 30 seconds. From a very basic user interaction standpoint, it's just like Windows, but with a few rearranged icons.
The largest districts and state offices, where IT budgets run in the tens of millions, look into OSS. Of all public school districts, large district budgets most closely resemble the private companies that actually have the money to benefit from the TCO of OSS. It's not just about the money, because there is plenty of money kicking around in large districts. It's about directing it to OSS. OSS is slow to catch on in K-12 because the private technology companies have boots on the ground like you wouldn't believe. Having worked on OSS and proprietary projects at large school districts and the state level, I can tell you that private companies approach K-12 CIOs on a regular basis. They have sunk billions into marketing to K-12. Too often the worst technology is what rises to the top in K-12 and this is because the companies that get in have the best marketing, not necessarily the best technology. Plus, once a technology has been deployed it usually rots on the vine because people are too busy to do the work involved to make it great, useful, and most importantly beneficial to student learning. If a teacher actually learns and uses a system that crashes or does not make his job of educating childrern easier, he's going to walk away and probably not go back, so the expectations here are extremely high. After all, he's got hundreds of kids in his face all day, papers to grade, and he's probably not that interested in technology to begin with. Yet the school or district has plunked down cash and invested human resources, so the golden handcuff syndrome begins. It's a different story with organizations who rely on technology for revenue, such as private companies, where employees often have the time to get the training they need. Right now, the Holy Grail of OSS in K-12, IMHO, is an open source assessment system. There are only a few assessment systems on the market. All of them are proprietary and they are all lame.
Much of this depends on what you want to do.
If you want to run the Big 4 (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, internet browsing) then FOSS solutions are idea. In my last school however:
* Staff used a client server commercial package called RenWeb for record keeping, lesson plans, and parent communication. Client was winsooze only .NET application with a raft of custom DLLs
* As the photography instructor I used and taught photoshop. I'm sorry but the Gimp just doesn't cut it.
* As an outdoor program coordinator I used Mapmaker Pro and Oziexplorer to build maps and to move data to/from my GPS. I've found no equivalent of Mapmaker that is OSS.
* As part of support we had a number of MS access quick and dirty database apps, each with a bunch of entry forms, and reports. I've spent days searching for an equivalent package that allows rapid database application prototyping. (I looked at kexi, knoda, rekall, bond, glom, pfm, and PgAdmin)
This doesn't mean that FOSS is not usable, but in most systems it will need to be a parallel system to paid software.
IF I were in charge of a school district I would look at doing it this way:
1. I would deploy student machines as being some form of terminal only. Students with laptops could use windows rdesktop, or VNC.
2. I would buy high end boxes stuffed with memory and run a bunch of instances of virtualbox or equivalent vmware, or remote X. Using immutable images in virtualbox makes for systems that are hard for the kids to corrupt.
3. Users on startup could select if they needed a windows session or a linux session or a mixed session. Tweak the system so that equivalent applications on linux ran faster.
4. Servers would run FOSS. Working around Active Domain isn't that difficult, especially if the vast majority of your windows installations are virtual.
5. In a few cases you need individual high powered machines. (Running photoshop in virtualbox is less than satisfactory)
I would make the transition as follows:
A. Using whatever machines I could get, I would start setting up ancillary servers. DHCP, YP, SMTP, POP, IMAP, NFS, SMB. This gives my admins experience in working with open source operating systems, but in a way that is easy to back out of. E.g. Initial Samba services can be for doing backups.
B. When this works, and admins are comfortable with it, I'd bring in 1 high power box per site, and set it up as a VB server. Initially it would serve only windows, and it would serve to visiting laptops. This is sold as a security measure to protect your network from laptops with unknown software.
C. Once this works, I'd convert one lab at each site to thin client setup. Their existing hard drives would be untouched while learning how the system works. Eventually this is sold as a cost cutting measure, as it permits running the lab machines for more years. After the admins are happy with the results, rip out the disks. This makes the lab both quieter and cooler.
D. Introduce VBox with saved state to staff. Being able to shut down in their classroom, and reopen at home and have the same machine state for their record keeping, lesson plans and so on will be a win. Or they can leave the machine at work, and have a client session from home.
E. With the money saved from not having to upgrade all the labs, I'd make a few high end machine sets for applications that are demanding such as Photoshop, and Final Cut Pro.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
One of the primary reasons many schools are still tied tightly to proprietary software is that the state departments of education are still on proprietary software. Worse, those Depts. of Ed. develop systems that require proprietary software--and then mandate those systems. Even web-based systems (where you'd hope that some vendor independence would arise) are often designed in such a way that no browser other than IE can be used. Where you need to start with those legislators is in getting them to mandate that state departments of education open reporting systems and mechanisms. When schools find out that they can actually meet their state requirements for reporting and save lots of licensing $$$ at the same time, the beginnings of a move will be on. There are many, many districts that would be overjoyed to find out that the cost of meeting their state (or federal) requirements could be significantly lowered. Retraining a reasonably competent administrative person to use Open Office Writer (as an example) instead of Microsoft Word is no big thing. It's as easy (and in many cases *easier*) than retraining that same administrator to move from Office 2003 to Office 2007, and one needn't pay licensing fees for the privilege.
You said "Windows isn't perfect, but install everything with the default settings, click "ok" on any actual message from the OS on updating, and you'll be fine." My point was that if everything was fine then businesses would not need to setup test systems. You only setup test systems to test, if everything's fine then no testing it needed.
On a school network, with 1000+ computers, one mediocre administrator can keep them in real good shape
BS! After using Windows almost exclusively for more than 10 years I switched to Mac in part because I got sick and tired of constantly having Windows crash. The only version of Windows I did not have trouble with was NT4. However I had my NT4 PC 3 years before MS stopped making updates available. Windows NT 4 came out on 24 Aug 1996, I got it in December 1997 and the last update I was able to download was in 2000.
If these are for classrooms, most of the time the "server" is the teacher's computer with a share and a printer hanging off the back, and so there isn't real server administration to be done. Most educated home users could get it done.Can you honestly assert the same thing with Linux?
It depends on what Linux distro is used. I've used a Linux distro, Linspire, that was easier to admin than Windows. Of course distros like Debian are harder but then again it is for those who want stability, don't mind not having the latest and greatest, and is willing to work with the command line interface. Debian is not for someone who just wants to get things done, but Ubuntu is for that person.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
>>>you get to choose which projects you bid and work on don't you?
No not really. I just take whatever comes across my desk.
All of the consultants I knew, admittedly I think it's less than 20, picked which projects they wanted to work on.
When I arrive I use the company's computers
Some of them I knew did work on their clients' computer but then they were setting up or were working on them. Those who worked on projects other than that used their own computers. If you use your client's computer you better be careful. The IRS takes a dim view of consultants and freelancers that use the client's equipment. The IRS takes a bunch of factors into consideration to determine whether a person is a consultant/freelancer or an employee. One of those questions is # Does the worker furnish significant tools, materials and equipment? If yes then the person is a consultant but if not then they probably are employees.
To date I've never had anyone ask me, "Do you know Linux?" Not once.
And how many of them are repeat clients or have you recommended to them? I know if I recommend someone I'll be sure they are capable first. I won't recommend someone who doesn't know Linux to someone who needs someone else to work on Linus systems just as I wouldn't recommend someone who doesn't know Windows to work on Windows systems, or Macs. There aren't many better or worse ways, depending on how you look at it, to damage your own reputation than to recommend someone who is not capable.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You'd be surprised to know how much open source is used in schools. Granted most of it isn't at the desktop, but there are a large number of schools using things like Audacity, IPCop, Nagios, Zimbra, Moodle, Drupal, etc on Linux. So ask the question why are these apps used in schools, and it usually is because they are best of breed software in it's category. So if you want to get more free/open source software into schools, then make killer applications that give them a reason to be there.
I write about FOSS in schools frequently. See:
http://trombonechamp.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/10-reasons-why-free-software-and-gnulinux-should-be-used-in-schools/