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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...
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.
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.
From what I've seen lately, if you put edubuntu on a bunch of machines, the kids will figure out how to use them before the teacher finds the power switch.
Never use the ignorance and laziness of an adult as an excuse to stifle the education and development of a child!
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?
who does it now? That is your answer. If they cant, then tell them, learn or we need to replace you. Magically they learn.
problem is most schools dont have an answer to the question. One charter school in Detroit used Best Buy! Their school was a mess, the cisco firewall was disconnected and a linksys put in place as the Geek squad moron told them it was better. all the servers were a mess, and the network was a disaster. They hired us to fix it, then told us the contract was too much and went back to "ala-carte" random computer dweeb company for its-on-fire repairs. I think at least 50 people in southfield knows the admin passwords to all their stuff.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.