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How Linux Saved A School's Failing Windows Laptop Program (opensource.com)
OpenSource.com reports on a Minnesota school's 1:1 program -- one device per child -- where "Lots of the Windows laptops were in very poor condition and needed to be replaced."
An anonymous reader writes:
An Indiegogo campaign triggered extra money and donations of laptops, allowing the school's Linux club to equip much of the school with Linux laptops. "When you're using open source software you're free to use operating systems and application software without the hassle of license keys or license tracking inherent with proprietary software," says Stu Keroff, the school's technology coordinator. "This allows a school to experiment [and] gives them the freedom to make mistakes...
But there's also another benefit. "By empowering the students to be part of that process we were able to get more done, and to generate more excitement about the learning that the students were taking part in." There's now a waiting list for the school's Linux club, where they'd planned to cap membership at 35...until 62 students applied. Instead, they found themselves creating two Linux clubs, one for the sixth graders, and one for the 7th and 8th graders.
And to answer the obvious question -- they're using Ubuntu, with the Unity desktop.
But there's also another benefit. "By empowering the students to be part of that process we were able to get more done, and to generate more excitement about the learning that the students were taking part in." There's now a waiting list for the school's Linux club, where they'd planned to cap membership at 35...until 62 students applied. Instead, they found themselves creating two Linux clubs, one for the sixth graders, and one for the 7th and 8th graders.
And to answer the obvious question -- they're using Ubuntu, with the Unity desktop.
I manage a network of 150 Ubuntu desktops. They outnumber Windows in my workplace. When we went to upgrade from 10.04 to 14.04 we did a bunch of comparison testing with various Linux distros and DEs. Ubuntu/Unity won and users are generally very satisfied with it. I use it as a daily driver with 2x 32" monitors and it's brilliant. Not for everyone obviously, but I certainly don't understand all the hate.
they're using Ubuntu
Not an "obvious" question. As long as they're using Linux, I'm happy!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
"Kids, today we learn about how to search on the internet. First, connect to www.google.com and then enter "linux bluetooth keyboard doesn't work". Your assignment for tonight is to read all the forums and write a 2-page report due tomorrow on how to fix the linux bluetooth driver. Good luck, dismissed!"
"I seriously hate the Unity desktop with a passion."
Okay.
"I don't know anyone who likes it."
Okay.
"If Unity was the only desktop available for Linux, I'd use Windows."
It's not and who cares what you use.
it's like McDonald's food. nobody finds it delicious but nobody is completely repulsed by it either. if push comes to shove (e.g. you're hungry and in a hurry), a big mac will eventually cross your mind. it's just hard to be enthusiastic about it. (maybe this is different in the US, but here in Europe, only children look forward to going to McDonalds)
my only real gripe with unity is its file manager. i want to be able to see/edit the location line and have an UP arrow between the BACK and FORWARD ones.
I have used linux on an IBM Thinkpad, a Dell Inspiron, and 4 HP laptops of various lines, and this is the full list of hardware that didn't work:
- One TV tuner
- The fingerprint reader on at least 1 laptops (one other laptop with fingerprint reader worked). I haven't checked if there is a solution for the newer fingerprint readers.
All have suspended/resumed adequately compared to their behaviour under Windows. WiFi worked out-the-box except for one that required extraction of the firmware from the Windows driver (didn't require any command line though).
My current laptop has a Windows partition that gets almost no use, my usual linux distro, and an installation of RHEL7.2. The installation of my normal distro suspends fine, but the RHEL7.2 installation won't suspend. So, there may be differences such as this between distros depending on their focus.
It's all systemd anyway.
To be fair; the laptops are a means to an end, not the learning goal in and off itself.
It makes sense, especially for 8th graders and below, to not dive into the murky waters of having to hack convoluted configuration files to get a driver working.
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They're fucking these kids over for life anyway. ... It's simply an act of desperation.
The alternative is not Windows, because they've basically found (like every other school without a rich patron that's tried the same thing) that replacements for obsolescence, and the loss of paid-for licenses with hardware failure makes it impossible to get to full coverage because after a certain number of units are implemented, replacing existing units takes up the entire budget.
There's a similar situation when schools try to roll out iPads. They try to stage them by year groups, and given that they don't go with the latest shiny-shiny (can't afford it), the units are only likely to be supported with iOS updates for about 3 years, so well before their 5-year rollout is finished, they're suddenly forced into implementing rolling replacements with the budget that was supposed to be for new devices. (Although at least iOS app licenses aren't tied to a specific device so can be reinstalled on the replacements.)
Pupils will have a chance to get to learn Windows in class, but this gives them something extra that they would otherwise be denied.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Where I work we hire folks right out of technical school with no experience as well as 50 year old's with a significant list of certs and experience. We are primarily a Windows shop. A newbie who runs Linux at home or an old guy who maintains a local non profit's Linux network would have an edge over other applicants.
Troll... But I'll bite and answer. You can say the same thing about schools going for tablets (Android & iPad) and Chromebooks. Also, there are some institutions, mainly gouvernemental institutions in Europe switching massively to LibreOffice and Linux... Ok, the story is about the USA, but it does show that the market could change. Beside, I expect someone to be able to adapt to a new OS and tool suite quiet easily. Even with a FOSS background, these kids will easily be able to adapt to any job requiring Windows and MS Office.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
While I agree with you 100% (well, maybe 90%; I've never seen a dock or dock analog that I liked), it kind of makes us dinosaurs to even have much of an opinion. Even an old fart like me switches between Windows, MacOS, Mint and Xfce and I hardly even notice. The differences between them may look stark, but it's like arguing about how much chrome trim you can slap on your car's tailfins before it gets tacky.
I used to be a KDE user, and I try every new version that comes out and I come to the same conclusion: gee that's impressive, but I don't need it; what I really want out of a desktop environment is to stay out of my way. In a way desktop environments have become like the command line shell -- which as a developer I still use quite a bit. You still need them, but the center of mass of user experience has shifted out to the cloud and to mobile devices. Stuff like widgets are a total waste of time because people do that stuff on their phone, or in browser extensions. A good file manager is nice, but these days most of my work data is in the cloud or in git. Most of the native desktop apps I use are cross platform, except one does occasionally need to fire up MS Office to communicate with the primitives.
If it weren't for MS Office there'd be no reason at all to ever use Windows. I may be a little ahead of the curve for my ancient cohort, but my college age kids have no attachment to Windows or MacOS at all; they use whatever is provided. What matters to them is the phone and the browser.
The main differences these days are how much screen real estate your desktop environment takes up (less is more), how user notifications are handled (getting better in most cases), and how nice the fonts are (still rocky in some Linux distros).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Also, there are some institutions, mainly gouvernemental institutions in Europe switching massively to LibreOffice and Linux... Ok, the story is about the USA, but it does show that the market could change. Beside, I expect someone to be able to adapt to a new OS and tool suite quiet easily. Even with a FOSS background, these kids will easily be able to adapt to any job requiring Windows and MS Office.
The market is changing. And people with Linux can easily adapt to Windows - they are already adapted to OSX.
One of the nice things about Linux is that it is stable enough that you can actually learn stuff on it. The last few years of working with Windows has been trying to fix stuff that has broken.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The average school budget in the US is between $10000 and $20000 per student-year. An adequate computer shouldn't cost over $500 and most of the software needed is available in "close-enough" form as freeware. Your claim is off by a factor of 20 to 40.
Adding an extra $500 per student is kiss of death to these kinds of things. Your lack of understanding as to where that money goes is disheartening. Education is resource intensive like no other industry because of several factors. First, unlike retail, wholesale, and services, your budget per customer has to accoodate their prolonged daily use of the product of every single customer. This means your infrastructure costs are going to be massively higher than any other industry. Add on top of that, your labor costs are far more complicated, in that it takes far more labor resources to provide teaching than most people realize. Its not just the lone teacher at the front of the class, but the small army of maintenance, janotorial and other staff that are needed to make a school run.
Now on top of all that, lets go to middle America. A place where the median household income is around $40k. You want the typical 2 child family to shell out how much per year for education? $10k per student? thats a $20k per year burden, or half of that families income. Or lets say you want to spread that cost to the entire community, but that includes asking the childless and elderly to pay a very large portion of their income for a service they will never get any direct benefit from. The problem you will quickly run into is that those folks vote too, and you have to tread a fine line with your school budget or they will vote your budget down in a hurry.
All of that adds up to a very precarious balance in the school budget that often has a hard time coming up with the $150 per student to buy used text books, can barely pay their teachers a wage that will keep them from having to have 2 jobs just to eat and still has a hard time getting passed when the town / village gets to vote on it. Thats the budget you want to add $500 to? I'm afraid you hadn't thought that through very clearly.
As an exercise, I would recommend picking any middle class neighborhood in the country and go door to door campaigning for a $45 per month increase in their taxes per child in their household to pay for those laptops and see how long you can keep your limbs attached to your body.
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