Schools, I think, will find that Linux boxes serve as much better educational tools because they are very cheap, they last a long time, they allow for scalability of education (GUI environment for kiddies, good development environment for upper-age CS students), and it gives a much better understanding of how the technologies work which is what kids will need to know to compete in the marketplace. "
As a high school student (tulare, ca), I must disagree with the idea that public education will pick up on linux/open source.
"they are cheap"- true, but hiring administrators for the district who understands the concepts of unix is not. Novell/windows admins are a dime a dozen, but those experienced enough to do the same task on large public school networks w/linux are going to be much more of an investment than just hiring one of those novell admins and not changing the current system's setup.
Linux is also still seen as a rebel, a second-best operating system to nt-admins who have never set down to learn anything about it, thus, those with the power to decide such things, will see it as too much of a risk when it comes to overhauling entire networks and things like that.
"they last a long time"- true again, but for network admins here, all they do to maintain their computers is make a single working copy of the regestry and copy it to the computers when something acts up. (all of them, all 100 in the district, have the same hardware). how hard is that?
as far as the education side, the saddest part, i have yet to meet anyone who was a staff member at High School level with linux/unix knowledge. they seem somewhat intimidated and scared of it. i have made repeated attempts through my time in high school for them to change their proxy setup to allow ftp access so i could reach crucial linux documents while i was in the media center, and this has really been laughed at.
the advantage of windows for the schools is it does not take a teacher to stand there and give lessons to new computer users of what to do-- after clicking so many buttons, they get the hang of it. on the other hand, a complete computer novice, would probably never get anywhere in linux as their first experience (atleast that is an educators POV)....
speaking from experience, but public education is afraid of linux/open source still....
This is not intended to be flamebait. I am the last person to make a stand for MS and i strongly believe, as most in the know would agree, that MS is guilty of the majority of the antitrust findings that came out today (if not all), and is about time for someone with some power so step up and sort of end the Big Brother (1984?) policy that MS has employed through the years-- but what about the effect this might have on the other realms that software and technology have a hue effect on near the turn of the century, specically the economy? Is anyone else out there worried that this might spark a dramatic turn around to the rise of tech. stocks ? Will it scare off consumers who really dont know what it is CNN is telling them? I know I am far from being an expert on Stock Trading (pretty far from that really), but as of 4:25pm (based on CNN), their stock had already come down 3 points, and where will it go next week? How about the rest of the market? I, and certainly no one else here in America, would like to see our boom come to an end, even at the cost of ending MS's stronghold on the desktop world... is this a valid worry?
Well, may this be a path breaking case (and well needed) that came out of California? I hate to complain, but it's nice to see a liberal bill for once put to good use. As many BS laws and bills are passed here, finally one that kinda gives a CA Resdient a good feeling (unless that resident be the spammer).:)
Slashdot Mirror
Schools, I think, will find that Linux boxes serve as much better educational tools because they are very cheap, they last a long time, they allow for scalability of education (GUI environment for kiddies, good development environment for upper-age CS students), and it gives a much better understanding of how the technologies work which is what kids will need to know to compete in the marketplace. "
As a high school student (tulare, ca), I must disagree with the idea that public education will pick up on linux/open source.
"they are cheap"- true, but hiring administrators for the district who understands the concepts of unix is not. Novell/windows admins are a dime a dozen, but those experienced enough to do the same task on large public school networks w/linux are going to be much more of an investment than just hiring one of those novell admins and not changing the current system's setup.
Linux is also still seen as a rebel, a second-best operating system to nt-admins who have never set down to learn anything about it, thus, those with the power to decide such things, will see it as too much of a risk when it comes to overhauling entire networks and things like that.
"they last a long time"- true again, but for network admins here, all they do to maintain their computers is make a single working copy of the regestry and copy it to the computers when something acts up. (all of them, all 100 in the district, have the same hardware). how hard is that?
as far as the education side, the saddest part, i have yet to meet anyone who was a staff member at High School level with linux/unix knowledge. they seem somewhat intimidated and scared of it. i have made repeated attempts through my time in high school for them to change their proxy setup to allow ftp access so i could reach crucial linux documents while i was in the media center, and this has really been laughed at.
the advantage of windows for the schools is it does not take a teacher to stand there and give lessons to new computer users of what to do-- after clicking so many buttons, they get the hang of it. on the other hand, a complete computer novice, would probably never get anywhere in linux as their first experience (atleast that is an educators POV)....
speaking from experience, but public education is afraid of linux/open source still....
This is not intended to be flamebait. I am the last person to make a stand for MS and i strongly believe, as most in the know would agree, that MS is guilty of the majority of the antitrust findings that came out today (if not all), and is about time for someone with some power so step up and sort of end the Big Brother (1984?) policy that MS has employed through the years-- but what about the effect this might have on the other realms that software and technology have a hue effect on near the turn of the century, specically the economy? Is anyone else out there worried that this might spark a dramatic turn around to the rise of tech. stocks ? Will it scare off consumers who really dont know what it is CNN is telling them? I know I am far from being an expert on Stock Trading (pretty far from that really), but as of 4:25pm (based on CNN), their stock had already come down 3 points, and where will it go next week? How about the rest of the market? I, and certainly no one else here in America, would like to see our boom come to an end, even at the cost of ending MS's stronghold on the desktop world... is this a valid worry?
Well, may this be a path breaking case (and well needed) that came out of California? I hate to complain, but it's nice to see a liberal bill for once put to good use. As many BS laws and bills are passed here, finally one that kinda gives a CA Resdient a good feeling (unless that resident be the spammer). :)