Fw: Ubuntu for School

[epic93dude at gmail.com]

Someone at ubuntu-marketing told me to send this to you all. I'm a 15 year old sophomore in a school in the US , going to try to get my school to adopt ubuntu. Perhaps you might have an idea what a teacher/principal's concerns might be about ubuntu or FOSS in general.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Epic93dude at gmail.com
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:53:16 
To: <ubuntu-marketing at lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Ubuntu for School

Hi Ubuntu-Marketing. I ama a student at a small high school in Southwest  
Missouri. Recently we had an assignment in a class where we had to give a  
presentation on a group/organization/movement. I chose to give my  
presentation on Ubuntu. I explained what an operating system was, then what  
open source software was. I explained how the open source community worked  
and why Open Source Software tends to be more secure, faster, and easier to  
use than Proprietary Software, and how these benefits were present in  
Ubuntu, in a way that the average computer user could understand. I also  
demonstrated some programs that come with Ubuntu and how they could do many  
of the tasks just as well or sometimes better than their Proprietary  
counterparts.

The response was great. Several students were interested in learning more  
about Ubuntu and OSS after I gave the presentation. The school's principal,  
who also happened to be there during the presentation, was also interested  
in Ubuntu as well as the applications that I showed. I think that there is  
an opportunity of some kind here to get OSS in use at my school, because  
the students, teacher (of the class I gave the presentation in), and  
principal all seemed to be open towards the concept of free software.

What I want to do is get my school to at least try Ubuntu out in one of the  
computer labs or something like that. I think if I could demonstrate that  
it is a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows + Office, which is what we  
currently use on all our computers, would save decent amounts of money, and  
would give access to some pretty amazing educational programs (The periodic  
table of elements program immediately comes to mind), they would be willing  
to try it.

That being said, I need to be able to convince the IT staff that it would  
be easy to learn, easier to manage than Windows Server Edition (Which is  
what we use), and compatible with the current infrastructure that we have.  
If I can do that, plus convince the administration that we would save costs  
etc., I think they would consider trying it out, or even switching over  
entirely.

Can you guys help me with this (especially the convincing the IT staff  
part) ?

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