[ubuntu-uk] Open Source Challenges Vista at U.K. Education Show
Alistair Crust
alistair at skegnessgrammar.org
Thu Jan 18 09:44:09 GMT 2007
We do have a few white boards although they are used with laptops, (WinXp re installed as part of the Laptop of Techers scheme). However the latest version of the smartboard software does have a linux version. As of yet I havn't had a chance to test how well it works.
Regards
Alistair
----- Original Message -----
From: London School of Puppetry
To: British Ubuntu Talk
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 6:35 PM
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Open Source Challenges Vista at U.K. Education Show
I have seen whiteboard in a number of schools recently all working brilliantly. Caroline
On 17/01/07, Toby Smithe < toby.smithe at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi. I'm curious: do you have whiteboards and do they work?
On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 09:42 +0000, Alistair Crust wrote:
> Hi, I would have to strongly disagree with your outlook here.
> I talk from experience as a systems admin at Skegness Grammar school in
> Lincolnshire. We have run LTSP with several different distros for 3 years
> (Settling on Debian, then Ubuntu) on 100+ thin clients with Ubuntu fat
> clients in most of the department offices and all services web-filtering,
> email, intranet etc using Linux. Legacy apps are available using win2k3
> Terminal services. All curriculum teaching is done using Linux. We are now a
> Maths and Computing Specialist school.
>
> Although I must admit any advances into education by OSS and GNU/Linux in
> general will be, and have been, hard at first the more it is used the more
> Managers, Teachers, Software vendors.. even school governors wanting to make
> the most of their budget will see the benefits.
>
> To clarify I recently read in a blog post by Mark Shuttleworth
> (http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/76) that for hardware
> manufacturers it seems to be about critical mass... once 5-10% of people are
> asking for Linux support only then will they care about providing that
> support. IMHO this also is the case for software vendors.
>
> Without that critical mass in education, shouting to manufacturers
> (hardware/software) then it will be a struggle for advancement but not
> impossible. Once we have this critical mass, software vendors and hardware
> vendors alike will care about why they are loosing out on a viable and
> important revenue stream. With BECTA et al reiterating the need for OSS this
> will help to grow the seeds of change..for the better.
>
> I would love to see some way that government could provide funding to OSS
> projects to continue there sterling work. Funding that would ordinarily go
> to proprietary systems that bear a great risk for vendor lock-in. Look at
> the funding for the Compulsory.. sorry Optional KS3 ICT Online...sorry
> On-screen Test....sorry Assessment. (This just shows the U turn the
> government has done when they found out things were not going as smoothly as
> they thought, and they had spend a shed load of tax payers cash and it
> wasn't going to do what they wanted it to do). This cash could have gone to
> funding something useful... even getting someone like Canonicle to build an
> On-line distro neutral Test... something that works!
>
> To close, I know I haven't been the most active member of the list as I have
> limited spare time. I did however feel compelled to add my two peneth here.
> I'll get of my soap box now.
>
> Keep up the great work with OSS promotion.. as I said critical mass, the
> more we chip away at this the better it becomes. To coin a phrase "Every
> Little Helps!"(tm)
>
> Regards
>
> Alistair Crust
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Colin_The_Technician" <binarysignal at gmail.com>
> To: "British Ubuntu Talk" < ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 11:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Open Source Challenges Vista at U.K. Education Show
>
>
> >I was at the BETT Show and saw the Open Forum Europe stand and the
> > Edubuntu CD's. Also the Internet cafe there was powered by Linux. So
> > while it's good to see them at BETT I personally never think Linux we
> > make any advances into education. And I say that as a school Network
> > Manager.
> >
> > I say that because of the 190 poor written and designed educational
> > applications we have on our network NONE of them have Linux versions.
> > That is with one exception....the new Yr9 ICT SAT software has a Linux
> > version and I noticed that just yesterday.
> >
> > I do promote OSS and Linux within education. I have converted one
> > teacher and two students to Ubuntu. And given OpenOffice to many
> > students who do not have MS Office on their home PCs.
> >
> > I believe OpenOffice, The GIMP and other OSS applications could do
> > well in schools, but I believe the desktop OS will always be Windows.
> > Mainly because myself and my colleagues (MS Admins) are ten a penny :-)
> >
> > --
> > ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
> > https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > No virus found in this incoming message.
> > Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> > Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.16.12/630 - Release Date:
> > 15/01/2007 20:28
> >
> >
>
>
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