[ubuntu-florida] who's using Edubuntu?

[Andrew Watts]

Here is my two cents.

I would provide a detailed presentation to the school principal along with
other faculty.  The best way to get things done is with support.  If the
entire school is behind the idea then proceed.  I was a student where a test
program was going on and the reason it became successful was because the
entire faculty was behind it.  If you present it as an educational tool that
enhances the learning experience the teachers and faculty will embrace it.
The key is to show off the benefits.  Ultimately its going to come down to
test scores.  If the school can do better on testing the school gets more
money, teachers get paid better and so on, this is a key point when bringing
computers in the class room.  Hell i would push for the district to get the
XO laptop, every child should own one.  Books these days weigh a ton and
cost well over $180, why aren't schools buy lots of XO laptops?

On 10/20/07, ElementC <wer4geeks at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I know that the following is probably painfully obvious, but heres all
> the information I could gather on the subject:
>
> 1: Public schools in Florida all are required to go through their
> district offices for any technological decisions. That means that
> youre probably starting in the wrong place. However, if you metnion
> that thin-clients are really cheap to the correct people, you might be
> able to get them interested in a 15-20 workstation pilot test.
>
> 2: http://www.edubuntu.org/GettingStarted is the best place to look if
> you;re just getting started. you might want to try getting that set up
> so that you have something to show if you manage to get them
> interested (a couple of pentium IIs running from your home desktop
> would be good enough; it impressed my contact at the SBBC fairly
> easily, {especially when I netbooted three library computers from my
> laptop, but that's another story] and you can usually find a few
> pentium IIs in their dumpsters).
>
> 3: Most of these tech experts are even more overworked than teachers,
> try not to push them too hard on the first meeting. Also, don't expect
> immediate large success, most of the larger school boards have signed
> themselves over to M$ till xp freezes over.
>
> 4: About ninety seven percent of the computers in my school district
> are donated Pentium III and IVs from NASA, running Windows 2000 pro.
> Two percent are larger, fater-processored machines running Windows
> 2000 advanced server, and the remaining one percent are SLES 10.1 DNS
> servers. The linking element: available commercial support. Don't
> forget that Canonical does offer paid support of (ed)ubuntu servers
> and desktops, for far less than M$ service. It may be a clenching
> tidibit that you'll need later on.
>
> 5: Remember that XP end of life is approaching. Another tidbit that
> may come in handy is their estimated budget to become vista-ready.
> Count the number of existing computers and multiply by $1000 for a
> rough estimate. Remember: edubuntu upgrades are free and supported
> almost indefinitely, besides the usual benefits of dropping their
> antivirus licenses.
>
> 6: No school board that I know of has formally attempted a linux
> pilot. However, most have a few non-critical linux boxes kicking
> around in use for robotics clubs, web design classes, and TV
> production classes.
>
> 7: Private schools are already running mac OSX. It ain't broke so
> don't fix it. Although, Christian private schools might be interested
> in Ubuntu CE. Burn em' a copy and find out about it.
>
> 8: Welcome to the list!
>
> Hope  I've helped in some small way.
>
> Fondest Regards,
>
> Casey 'ElementC' Doran,
>
> Linux/education point of contact.
> On 10/19/07, Matthew L. Avizinis <mla at gleim.com> wrote:
> > Hello all,
> > New subscriber here.
> > I am trying to convince a small elementary school to construt/install an
> > edubuntu thin client network.  One they want to know is who's using it.
> > That is, they want a not necessarily exhaustive list of some schools
> > that are already using Edubuntu so they can get some first hand account
> > of their experiences.  I haven't been able to locate such a list yet
> > anywhere on the edubuntu.org website.  Perhaps I've missed it or it's
> > located elsewhere?  Can anyone here provide locations or even contact
> > info please?
> > Thanks much,
> > Matthew
> >
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