[ubuntu-za] Laerskool Horison Feedback

[Charl Wentzel]

Hi Guys

Thought you would like some feedback....

I finally had my meeting with the Head master and his deputy today.  I
can say, its been a while since I left people this excited!

The new lab they are building is a Gauteng online lab, which is Windows
based.  So to steer clear of trouble, we'll them run it their way and
won't touch it.  However, they also have an existing lab, which they
installed a couple of years ago and just finished pay for.  Here they
can do whatever they want.  

At the same time they are planning on connecting every classroom to the
admin block with its own computer.  So each teacher can upload their
data and prepare the work from their classroom.  

I suggested a minimal invasive Wubi install in the existing lab running
Edubuntu to start off with.  As a parent at the school I offered my time
to help install and train teachers for free.  I explained about the
software that is available and showed them how it works and explained to
them that Linux is far better at teaching indepth computer skills.  So
after answering the question "So what does it cost?" a few time to
unbelieving ears, the excitement began to show.

Next we spoke about linking up the classrooms, using a LTPS server and
thin clients or old pc's or even cheap little netbooks.  Despite the
software being enforced by the educational department they wanted to
know if they could equip teachers with SchoolTool, centralise data and
export data to the official system when necessary.

Many other things were discussed, which is too many to mention here.
They asked me to prepare a small presentation/document which they want
to present to the school board next week to get their approval to
proceed with a trail in the computer lab.  They not only wanted me to
present the benefits of Linux, but also a three year plan on how they
could phase in all these things, suggestions on infrastructure
implementation, available support, etc.  I'll prepare this and share it
with the community shortly.  I might have some questions later.

If this was only their decision to make, we would have started tomorrow!
So it's looking good so far.  Thanks for everyone's help so far.  Thanks
Simone for allowing me to visit you and see how your school did it.
I'll keep you posted.  If this is a success, we'll probably have a model
with which to approach other schools.

Regards
Charl
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