OStatic

by Jack G on Sep. 05, 2008

Well, the OLPC project couldn't reduce the price below $100, citing issues with Open Source and Linux. However, with a slightly higher priced, but more viable netbook, there is definitely value in putting computing power in each student's hands. If going paperless is not going to do it, there ought to be better ways to do it.

by James Cohn on Sep. 05, 2008

Is this Apple's fault? If Linux netbooks could be as slick, more people would adopt those.

by an anonymous user on Sep. 05, 2008

Going paperless is indeed a myth - the consumption of paper in offices has only increased since the launch of the term 'the paperless office'. To assume that school administration offices will go paperless is a myth. Secondly, what about the TCO around these devices. If schools just hand them out, who will support them? Students are probably savvy enough to figure things out, but what about the admin staff? Who will train them? Who will support them?

by Ron on Sep. 07, 2008

Increasingly, I see schools going with Microsoft instead of Apple. The 2 main reasons I hear are (1) The PCs are less expensive. (2) Everyone uses Microsoft.

Of course, cost saving is greating with Linux, but breaking the Microsoft thrall willl continue to be a hard obstacle.

by an anonymous user on Sep. 07, 2008

Every child doesn't need a computer every day for school. Reason being they need to be deforming their spines, causing soft tissue imbalances and causing a degradation in eyesight from staring at a screen all day at school. And then there are the hours of homework and recreational computer use.

I love the Linux kernel and it's associated OSes (including Apple's) as well as all the success stories where FOSS saves school boards a ton of money with thin client systems on legacy hardware. However, children don't need to be on a computer all day to learn.

by Ken Hansen on Sep. 07, 2008

Our local school district runs Macs for grades K-5, PCs for grades 6-12 - we have about 1,400 computers, about 1/3 of which are Macs. We buy or PCs without an operating system and license their OS installs under an agreement with Microsoft that costs us abotu $65K/year, but includes WinXP Pro, MS Office for all 1,400 computers (Mac and PC), as well as a few dozen Windows 2003 servers and MS SQL database.

The original Datamation story is, honestly, insulting to me, an IT professional in public education: the underlying assumption is that most school districts are a few google searches away from Open Source Nirvana, when expenses drop and everything "just works".

Until Open Source can displace one of our two existing platforms (Mac or PC), adding a third platform will require a third administrator, at a likely cost of $65-75K/year (salary & benefits). It's hard to argue the cost savings when you have to add headcount.

By way of a short example, we still have teachers in my district that refuse to enter daily attendence into a computer - they drop off their attendence book in the front office and one of the secretaries has to enter it for them...

In industry, IT "merely" needs to convice the boss that Open Source is a good move, and it will "just happen". In public school education, I would have to convince not only the School Board, but also the teachers (and their union), the curriculum office, the Pupil Services office, and the parents of the students - any one of which can throw up an exception and put an end to the effort.

by an anonymous user on Sep. 07, 2008

Ken Hanson, if you are pushing MS junk, then you are hardly an "IT professional". You are little more than an MS shrill. There are MILLIONS of children, teachers, schools, etc. around the world using Open Source. Ever heard of the Indiana project? A linux computer for EVERY student in EVERY high school in the ENTIRE state? Or how about school district 73 in B.C. Canada, which has been using linux for years! or how about the 80,000 computers in Extramedura, Spain? Or the 180,000 in Macedonia, where they are ALSO providing a one student to one computer ratio? These students are going to eat the lunch of those who are only brainwashed to use MS junk, as opposed to kids who easily us MS junk if required, but more easily, and preferably, use Open Source. Enjoy your MS job while it lasts.

by scribe63 on Sep. 07, 2008

I believe children can benefit a whole lot with Linux/FOSS in the classroom, labs, and at home. With open systems and the open minds of children this can germinate future IT innovators as oppose to IT gadget consumers only. Right now i am racking my brains as to how to announce and introduce FOSS on the kindergarten level to daycare centers in my area. I assume the biggest barriers are convincing uninformed administrators, alleviating there techno phobia, and freeing there minds from marketing ideas as opposed learning processes through IT concepts.

Another application that i have been looking at is Centre (Student Information System), which is released under GPL V2. Is there anyone familiar with this application in the field?.

by TripleII on Sep. 07, 2008

Re:Ken Hansen "adding a third platform will require a third administrator, at a likely cost of $65-75K/year "

That isn't valid, why can't one admin do both or all three? Why not phase out one? How about the maintenance costs (AV, Disinfections, re-installs) associated with one OS?

"we still have teachers in my district that refuse to enter daily attendence into a computer"

Tail wagging the dog. You simply reject the paper, you make it mandatory. There is always, in any job, the small percentage who just won't change. Well, you make it impossible not to. What are they going to do when "TOLD" this is the way it is, do it or move to another school district. Democracy in decisions is wonderful, personal democracy in deciding not to follow is anarchy.

Finally, if Brazil can migrate 53M to Linux and OO, 100% of their students K through 12, I think others certainly can.

Of course, it depends on any schools particular proprietary handcuffs.

by TripleII on Sep. 07, 2008

Re:Ken Hansen "adding a third platform will require a third administrator, at a likely cost of $65-75K/year "

That isn't valid, why can't one admin do both or all three? Why not phase out one? How about the maintenance costs (AV, Disinfections, re-installs) associated with one OS?

"we still have teachers in my district that refuse to enter daily attendence into a computer"

Tail wagging the dog. You simply reject the paper, you make it mandatory. There is always, in any job, the small percentage who just won't change. Well, you make it impossible not to. What are they going to do when "TOLD" this is the way it is, do it or move to another school district. Democracy in decisions is wonderful, personal democracy in deciding not to follow is anarchy.

Finally, if Brazil can migrate 53M to Linux and OO, 100% of their students K through 12, I think others certainly can.

Of course, it depends on any schools particular proprietary handcuffs.

by an anonymous user on Sep. 08, 2008

I run an I.T. company which although still deals with Microsoft and Apple products on a daily basis we put a very strong emphasis to all of our customers on OSS and Linux. We work with a lot of schools and non profit organisations and it's sad to see that some people who are either in I.T. or wish they were and somehow manage to get a job "helping out" are so anti Linux, it's as though they tried Linux 6 or 7 years ago when it was still quite difficult to use and went off it straight away, refusing to ever use it again in favor of their Windows and Crapples.

I was rather annoyed the other day when I asked a schools I.T. administrator if all the servers were running Windows and he replied "Yeah, why complicate things with anything else?"

It seems no matter how hard people try, the message that Linux is now easier to use than ever and in many ways easier to use than Windows and getting easier by the day, just isn't getting across to some people.

I continue to introduce Linux and OSS to the masses and I enjoy doing so but it does get a little tiring sometimes when people can't see past the nose on their face. "Oh but I'll have to learn new skills", and that's a bad thing is it? "But it's just going to complicate things", well no, it's going to improve your budget, improve your knowledge of I.T. period and it's going to make sure your employees/students know how to use more than just Windows since Linux is quite quickly grabbing a big slice of the market and MS is desperately trying to claw it back while upsetting big players like IBM, HP and Cisco lately.

As for Ken Hansen, yes it's a difficult road to convert an organisation, especially when there are people against it, but if you don't try it just won't happen, as for a third administrator that's just not true, for a start if you can use a crapple you can use Linux, and if you can use Linux you can use Windows, the only OS that limits your knowledge of others is Windows!

Appologies for the length of this.

by Ken Hansen on Sep. 08, 2008

RE: Anonymous User(?)

Yes, many people use FOSS software around the world - read my comments again, I didn't speak to the quality of the software - for my argument it is immaterial (if it wasn't stable/reliable, there would be no need to go further with the analysis).

Schools have two kinds of users - students and faculty/adminsitration - you can push whatever you want onto the students (they don't vote!), but you have to be able to support the needs of the classes. As for the faculty, they need tools to generate their local, state, and federal reports as easily as they are generated by their current closed-source tools, increasing workload increases head count, and that increases cost. Failure to generate required reports is not an option.

RE: Triplell

Adding a platform does require adding an additional adminsitrator. We have one Windows Admin, one Mac Admin, one DBA and one technician that each support two school buildings (that's over 500 desktops supported per technician). Unless you almost completely eliminate one of our current platforms (Mac or Win), we need to have a full-time tech supporting each. Cross-training is a nice idea, but without any technicians to cover while your one and only Win or Mac tech learns Linux isn't an option.

As for the teachers who won't submit their attendence on the computer - we can't force them, we can only file a grievence with the union, and the union refuses to act. Welcome to Gov't work!

RE: (another)Anonymous User:

I agree it has to start somewhere, but simple-minded "Let's go paperless and buy laptops for everyone" articles do nothing to further the cause (as it were).

Right in my district now we have parents happy their kids are learning the tools they use in industry, the teachers have textbooks they can rely on to get the coursework done, and we pay a small amount each year to enable us to manage 1,700 PCs with such a lean staff.

A crusade to eliminate a portion of a $64K budget line item would certain generate some interest by the community, but out of our $70+ Million dollar budget, it really wouldn't amount to a noticeable difference - even if we made the entire $64K/year disappear.

A final note - most of the FOSS applications I've seen geared towards running school districts is "mostly done", with a need to customize it for each school district/state - that doesn't happen for free...

I have nothing against FOSS (I participated in the Red Hat Beta programs "back in the day" and funded my Graduate School education on the money I made from my Friends & Family stock purchase when they went public.), but I do have a problem with articles that protray this as a trivial problem that casts the IT folks as the problem... Every school IT administrator I know has the following concerns (in no particular order):

1) Reliable source of admins to staff positions 2) suitable applications for users (well beyond simple email/browsing/office automation) 3) The ability to trust the OS not to fail, and to have a contact if it does fail

Once those issues are addressed in industry, I suspect you'll see greater adoption of FOSS in education (and industry in general). The low acquisition cost of FOSS is nice, but it is only one piece of the puzzle.

by Craig Gritz on Sep. 08, 2008

I appreciate the idea of moving to open source systems. I run Samba on my servers. I notice you listed several options for student data tracking but none for classroom instruction. It is easy to talk about paperless classrooms when you don't understand the needs in the classroom. How about some programs that will help teach reading, writing and arithmetic that can be easily implemented in the classroom.