Re: Special interest group formation: Linux in Georgia Schools

[Kent Scott]

Eater,    I am having the email given to the head of technology for Muscogee County School District. Kent Eater wrote: CHAOS geek brethren, please review forwarded message below. :) On 4/14/06, Daniel Howard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Fellow Georgia Linux enthusiasts, My name is Daniel Howard, I'm an Atlanta Linux Enthusiast, and I'm looking to start an activity oriented towards getting open source software into Georgia K-12 schools. You might think this would be inconceivable, but believe it or not, I and another parent volunteer have done it at Morris Brandon Elementary School in the Atlanta Public Schools district. APS is even listing Linux certification as one of their criteria for outsourcing PC support services, and here is the blurb they put in their last Request for Proposal for support services: "Linux Computers: A version of Red Hat Linux has been successfully deployed in one APS school. A 1:1 ratio of PC to student is anticipated at this school within the next school term. This technology is growing and is viewed as an alternative for extending the life of certain hardware within the Atlanta Public Schools." That's our school, and the fact that they're even considering Linux is no less than a seachange for them. At one point, we were nearly at war with them over it. But now we've been meeting with them and they've classified our effort as a Proof of Concept project. Using the K12LTSP package (based on Fedora), we've gone from only 1-2 working PCs per class (and working slowly), to now 5-6, with some classes have 8-9. We did this by soliciting donated PCs from businesses; a PII 300 MHz PC works fine as a thin client. I believe it is now time to take this story to the state level: using Open Source Linux software and a thin client architecture, old computers are brought back to life and no longer require any moving parts (no disk drives), and total cost of ownership is *drastically* reduced. Entire countries (like Norway and Korea) have switched their educational technology to Linux, so why not Georgia next? So now the request: could you post this info to your respective groups with my solicitation for volunteers who might like to help evangelize Linux/thin clients to their respective K-12 school systems? I offer to give them ammo, a tour of our school, and whatever else I can afford time to do to help them pitch Linux to nearby schools. Also, there is an upcoming Georgia Educational Technology Conference in Atlanta Nov 15-17, where many educators and administrators from Georgia will meet to learn about new technology. I'd like to have a major Linux presence this year, with a K12LTSP demo/workshop, some papers, and maybe even an LTSP based cybercafe. Anyone interested in participating in that should also contact me, coordinates below. Thanks! Daniel Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] 404.264.9123 (office) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CHAOS706.ORG" group. To post to this group, send email to chaos706@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/chaos706 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---