On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 8:59 AM, Gora Mohanty <g...@mimirtech.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I have been out of this area for a while, and would like > to hear from people about who work with computer > infrastructure for rural schools, including educational > content. Here is some background: > 1. A rural school in Orissa wants to provide 1-2 computers > for the children there, ranging from primary to class X. > They have spoken to Hole-in-the-wall (HIWEL), but the > quoted costs seem high to me. Would love to hear from > people who have worked with HIWEL. > (a) The school is sort of remote, but not very much so. > A major highway is some 15km away, and a largish > town is some 5km away, with reasonable road connectivity. > They have wireless Internet access, and I am checking > up on the electricity situation. > (b) The costs are quoted as at least 2.03 lakhs for a two- > window HIWEL setup. They claim that the content is free, > but where is the 2-lakh cost going into, then? > (c) Maintenance costs also seem high: 25K/computer annually. > I would have been sort of OK with a 25K annual cost for the > entire facility, regardless of the number of computers. If > anyone has figures on what such support costs, that would > be great. > > 2. I really dislike the idea of proprietary content. Would like > to hear from people who have actually set up similar content > for schools, ideally in more detail than a basic games, > multimedia, plus WIkipedia setup.
I am convinced that Raspberry pi is the way to go in scenarios like these , as far as content is concerned i tend to depend on khan academy , sugar labs and squeak community , also i am preparing a list of software from the few thousand available in the Ubuntu repositories. My long term goal is to start looking at course builder from google to create content for both community as well as any school or college. -Satya fossevents.in _______________________________________________ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
