Hi all, I want to let you know that the awareness is being raised with the superintendents. Their spring conference was devoted to open source. I did a presentation on opensource apps. The keynote was from a scool IT person running Linux in the south (Texas I believe). Paul Irish, The Burlington IT coordinator, put all this together for them. There is hope and many of the school IT people I know are reluctant to invest in Vista. My music classroom is supposed to be all Linux this year running JAD (Jack Audio Distribution: a multimedia hack of Suse 10.2).
Dave David Tisdell. Music Teacher Browns River Middle School [EMAIL PROTECTED] (e-mail) >>> Paul Flint <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/03/07 6:40 AM >>> Dear Forest, You say it all here. Nice rant. I would suggest that the way is to mix up what you have into "Vubunu" a distro we make here in Vermont that has all the goodness we need for the job of educating our children correctly. That is were we could use a few bucks. Regards, Flint On Thu, 2 Aug 2007, Forest Bond wrote: > Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 21:55:43 -0400 > From: Forest Bond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: Vermont Area Group of Unix Enthusiasts <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Would not be a memeber of a club that would have me... > > Hi Dan! > > For the list's sake: > > Dan worked for the Colebrook, NH school system before going on to be the > superintendent in Canaan, VT. I received my entire pre-college education in > Colebrook, where my father is a high school math teacher. My mother is > currently teaching science at the Canaan high school. So, I'm hoping Dan > might > remember me. ;) > > While at Canaan, my mother was a subject for the somewhat experimental Linux > laptop program. Needless to say, I was pretty delighted to see that program > in > place. > > Actually, I help her get that laptop set up with Internet access at home-- > Ubuntu was, sadly, lacking Network Manager at the time. Pre-Network Manager > wireless was not an impressive situation, in terms of usability. > > Getting on with things... > > On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 07:37:20PM +0000, Dan French wrote: >> I am concerned Vermont schools are about to make a poor choice in investing >> in >> Vista. I have been working to promote FOSS/Linux to Vermont superintendents >> and Vermont schools. To that end, I would appreciate your advice on how to >> promote the use of Linux in our schools. > > First off: > > Whether Vermont schools move to Linux or not, Vista is a travesty that I > wouldn't wish on any organization that has to get any real work done. Perhaps > when it matures a bit more and gains some stability, it will be more > appropriate. > > Unfortunately, Vista being bad doesn't make the advantages offered by > alternatives immediately obvious. > > It seems to me that it's probably not terribly difficult to convince school > administrators of the economic benefits of open-source software. (Certainly, > using FOSS must appear to be a better option than being rendered irrelevant by > cost-motivated administrative consolidation). The real trick, then, is in > convincing the relevant stake-holders that cost is not the only motivator. > > The most relevant stake-holders are the faulty and the students, not the > administration. Understandably, these folks can be somewhat opposed to the > idea > of using what appear to be sub-par equivalents of the software they've grown > used to for no other reason than to help administration cut costs. > > In other words, you can't be successful if faculty can't answer the question > "Why > is open-source software better in the classroom?" > > How can we make teachers & students be inspired by open-source software, > rather > than feeling that they are being burdened "for the greater good"? > > One way to encourage the adoption of open-source software is to *not* install > open-source software. Or, more accurately, don't install it when it is not > going to be successful. > > One place open source is often unsuccessful is with business folks. These > people absolutely adore MSFT office, and there isn't a geek on the planet > that's > going to talk them down from it. > > Sure, I've heard the argument: "How can we teach kids real world skills using > [alternative office product here], when they'll be using MSFT office in the > real > world?" That's a pile of bologna and we all know it. Even they know it. > MSFT > makes so many user interface changes between releases that nobody can really > get > away with saying that the interface differences between MSFT office & > OpenOffice.org is really that much of a factor. > > A point we might consider briefly: OpenOffice.org just plain isn't as good as > MSFT office. Period. It's a cheap rip-off, and it looks the part, too. That > doesn't mean it's worthless, it just means that you're not fooling anyone. > > So, why not handle these special cases with special solutions? How about MSFT > office under Wine, even if it means using CrossOver Office? A few well-chosen > compromises might be helpful. And in a few years, OpenOffice.org will have > caught up with more features, OSS will have penetrated further into the > business > world, and maybe you can finally drop MSFT for good. > > http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice/ > > Also, let's not focus too much on what are essentially lack-luster imitations. > What can OSS offer to schools that they couldn't otherwise have? > > How about some math software? I introduced my dad to GNUPlot, which has > been around since the '80s or something, and he was positively enamored with > it > for at least 45 minutes or so. > > Fung-Calc http://fung-calc.sourceforge.net/ > GNUPlot http://www.gnuplot.info/ > R http://www.r-project.org/ > SciGraphica http://scigraphica.sourceforge.net/ > > Maybe some music software (I don't know any schools that can afford ProTools): > > Ardour http://ardour.org/ > Audacious http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ > Jokosher http://www.jokosher.org/ > Rosegarden http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ > Traverso http://traverso-daw.org/ > Ubuntu Studio http://www.ubuntustudio.org/ > Wired http://wired.epitech.net/ > > Graphics: > > Inkscape http://www.inkscape.org/ > GIMP http://www.gimp.org/ > Blender http://www.blender.org/ > > It also might be good to try and keep some engineering jobs in the states. We > need to be introducing kids to computer science at a much earlier age. Some > folks on the list might have guessed I was going to go here: > > Python http://www.python.org/ > > A relevant article: http://www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e.html > > > I guess the ultimate point is this: > > Open-source software has always been about empowering users. Empowering > people > makes them excited, and it's the only way to win anyone over. > > We all know all the nasty things certain vendors of proprietary software > represent. One of the big ones is lock-in, both in terms of undocumented file > formats and APIs, and through mindshare, chaining our data and skillsets to > their products. These ought to be big concerns for the public sector as a > whole, but especially for schools. > > But to get anywhere, teachers and students need to see what's in it for them. > > I had a few other ideas: > > * Distribute free Ubuntu CDs too all students that want them. Assimilation in > the home leads to acceptance in schools. > > * Focus on security. As a web browsing platform, a typical (recent) Ubuntu > machine has all of the bells and whistles (including great flash support), > but is much less susceptible to malware. There are few people these days who > haven't dealt with malware in some way, so this is always an easy sell, > especially given the recent incidents with porn appearing on school computers > (can't remember were I saw these articles), likely due to malware. > > Ok, better wrap this up. Sorry to ramble. > > -Forest > -- > Forest Bond > http://www.alittletooquiet.net > /************************************ Paul Flint 17 Averill Street Barre, VT 05641 http://www.flint.com/home skype: flintinfotech Work: (202) 537-0480 Fax: (703) 852-7089 Free advice .~. is worth /V\ exactly what /( )\ you pay for it. ^^-^^ This e-mail may contain information protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). 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