[Lancaster] Linux in (local) Education?

[Martyn Welch]

Hi Dave,

On Sunday 12 February 2006 20:44, Dave Smith wrote:
> Hi all
>
> Just really a quick line on the above-mentioned topic.
>
> Recently been catching up on my LinuxFormat (LXF74) that had been
> waiting on the doorstep for a while and was reading the article on Linux
> and Open Source in education when I got to wondering as to if anybody
> knows of any schools in our area that have made the switch to Linux? And
> if not, have many of them been given the opportunity to try it and see /
> weigh out the benefits and disadvantages of such a distribution?
>

I know someone who works in one of the local schools and they don't.  I think 
this is quite an important issue that needs addressing, though the method by 
which it is done needs to be very well thought out in advance. The biggest 
problems are:

1)Most school leavers are likely to go on to work somewhere where windows is 
used and the school feels that teaching them to use windows is therefore the 
right thing to do.

2) The school has probably invested fairly heavily in windows based software 
and their staff are trained to use it. Using alternatives would cause 
disruption and possibly significant extra outlay. Unless their IT staff are 
skilled in the use of Linux suggesting a switch is going to be a non-starter.

School Forge UK [http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/] might be somewhere to get 
some tips.

> I ask primarily out of curiosity. Obviously I'd heard of Edubuntu, which
> was covered in the article and looks to have some quite interesting
> planss, but the other options mentioned (Skolelinux is the other Distro
> mentioned, along with KDE Edutainment, Moodle, and Karoshi for useful
> bits and pieces) I hadn't really heard of before but sound like pretty
> useful items. Anybody have any experience with any of the above?
>

Can't say I have. There's also the K-12Linux project [http://www.k12ltsp.org].

> Obviously, I'm not a teacher, nor am I in the education system in any
> direct way, but is it not possible for the LUG to reach out to local
> schools and inform them of the possibilities that lie in Open Source,
> and, if interest is there, maybe put together a short talk /
> presentation in one of the LUG Meetings and give people the chance to
> see that Linux isn't nearly as complicated as they may think it is with
> a small hands-on session?

Go for it. I'd suggest trying to get a small LTSP setup together. This is 
where I feel traction can be made. Schools facing the cost of upgrading 
desktops to allow them to run more resource hungry versions of windows might 
be interesting in this kind of setup. 

> Considering the amount of money even small rural schools must be
> spending on proprietary software this could be just the sort of thing
> they're looking for. After all, how many people are really aware that
> there is an alternative to using Windows?

Scarily few.

> The relatively recent arrival and firming up of the Open Document format
> should, hopefully maken this progression / transition more feasible, not
> to mention the ability to give kids a LiveCD or installable version of
> what they're using at school without fees.
>

I'd suggest that this is another way of at least getting open source software 
into schools - promote OpenOffice.org (even Star Office) and Firefox. Ok, so 
they may still be running windows, but if they are using OpenOffice and 
Firefox it makes any possible transition easier in the future.

> What are people's views on that? Has it been tried before locally
> without success? Does it appeal to anyone or is it not considered the
> LUG's place?
>

I'd say it's a good idea that we haven't had anyone to champion to date.

> Like I said earlier, I've heard things like Edubuntu before, but not
> actually tried it out. So any real user feedback would be interesting.
>

Can't say I've tried them, though I can't remember using much in the way of 
special software at school, especially at senior school.

Martyn
-- 

Martyn Welch (welchm at comp.lancs.ac.uk)

PGP Key : http://ubicomp.lancs.ac.uk/~martyn/pgpkey/
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