[Sussex] Getting Linux into schools

[Dominic Humphries]

Afternoon all.

As a few of you may remember, I was training as a science teacher a 
couple years ago. One of the schools I trained at, a very large one with 
nearly 2000 pupils and hundreds of members of staff, I stayed in touch 
with, and I've been hearing a few interesting things about their 
computer system lately.

Specifically, they'll be changing from a state school to an academy next 
academic year (i.e. this September). Without going into too much detail, 
this is kind of like privatisation of a school, it becomes owned and run 
by an outside organisation rather than by the state.

Naturally, they have a lot of computers in the place, wifi pickups all 
around, and all the teachers have their own laptops. Everything runs 
Windows XP. The thing is, because their Windows licenses are all in the 
name of the SCHOOL and they're going to stop being a school in August, 
all their licenses are going to be invalidated. So every laptop has to 
be returned and every machine in the place needs a new license.

One or two of the teachers I'm in touch with have taken this opportunity 
to sing from our choir book, and are making the argument that instead of 
paying out for hundreds of new Windows licenses, they should instead 
switch to Linux. No licensing to worry about, a new lease of life for 
some of the older hardware, better ability to teach COMPUTING skills 
rather than "This is how Microsoft does it", and so on.

The main objection being raised against the conversion is that old 
favourite: Windows-only applications. The school uses a system called 
SIMS ("Student Information Management services") which holds information 
about each pupil, their timetable, and the electronic registers that 
teachers use at the start of each class. It is (I speak from experience) 
a fairly dreadful application, as it crashes a lot and has a very arcane 
interface. But it's all they've got, and there's not really any 
alternatives (on any platform) that they know of.

It seems to me that most of what it does, and more besides, would be 
easily in the reach of any good CMS, but things like generating 
timetables and registers is where it starts to get complicated and 
outside of my experience.

So, the basic situation is, you've got a very few people calling for a 
conversion to Linux (mainly from Science and Maths because the IT people 
are all really WINDOWS people rather than COMPUTER people), and now is 
pretty much their only opportunity because if the new academy pays out 
for a Windows site license, they're going to be highly resistant to the 
idea of switching afterwards. They've made the case already that Linux 
is more reliable (vital in modern schools where most lessons run off 
interactive whiteboards - essentially a big touchscreen + projector), 
more secure (even more vital with nearly 2000 children using it daily), 
and more educational (no brainer), and also can draw upon the fact that 
the Windows app that they're told they can't live without is decidedly 
unpopular and unreliable.

If anyone has ANY suggestions for how those few people could overcome 
the Windows loyalists, I'd like to hear them. Any information of 
Linux-based alternatives to the SIMS application would be very helpful, 
as would details of any other schools that have trialled Linux 
successfully or of people/companies in the West Sussex area that would 
be able to help with a BIG switchover. I know Ubuntu has the Edubuntu 
branch, but have never used it - how much support is available from 
Canonical/the community when it comes to large organisations switching 
to their distro? I've only ever encountered Ubuntu as something to 
install from CD to PC, not to a huge network..

Apart from anything else, the organisation behind this academy is taking 
over another school at the same time, and is already running at least 
one other school I know of, so if it works well in ONE school, they'll 
possibly branch it out to their others as well. So this has the direct 
potential to get a LOT of kids exposed to Linux in this county, as well 
as the indirect potential of being a good case study if it works.

Thanks in advance

Dominic