My experience is several years back, but I worked for a while as a substitute teacher in the Tewksbury, M, USA school system, and ended up seeing the computer stuff in most grades / schools in the system. Regrettably it was all Windows based, and the courses were very focused on using the specific version of the exact program installed on the machines - i.e. to do a 'mail merge' pull down this menu, select that option, etc... I always thought this was bogus even for proprietary software, given how often Microsoft changes their user interface...
Unfortunately I am not sure given the current computer market, that there would be ANY cost savings to a school system by switching to Free Software based hardware... At least in the US, you just about can't buy a machine that doesn't come with a 'Free as in beer' copy of Windows, and often other productivity software (as in the price is jacked up to cover the cost of the license - but you can't get a refund....) On top of that, Microsoft and friends usually offer BIG 'educational discounts' in order to get students hooked... Also there are lots of grants from the "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" (and others) to help schools, libraries, etc. cover the costs of computer gear - with the unwritten string that they have to be Windows boxes.... Giving up those grants and subsidies might even make it MORE expensive to use Free Software.... This is going to make it a tough sell to get Free Software onto student desks.... ART Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2016 19:18:37 -0400 From: Aaron E-J <[email protected]> To: [email protected], [email protected] Subject: [libreplanet-discuss] What does the tech setup look like in your grade school? Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I am developing a ready-out-of the-box, open source virtual remote desktop platform and would like to investigate its deployment in school systems. My assumption is that most schools are using proprietary technologies (Mac/PC) for the most part and that a switch to Linux based platforms would bring cost savings. However, I know very little about the current technology setups in schools near me ? let alone schools elsewhere in the U.S. (where I'm based) or the world. I would like to hear from people who have kids, what does their school technology setup look like? Thanks! ------------------ Arthur Torrey - <[email protected]> -------------------
