I think one of the biggest things to overcome in trying to get schools to use anything other than Windows is the community impression that students need to learn about what's most common. It's the reason that in our labs at CCV we have Windows and MS Office and Visual Studio and whatnot. Personally I'm a fan of open source and of the Mac. But the fundamental element of having to convince people you're teaching the students something worthwhile drives what's in our labs.
I guess my suggestion for primary/secondary schools would be to find ways to demonstrate how easy, inexpensive, robust, safe, and workable Linux is to both students AND parents. Otherwise you could end up with the student feeling it might be okay, and then the parent who knows nothing but that their home PC came with Vista saying that the school isn't teaching anything useful because the student is learning this "Linux" thing instead of the way computers really work. If you could do that, then by the time they're ready for post-secondary schools, we might even be able to use Linux and OpenOffice in our labs because people would be asking for it. ;-) And on the other piece of this topic, I'd just as soon the VAGUE list not become an Ubuntu list, so to speak. I personally prefer CentOS. Although I did just download the Puppy Linux someone mentioned earlier. -- Tony Harris Assistant CTO Community College of Vermont [EMAIL PROTECTED] (802) 241-3535 Dwirze skí, évárre kólex. (One by one droplets, eventually an ocean.) ------------------------------------------- PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message is for the designated recipient only and may contain privileged, confidential, or otherwise private information. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any other use of an email received in error is prohibited. On 8/2/07 3:37 PM, "Dan French" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > > The other day I decided to jump in and help start a Vermont Ubuntu Loco. Josh > pointed me to the VAGUE list. I am a Vermont school superintendent and have > been using Ubuntu as my primary operating system for two years. I like the > way LTSP has been integrated into Ubuntu. > > 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. > > Dan French > > > -------------- Original message ---------------------- > From: Josh Sled <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >
