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
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