[plug] suggestion: PLUG 4 Schools

[James Elliott]

RE: [plug] suggestion: PLUG 4 Schools"schools are being encouraged to conform to a standard operating environment to enable .... "

Embarrass the Education Department by asking it why it chose one particular commercial firm as it's standard when there is a well supported public domain alternative out there - hinting that if the answer is not promptly forthcoming and convincing, you will pursue the Minister and media for an answer, as well as get your local member on the job.

James Elliott
Ravensthorpe Computers
ABN 34 305 232 710
Tel:   08 9838 1043
Fax:  08 9838 1049
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E-mail:  James.Elliott at wn.com.au
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PO Box 228, Ravensthorpe WA 6346
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Stephen.Blechynden at eddept.wa.edu.au 
  To: plug at plug.linux.org.au 
  Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 3:37 PM
  Subject: RE: [plug] suggestion: PLUG 4 Schools


  Hi all 
  Your discussion of using linux in schools is really interesting and worthwhile but these are some things about the culture in schools and the Department that you will need to take into account;

  schools are being encouraged to conform to a standard operating environment to enable consistency of support and to enable implementation of system wide finance/curriculum programs

  Schools have the need for curriculum software which in many cases only exist in the dos/mac world 

  school networks are run on small budgets and usually small maintanence ie the coordinators are overworked. 

  plus a range of other issues to long to discuss here. 

  If you are looking at implementing a strategy it will need to be very focussed and be able to take the needs of schools and the Department's goals.

  Good luck 

  Stephen 

  Joondalup DEP 

  -----Original Message----- 
  From: Denis Brown [mailto:dsbrown at cyllene.uwa.edu.au] 
  Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 1:06 PM 
  To: plug at plug.linux.org.au 
  Subject: Re: [plug] suggestion: PLUG 4 Schools 



  At 11:27 6/05/2002 +0800, Sol wrote: 
  >"Our greatest resource is our local user group. We need to 
  >help schools and LUGs around the country make connections. Towards this 

  >---some snipping --- 

  >Why doesn't PLUG make a public offer to metropolitan schools (say the first 
  >one to sign an agreement with PLUG) to have PLUG members migrate their school 
  >over to Linux servers and workstations and offer supplementary assistance in 

  --- some more snipping --- 

  I imagine this is more realistic in the USA where I assume there are 
  significantly more active PLUG-like associations both inter- and 
  intra-state.  Colin's already commented on the potential magnitude of such 
  an undertaking in response to Sol's suggestion.   Perhaps a viable place to 
  start might be to establish a working demo, ideally a portable one, which 
  could then be demo'd to interested parties?  The demo's would then be 
  possible at a normal PLUG venue with 'net access such as UWA or Murdoch, or 
  could be set up in a "target" school's environment.  We are talking 
  something akin to the K12LTSP aren't we, with a server and X-capable 
  workstations?  So PLUGgers show up with three+ laptops, one a server and 
  the others set up as workstations.  Apart from security, reliability, etc 
  the emphasis would probably be on the ability to use existing 
  resource-impoverished hardware at the client end. 

  If we're thinking in terms of utilising the grunt already in the desktops, 
  and there seems to be no shortage of that these days, then just have the 
  demo set up again as client-server but emphasising security, reliability, 
  administrative control and so forth.  Indeed if that's the case maybe each 
  "client" laptop could default to a different desktop environment (and of 
  course be preloaded with all those to be demo'ed.)  Demo-ee says "ooh, I 
  like that one", demo-er kills the "disliked" desktop environments and 
  launches the "liked" environment and hey presto. 

  Once seen to be "do-able" and having commercial backup, maybe the fear of 
  being left in limbo when / if something goes wrong would be 
  reduced.  OpenOffice is going to have a lot to do with acceptability, I 
  think, regardless of the other worthy open source projects in the 
  productivity realm (eg AbiWord).  I am keen to begin using OO here for 
  example, initially in a Windows environment because too much change is seen 
  to be scary.  Well, maybe that's just my environment :-) 

  My 2c, 
  Denis 
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