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The Linux distillery Educating Tux: case studies of Linux deployments in high schools around the world
The Linux distillery Educating Tux: case studies of Linux deployments in high schools around the world | Educating Tux: case studies of Linux deployments in high schools around the world |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Thursday, 06 March 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 3
Yet, six years later the school reverted back to Microsoft Windows. The reason for the change back was not technical nor was it financial. Instead the school’s staff pressed for Windows due to their own familiarity with it. Tragically, the same people who claimed unfamiliarity with Linux were similarly lost in the new Windows world of Vista and Office 2007. This story struck a chord with Sam’s readers, some of whom expressed their disappointment that Strathcona had to return to their Windows roots with associated higher expenses despite the simultaneously reality of schools suffering from funding difficulties. Strathcona is not unique in its experience as a school that has sought alternate operating systems and computing environments to tackle costs (and, dare we say, student mischief.) Happily, their subsequent experience of encountering pressure to revert is not as common. Here are some, and lessons that other schools – or indeed businesses – can learn. One extremely positive experience came from the Lorien Novalis School in Glenhaven, Sydney. This school has 350 students and 38 staff covering kindergarten through to year 12. Interestingly, the decision to migrate was proposed by senior students rather than a decision formulated by faculty. The previous generation of Apple Macintoshes were due for replacement and the suggestion came to give Mandrake Linux a try. There did not appear to be any initial strong impetus behind change beyond exploration but four years later the school weren’t looking back and in particular were embracing the open source ideological mantra of software freedom. To their way of thinking, open source software had a great deal in common with school education, both being about cooperation and sharing knowledge. One very helpful factor in the school’s Linux experience has been lower hardware requirements, with two well used servers being the primary workhorses until finally in 2004 a new HP Proliant server was sourced. This said, the school were prepared to spend money to purchase Mandrake support and manuals and to reward and encourage the work of open source organisations. One other matter which clearly influenced the success of the project was surprisingly in stark contrast to the conventional wisdom of tightly locking the standard desktop environment down. At Lorien Novalis students were encouraged to tinker. Here, the students felt an ownership over their Linux lab and had a freedom to tinker, undoubtedly aiding adoption and acceptance. Although some legacy Windows and Macintosh computers remained, due to custom software needs, the school is working to migrate these to Linux and free and open source equivalents also. Please read on to page two for more. CONTINUED
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