A big thanks to Joseph Hartman, San Diego, California for making me aware of his blog. He's trying hard to accomplish a similar project to myself using Ubuntu and LTSP. Just like me he's coming across many obstacles and one by one he's managed to overcome them.
He recently posted a great metaphor for his reasoning in using FOSS:
Understanding Operating Systems through the metaphor of automobiles
His full blog can be found here:
Hartman's Blogtastic Blog
I'd sure like to hear from anybody else who's doing a similar thing to our two primary schools, as they say - many hands make lighter work!
Here are a few photos of NABB's library, before and after. Before the conversion, the room was mainly used for storage and eventually became a dumping ground for all the items the teachers no longer required in the classrooms.
Space is at a premium in Holmfirth J I & N School, it was therefore essential that whatever furniture was fitted accommodated as much as possible.
Before
This was the NABB's library back in April 2007.
After
In August 2007 it was complete.
There are 17 thin clients housed in the room. The Promethean ActivBoard is connected to a Windows XP machine in a server cabinet 15m away. The USB leads use repeaters so no data is lost. A standard USB connection can be no longer that 7-10m before a repeater is required.
Each HP 5725 thin client is mounted to the bottom of the furniture using HP's quick release bracket. This provides quick and easy access to all the cables & means that a client is very quick to swap.
My belief is that open source software is ideal in an educational establishment, especially in a primary environment. Unfortunately Microsoft dominates the home and educational sector and brings along its maintenance issues. While Apple Macs, which would be ideal for education, are reserved for the remaining elite and bring along ongoing costs.
Applications that were once required installed on a PC can now be run directly from the Internet. Media on the Internet could only once be distributed via CD. Browsers are becoming the only tool required by a computer user to access resources, films, music and more importantly applications. Quite an incredible evolution, in a digital way.
In education, children are taught the basics of ICT, all the way up to year 6. They only therefore need the basic tools. Why buy each of those children a pencil and a set of crayons if all you wanted for them to draw was a picture? The basics, open source, can be provided to every child while more elaborate tools, Windows or Apple Macs, should be provided as an alternative.
Schools can't afford the ongoing costs that come with a Microsoft environment. They're budget wouldn't stretch much further than maintaining a suite of 30 computers. In our school of 230 pupils, that would be a 1:7 ratio of PCs to pupils. Our long term objective is to get this as low as 2:1 and eventually 1:1.
At this level, space becomes a real issue. Thankfully, very small PCs, capable of running the same applications of it's bigger brother, are now becoming a reality. Its very exciting.
There are Open Source alternatives to satisfy every part of the KS1 and 2 ICT curriculum requirements. The believe is that training would then become a barrier to not making the best use of those new tools. I aim to dispel those myths.