Re: [seul-edu] M$ Audits (long) [was Re: MS targeting...]

[Guy Haas <guyhaas@pacbell.net>]

this has been an interesting thread, so i'm going to throw a few
thoughts in.  i spent ~2 years trying to determine if/how thin
clients were a solution for k-12.  i had very close interaction with
one school district, including full-time on-site in a jr. high lab
for months. imho, the two biggest problems linux faces are:

(1) teacher's willingness to change.  a large percentage are too
    set in their ways to change.  where students seem to be able to
    adapt too any user interface, many teachers can't/won't.  in
    their defense (i've been teaching intro to programming for a
    few years in my spare time), teaching is hard enough to do.
    once you have a process that's working for you, why throw
    unknowns in when just keeping the classroom moving forward
    is challenging.  so, this is where "my application only runs on
    windows" fits in - but it's only a piece of a larger issue.

    you need superintendent and principal backing; and, it really
    helps to have read "high tech heretic" by clifford stoll. clifford
    makes many very good points regarding computer misuse in
    classroom.

(2) infrastructure software.  to setup your systems properly you
    really need to give all students/teachers accounts, aka "electronic
    portfolios."  a friend had automated this at a few other school
    districts and i modeled software that i wrote after what he did.
    this problem is a lot more complex than just adding passwd
    entries, creating home directories, and copying a few files into
    these.  we initialized accounts such that netscape worked with
    the most common plug-ins, staroffice was ready to go with a
    good set of configuration parameters already set, and icons &
    menus set appropriately for teacher versus student and even
    grade level mods.  this is necessary due to my first issue.  what
    i never completed was the process of how you change something
    in a file - in all accounts.  as an example, you want to change a
    field in everyone's netscape configuration file.  you can't just
    change your prototype file and push it out again because almost
    all of your users have changed something in this on their own.
    and, i could go on with topics like role-over from one school
    year to another...

anyhow, just a couple of thoughts.  i do not believe that
microsoft is a viable solution for schools either.  i hope that as
linux continues to grow, and devices, e.g. palm pilots, evolve,
technology in the classroom will move past the mess it's currently
in.  if you are still not tired of reading my rambling, here is
something i put together in response to a parent that was very
upset that the lab in his son's elementary school was moving to
thin clients...

guy
-------------
           Sun Microsystems in Elementary Schools
   Or, Why Xxx Elementary School Doesn't Have to Do Wintel

There are feelings that a new computer lab at Xxx needs to be
Windows-based computers because:

1. Teachers and students need access to floppy disk drives.
2. Teachers need to integrate peripherals Sun doesn't support.
3. Standalone PCs offer better uptime.
4. Windows is the primary home OS and has more software.
5. Microsoft Office is dominant WP, SS, presentation software.

Reason 1 is a subset of 2 so let's just talk about reason 2.
Sun does not believe that the Sun Ray Appliance is a replacement
for all technology that any school needs to have.  Sun's vision
of technology supporting learning is enablement of ubiquitous
access to data.  It's really about the importance of a robust
infrastructure that ties students and teachers together, and
teachers to parents, and parents to their children's work. So,
the ultimate solution is a rich network with all of a teacher's
and student's stuff in "electronic portfolios" accessible from
any device, any where, any time.  Many technology pundits
believe this is right around the corner; xxSD is closer to this
than you might think.  But, spreading teacher and student stuff
across the hard drives of a classroom PC, a Lab PC, a PC or two,
or three in the school's library, and a PC at home is going the
wrong direction.  You would be going backwards.  The "electronic
portfolio" on the network is the answer.

So, a Sun Ray Appliance does not support a floppy.  Neither
does a new Apple computer or a Palm Pilot.  What is important
is that a PC does and if we integrate xxSD's existing PCs into
the networked storage provided by the Sun servers the problem
is solved.  There's no scanner on any Sun Ray.  Use a scanner on
a PC and put the image generated into the student or teacher's
"electronic portfolio" on the networked storage where any device
on the network will have access to it.  Imentioned that xxSD was
closer to this than you might think - at the Junior High, ALL
teachers and students have an account.

Moving on to "standalone PCs offer better uptime."  If the last
eighteen months is any sign of things to come this is just not
true.  In eighteen months there has been one hardware failure on
one of the 12 Sun servers, a memory SIMM failed.  The network has
an occasional problem with a connection, but the backbone is a
very robust platform.  It's worth noting what Jane Xxxxx told
the Singapore Ministry of Education a few weeks back.  Jane is
a Life Sciences teacher at the Junior High that replaced a bunch
of PCs in her classroom with 30 Sun Rays.  When asked what she
thought made the Sun Rays better than PCs she said that "they
just always work, they are always on.  When I had PCs and wanted
to use them in the day's lesson, I'd have to start a half-hour
early and boot them and check to make sure the network interface
was working."  Now they are always available to her students, as
part of a prepared lesson or even after daily assigned work has
been completed.  Oh, and they consume one tenth the power of a
PC and are silent.

Finally, let's combine reason's 4 and 5 into a general statement
that we need to use Microsoft products because they are de-facto
standards - ubiquitous.  The argument went along the lines of
more people know how to use Windows and it is most likely what
parents will have at home.  I will not disagree with this.  But,
there is this thing called "economics" which comes into play.

To upgrade just the software in the existing PC lab at Xxxxxx
you will need to give over $13,000 to Microsoft for licenses for
their Office product.  StarOffice will cost you nothing.  Here
is an e-mail documenting another school in California that made
the switch.

      Subject: Another neat K12 customer site

      Orcutt School in Santa Maria, CA USA is a very proud
      StarOffice user.

      This district has standardized on StarOffice and has
      documented savings of around $75,000/year by doing so.
      They no longer support Word users.

      District site:  http://orcutts1.sbceo.k12.ca.us/public/

Today we have around one computer for every seven students in
this country.  It can be argued that they have done little to
improve the average student's education so far.  Some argue that
we need a one-to-one computer/student ratio - a real personal
computer that is with the student day and night, at school and
at home.  Experiments are going on with notebook computers.
There are 7.1 million computers in schools in the United States
and 2.9 million of them are obsolete, need replaced.  Do the
math.  It is not economically possible to give every student a
personal computer.  Even at the prices thin clients and the
Sun Ray appliance are expected to hit in the near-term, say $300
with a monitor, a one-to-one ratio isn't possible.  Handhelds
are probably the answer.  These devices, backed up by a mixture
of appliances and Apple and Wintel computers in schools and
libraries makes sense. The future is a heterogeneous environment.

On a side note, I find an objection based on the merits given
a bit funny.  If you watch the youth today with technology, they
get it...  In fact, my nephew and the students in the Java class
I teach to 7th/8th graders are constantly showing me something
new about the Windows GUI I was unaware of.  Let's not forget
our challenge in K-12 is not teaching students technology, it's
how to use technology to assist in teaching communications, the
arts, math, science, problem solving, collaboration and the
social aspects of life.  I use Clifford Stoll's book, "High Tech
Heretic" as a sanity check all the time.  For anyone pushing the
use of technology in K-12, reading this book is a MUST.

This is actually a good lead-in to the next point I feel needs
to be made.  We should not be teaching students the specifics
of any tool - we need to teach the concepts.  Whether it is a
word processor, or a spreadsheet, or a presentations package,
we need to teach the generic terms (jargon) associated with the
tool - not "use the xxx option on the yyy pulldown menu."
Think where you would be today is you were only taught the
VisiCalc interface.  This was THE spreadsheet to use before
Lotus 1-2-3, which was THE standard before Microsoft Excel. If
I were teaching basic composition in K-6, I wouldn't even use
a word processor.  I'd use Netscape Composer and have my
students authoring Web pages.  It has all the basic functions
needed and is their generation's medium.  This generation is
the network generation, everyone needs personalized web pages.

So, Sun Rays are working well at Xxxx Elementary where all
5th and 6th graders now have their own "electronic portfolios."
Sun Ray usage at the Junior High has exploded.  Let's move on,
work together fixing some of the rough areas associated with
the new model.  But, let's take advantage of the better TCO
(Total Cost of Ownership) aspects of appliances as general
purpose tools for the many in education.