LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: David Lloyd <lloy0076@rebel.net.au>
  To  : Matthew Geddes <mgeddes@xavier.sa.edu.au>
  Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 16:42:18 +0930

Re: MS Curriculum at schools and TAFEs ...

Matthew and Jason et al:

> I'm full time and consider myself professional :-). Whilst this is still
> a problem in most schools, it is becoming much less of a problem every
> day.

Eventually someone up high will realise that downsizing IT staff isn't a
long-term economically rational thing to do. That is until an election
comes along :-(

> > At some number of IT staff per some number of PCs woudl be a good start.
> 
> I'm sorry, I don't understand this sentence.

For every X computers, have some amount of IT support. I think what
Jason is saying could be some formula such as "A school has a network of
50 computers, so this deserves at least 1 FTE position". Given that the
Education Department seems to be able to work out teaching staff
allocation based on the number of pupils/students this shouldn't be a
foreign concept to them.

> There are mailing lists and other areas of support. I actually support a
> fair few Catholic schools when it gets too hard for their IT guy/chick.
> This is usually in the form of free phone support.

Ideally, then, there could be an "area" expert who roams around schools
fixing "hard" problems and school based IT personnel who take care of
day to day issues.

> But by moving to something like Linux, you could easily remove stress.

That's true. However someone has to retrain a significant amount of
people who may not want the retraining.

> The biggest problem we have is computers not working when a teacher has
> a class in a computer room. 90% of problems are to do with the lack of
> security on the single user operating systems that we run.

That is, of course, a problem but Windows NT/2000 do have the concept of
users and logins, protection and such. That's not something unique to
Windows.

> I agree. This is a problem. Schools have no money, IT people generally
> want lots of it.

How much are schools willing to invest in their students to ensure they
are technologically aware? There is an article (can't remmber the
details but will get them) from America draws attention to the state of
being "technologically illiterate".

> I do disagree with this. OK, people are used to Windows and Word, but
> there is no security, the stability is not there and we can't afford not
> to have reliable systems. It would decrease the number of hours I spend
> fixing Windows machines. I know one school is moving towards a Sun Thin
> Client solution to avoid this.

Yes, but what are they teaching the students? If you got to CentreLink
today a lot of office jobs require "experience with Word, Excel" and so
forth. Whilst I believe high schools are in the milieu of academia and
shouldn't become purely vocational, they do have to teach their students
skills useful in the real world. And apparently, Word skills are.

> A couple of carefully chosen questions to this list could answer enough
> questions to get a school full of PCs running linux. Given most
> distributions these days, a simple HOWTO would be enough to guide
> someone through setting up a (for example) Mandrake 7.2 lab.

If the Department put their mind to it, they could create a
Kickstart/Automated install CD of any operating system (FreeBSD, Linux
Distribution X, Windows 2000) which would ask appropriate questions at
startup...

> Or, how about if we came up with a Zero Administration Linux (MS was
> using the "Zero Administration" buzzword a while back to sell it's stuff
> to schools). It would be possible to have a distribution that asked very
> few questions and locked itself down real tight. Then nobody would need
> to spend much money. I mean it would be *Another* Linux distribution,
> but if it served a purpose....

But it doesn't need to be ANOTHER Linux distribution. It can be an
auto-install RedHat/Debian/Caldera/yada yada distribution.

> Because it would be GPLd, people could burn multiple copies and leave it
> in the library for students to borrow. It would be simple enough for
> them to take it home and install (obviously, you'd have it default to
> not wiping out their Windows partition - or would you?).

Oh, wipe out Windows :-) Then at least the poor sods would learn how to
reinstall Windows after wiping it out with Linux :-P

DSL
-- 
Dodos are birds that are extinct
 - Quoted by D.S.L. 16 April 2001

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