Promoting Open Source in Schools

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

Interesting thread.  I'll respond to several messages here.

I'm cynical about this.  But progress is possible and only optimists
can cause it to happen.  Bravo if you are an optimist.

| From: "Marc Lijour" <marc-bbkyySd1vPWsTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org>

|  To my knowledge the North
| York board of education is better at listening and providing equipment.

There is no longer a North York Board of Education.  It was
amalgamated with other boards to create the Toronto District School
Board.

| From: "Marc Lijour" <marc-bbkyySd1vPWsTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org>

| Ballmer was in Ottawa last week, the government is giving $4.5 million
| dollars to the schools over the next years...
| My board is about to switch from win98 to winXP and to equip all stations
| with  MS Office (currently Corel and StarOffice).

Microsoft has had very serious discounts for educational purposes in
schools (not for administration in schools, I think).  Maybe this
isn't costing us taxpayers as much as we fear.

The hardware cost is worth considering.  But Linux (and
StarOffice/OpenOffice especially) require quite a bit of hardware
unless you make some hard choices.

In my experience, school procurements are nuts.  Usually a case of
feast or famine.  They overbuy and then assume the stuff will last,
say, 10 years.  They buy unneeded stuff, stuff that sits unused.  Or
they don't buy stuff that is desperately needed.  Often what they are
short of is expertise (but isn't everyone other than TLUG members?).

| From: Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org>

| At a UN conference I attended earlier this year in Geneva, the biggest 
| detractors of FOSS amazingly came from some of the poorest countries, 
| whose representatives might as well have been reading a prepared script 
| singing the praises of proprietary vendors. The most vocal, I recall, 
| was Zimbabwe.

Being on the other side of an argument with Zimbabwe's
government-for-life is no dishonour.

| From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

|  1.  If Linux *were* a "job killer" in the IT department at the schools, this
|        ought to be No Bad Thing, as having an IT department is peripheral
|        to Providing Educational Services.

Exactly.  The only important way of saving resources is to cut jobs.
Either in the organization, or (recursively) in the suppliers.

Okay, I admit that you can save money by paying people less.  But then
they will spend less, supporting fewer jobs somewhere else.

| From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
| On 12/17/05, Zbigniew Koziol <zkoziol-Zd07PnzKK1IAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

| > Wouldnt it be less expensive to use just one powerfull machine for
| > entire school/organization and connect to it by using 100$ terminal
| > machines only, and run in that way any X applications?
| 
| That has the downside of requiring 100% uptime of the network and
| chews quite a bit of bandwidth.  Further, it means you need a rack of
| those "really powerful" machines in the back room.

Schools are often guilty of underprovisioning.  I remember tales of
schools with Icons (the "Bionic Beaver", the Ontario-designed and
-built school computer from the mid-eighties).  They used a file
server and, due to underprovisioning, might take up to half an hour to
boot a classroom of systems.

Most kids came away hating the Icon.  In theory, it was great.  I knew
people from most of the software providers, and they were righteous.
I blame underprovisioning.  Along with a lack of sexiness (no hardcore
games, no TV ads, no glossy fan magazines).

Perhaps one of the Icon's problem was the top-down nature of its
design and deployment.  This added, say, a year or two delay that made
the hardware seem pokey.

Another problem: nobody was quite sure what computers were for in the
classroom.  Teaching programming?  Word processing?  Spreadsheets?
Presentations?  Courseware?  Have they figured this out now?

Anyway, back to the original point: the experience with thin clients in
schools is likely to be awful if the powers-that-be cannot be
prevented from underprovisioning.

Another problem: a thin client system may prevent individual student
creativity with computers.  Creativity may not be distinguishable from
Bad Behaviour.  Do you remember what it was like being a high school
student?  Control by the system may actually work against education.

| At least some portion of the savings made on the "cheap terminals"
| will have to be consumed in beefing up the server and the network.

Yes.  But, at least from a systems perspective, there are lots of
benefits: centralizing control.

| From: Yanni Chiu <yanni-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>

| Igor Denisov wrote:
| > 
| > > BTW, there is a Toronto School Board trustee that has
| > > some interest in the Squeak/Etoys work. I can dig up
| > > his/her name if anyone is interested.
| 
| Here's a link and a quote.
|     http://squeakland.org/pipermail/squeakland/2004-January/001936.html
| ====
| 
|     [Squeakland] Squeaker News.... Squeak in Spain!
| 
|     Mankovsky, Sheine sheine.mankovsky2 at tdsb.on.ca 

Her bio page mentions Squeak.
	http://www.tdsb.on.ca/boardroom/trustees/trustee.asp?w=5&p=103

Interesting.  I've talked with her (and her daughter) a number of
years ago.  She was the trustee for my son's high school (to give you
an idea of the time frame: my son is now in graduate school).

I'm no longer involved with the school system.  My impression is that
since amalgamation the trustees are mostly figureheads.  The McGuinty
government has been kinder and gentler, but I doubt that the trustees
have regained much ground:

- Harris made the trustee role part time (in Metro Toronto board the
  trustee job had been essentially full-time)

- Much more was mandated by Queen's Park

- amalgamation and downsizing broke the existing relationships.

- the number of students and schools per trustee was increased by an
  order of magnitude.  Much harder for a trustee to know what was
  going on in their schools.

- downsizing eliminated half of the supperintendants.  This appeared
  to break the channels between the trustees and the classroom
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