A School District's Education in Free Software

david.jonathan.russe writes "The school district in Kamloops, BC, Canada has been working on a linux-based terminal infrastructure for several years. They now have a system in place district wide and they can not keep up with all of the requests for info. They have a great hybrid system, using diskless workstations all booting from local servers. 'The second-generation system cost the Kamloops district about $47,000 to implement, as well as the cost of training and the release time for personal study and taking exams. However, Ferrie has no doubt of the savings overall. License costs are disappearing as the district phases out its Novell NetWare licenses, and the district no longer needs to purchase productivity software. Ferrie also figures that the increased reliability represents a substantial savings, although he admits that it is hard to quantify. However, perhaps the greatest benefit of switching to free software is that the reliability of the new system frees up technical staff to do more than routine support.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by SourceForge.

Finally someone gets it in education...

[A beautiful mind]

However, resistance among educators crumbled with the emergence of an advocate of the new system. In 2005, Dean Coder, a principal from the Prince George district with whom Ferrie had corresponded, transferred to the Kamloops district because he wanted to become involved in its transition to free software. Assigned to Barriere secondary school, Coder decided to convert all 110 computers at the school over to the thin client system. Systems analyst Dean Montgomery began work on a second-generation system, using state-of-the-art equipment.

By this point, applications such as OpenOffice.org and Scribus had evolved to the point that teachers were "awestruck" by the new pilot system. However, what really convinced teachers that the change was worthwhile, Ferrie says, was Coder's advocacy. "He put his own reputation on the line and said to the staff, 'I'm going to be there for you.'" A young principal at the district's largest school soon requested the new system, and several others quickly followed. Now, Ferrie says, "we're struggling to implement it at the rest of our secondaries." In the end, an advocate who was both an educator and an administrator, he maintains, made all the difference in getting the system accepted.

Nomen est omen?

Switching to Windows

[Taimat]

I had to laugh... when I clicked to the article, the embedded ad was this ad that people were switching from linux to windows servers....

http://spe.atdmt.com/b/NMMRTUMISITP/mrs06245_swit_ 336x280_DEF.gif [atdmt.com]

Re:Dickless again?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are an idiot. The job of IT is not to encourage user activity. Users are stupid and suck. The goal of IT is to keep everything running and limit the user to only what their purpose is in the organization (In school, only whitelist a few sites. In a business, only provide what is required to perform their job such as CRM or accounting software). Users are bottom-feeding scum. Never give them anything more than the minimum.

Re:Thin Clients at School

[greg_barton]

If anyone knows a way to convince lifetime IT employees at a school district of anything please let me know...

Easy. Outlive them.

Re:And all the cost savings are eaten up by

[maxume]

Where ever you go, there you are.

While quoting yourself is certainly a bit over the top, tautologies can be entertaining.

http://www.rinkworks.com/said/yogiberra.shtml [rinkworks.com]

(and there may be some redemption in the fact that the op is talking about, I think, his sig lines)