[ubuntu-za] Free and Open Source Software in Schools

[Sudhashen Naicker]

I'll contribute where I can

-phone up schools
-offer to provide setup's in Joburg area
etc

Kind Regards

Sudhashen Naicker




Johan Mynhardt wrote:
> I just had an idea, sort of a light-bulb-moment.
>
> If at all possible, what would the possibility be of organising an online IRC
> event, say for one or two days, where we can dedicate time to run a live Q/A
> session but we advertise and encourage schools, especially Technology classes to
> plan for this day, and let every pupil join and ask questions should they have
> any. I can only imagine this to be a somewhat chaotic experience should there be
> any IRC first-timers that play with the technology during the period.
>
> But I still think this might be a great opportunity to reach into classrooms and
> tell the pupils, and the educators about what can be done.
>
> Frank Kusel wrote:
>   
>> Hilton Theunissen wrote:
>> <snip>
>>     
>>> We have several very successfull schools but that is in the minority. 
>>> Saxonworld primary school in johannesburg is a very successfull 
>>> commercial model. We did so well over the past year that school extended 
>>> the network to teacher workstations into every classroom. 55 diskless 
>>> fat terminals running from single ubuntu ltsp.org server.
>>>
>>> Getting back to floss in schools - do it commercially and use new 
>>> hardware. Deploy a full-time IT teacher. Purchase propriety Educational 
>>> content - must be delivered via browser. Set your SLA for a visit twice 
>>> a week in 1st 6-12months. Upgrade software every 12months.  Have a 
>>> certification roadmap - Ingots delivered that for tuXlab schools. We 
>>> have e-learning solution for OpenICDL but the adoption rate is not good 
>>> at all.
>>>
>>>   
>>>
>>>       
>> <snip>
>>
>> In my experience the biggest hurdle is IT teachers who are not remotely 
>> interested in or brave enough to try FOSS solutions - mostly because 
>> they are afraid of looking silly, or that it will be too difficult.
>>
>> I'm not sure how one would counter this.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Frank
>>
>>