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Mon, Jun 29, 2009

[Icon][Icon]Getting Linux into schools

• Post categories: Omni, FOSS, Technology

This is an appeal for information to all my geek readers (both of you ;o)

As you may remember, I was training as a science teacher a couple years ago. One of the schools I trained at, a very large one with nearly 2000 pupils and hundreds of members of staff, I stayed in touch with, and I've been hearing a few interesting things about their computer system lately.

Specifically, they'll be changing from a state school to an academy next academic year (i.e. this September) Without going into too much detail, this is kind of like privatisation of a school, it becomes owned and run by an outside organisation rather than by the state.

Naturally, they have a lot of computers in the place, wifi pickups all around, and all the teachers have their own laptops. Everything runs Windows XP. The thing is, because their Windows licenses are all in the name of the SCHOOL and they're going to stop being a school in August, all their licenses are going to be invalidated. So every laptop has to be returned and every machine in the place needs a new license.

One or two of the teachers have taken this opportunity to sing from our choir book, and are making the argument that instead of paying out for hundreds of new Windows licenses, they should instead switch to Linux. No licensing to worry about, a new lease of life for some of the older hardware, better ability to teach COMPUTING skills rather than "This is how Microsoft does it", and so on.

The main objection being raised against the conversion is that old favourite: Windows-only applications. The school uses a system called SIMS ("Student Information Management services") which holds information about each pupil, their timetable, and the electronic registers that teachers use at the start of each class. It is (I speak from experience) a fairly dreadful application, as it crashes a lot and has a very arcane interface. But it's all they've got, and there's not really any alternatives (on any platform) that they know of.

It seems to me that most of what it does, and more besides, would be easily in the reach of any good CMS, but things like generating timetables and registers is where it starts to get complicated and outside of my experience.

So, the basic situation is, you've got a very few people calling for a conversion to Linux (mainly from Science and Maths because the IT people are all really WINDOWS people rather than COMPUTER people), and now is pretty much their only opportunity because if the new academy pays out for a Windows site license, they're going to be highly resistant to the idea of switching afterwards. They've made the case already that Linux is more reliable (vital in modern schools where most lessons run off interactive whiteboards - essentially a big touchscreen + projector), more secure (even more vital with nearly 2000 children using it daily), and more educational (no brainer), and also can draw upon the fact that the Windows app that they're told they can't live without is decidedly unpopular and unreliable.

If anyone has ANY suggestions for how those few people could overcome the Windows loyalists, I'd like to hear them. Any information of Linux-based alternatives to the SIMS application would be very helpful, as would details of any other schools that have trialled Linux successfully or of people/companies (ideally in the West Sussex area) that would be able to help with a BIG switchover. I know Ubuntu has the Edubuntu branch, but have never used it - how much support is available from Canonical/the community when it comes to large organisations switching to their distro? I've only ever encountered Ubuntu as something to install from CD to PC, not to a huge network..

Apart from anything else, the organisation behind this academy is taking over another school at the same time, and is already running at least one other school I know of, so if it works well in ONE school, they'll possibly branch it out to their others as well. Which means this has the direct potential to get a LOT of kids exposed to Linux in this county, as well as the indirect potential of being a good case study if it works.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

7 comments

hari
Comment from: hari [Member] Email · http://harishankar.org/blog/
Your SIMS application sounds like one that needs to be custom-developed for the particular solution rather a packaged product. I've seen a lot of these legacy programs on DOS boxes (yes, a lot of shops still use good old DOS and a dot-matrix printer for their billing systems) but I doubt if they're available as packaged products. It doesn't make sense, because they're the kind of apps that need to be tailored to each customer otherwise they don't serve any purpose.

So it's more like an ERP, right? I think the school will need to hire some developers and pay some real money to write such a program. It doubt if you can find a Free or Open Source project which will fit these requirements, especially the part about generating time-tables and so on.

I would say, PHP and MySQL with a web based interface would be ideal. However Python also seems a good choice to develop such a solution in.
29/06/09 @ 13:02
tuxdev
Comment from: tuxdev [Member]
Does Wine work decently for this SIMS thing? I agree with Hari that it'd be ideal to reimplement this as a web-based thing, but I have a feeling the higher ups will only think of the direct costs instead of also factoring the cost of people trying to wrangle the system like they've been doing so far.

I'm rather concerned that a lot stuff done with computers in the classroom is done because it's cool and not because it's better than paper-and-pencil. Computers too easily become a magic black box and the students never really learn what's actually going on. I'm fond of slide rules and the abacus because I can see the mathematical principles that make them work.

It's kind of amusing the the Computer Science building in my building is one of the least technologically advanced and the professors like it that way. The profs want to do free-form scrawling on their lecture slides, and transparencies are both a cheap and elegant way to do that. They've looked into doing something computerized from time to time, but everything was either more expensive or clunkier than plain old transparencies and projectors.
29/06/09 @ 16:15
Alexander Haller
Comment from: Alexander Haller [Visitor]
I recently read about SchoolTool
http://www.schooltool.org/ .
It sounds very good - but I have not tested it myself.

And then there is the UCS@school Server http://www.univention.de/english.html.

Like any decent Linux distribution *buntu or Debian can easily installed on large networks in a number of ways (like cloning or netboot). So this is a no-brainer.

Greetings,
Alex
29/06/09 @ 23:30
Neil
Comment from: Neil [Visitor]
Get one of the choir to get hold of the application and install it under WINE to see if it still works.

If it does, the primary objection to Linux disappears :o)
30/06/09 @ 07:31
sinn3r
Comment from: sinn3r [Member] Email · http://sinn3r.org/
A friend of mine wrote something like the thing, you discribed, for his school here in germany. Mainly it was PHP+MySQL.

So it shouldn't be _that_ hard, to write an application, that is fitting the need.

Maybe a modified e(or php)-groupware could do the trick, but i think, writting some own stuff is easier.

I had working on a similiar idea a few months ago, to train my perl skills, but i never came beyond the "hey, it's a blog" status.
30/06/09 @ 12:34
CJW
Comment from: CJW [Visitor]
Hi, I'm the server setup/management, (and programmer and...) guy at an ISP with 1000+ customers in Canada. Responsible for the infrastructure at the nearby city as well ( in a team of three ).

We are almost exclusively Ubuntu (linux) servers for the ISP and have at least one city department tied to an OpenLDAP / Samba primary domain controller (the equivalent to MS Active Directory). We are not strangers to Windows, most all City users and departments are 100% windows based.

A key question on the school is what is happening to all of the hardware used exclusively by teachers (other than the laptops)? Typically a windows license is tied to the hardware it is installed on and thus the windows license stays with the hardware. If it is a matter of reinstalling windows with the same license to update the details that's not a big problem (and only the labour costs involved). If you don't actually have your license codes (OEM) written down anyplace, you can use a tool such as the Magic Jellybean Keyfinder to display the license information.

Assuming that for whatever reason, the computers that are staying need to have new licenses and new installs, it is probably best give the teachers (all those that need access to the native Windows apps) a copy of windows (purchased) and all other machines on site can be exclusively linux.

That leaves the matter of teacher familiarity with the students work environment (their linux computers).

In my offices, the staff is split about 50/50 for windows desktop installed or linux desktop installed. All of us running linux also run VirtualBox by Sun and thus 100% of us have a windows installation (and a windows license).

The VirtualBox program creates a virtual hard drive / RAM space in the computer where a guest operating system can be installed. In the case of Windows, the OS still needs a valid license and will need to be activated. It is incredible (especially the first time) as windows boots up inside a window on the linux desktop and is absolutely none the wiser about being inside the virtual environment. Network, mouse, keyboard, cd-roms -- everything works as if windows was the only thing running on the computer. VirtualBox also has the added benefit of being able to 'freeze' the state of your guest OS. This allows you to skip the boot up and straightaway open your windows OS already at its desktop, work for awhile or test some changes to the system and when finished, restore the OS to its previous state and shut down the virtual machine in a few clicks.

Others mentioned WINE for linux desktop - in my experience with WINE it is a bit glitchy by times, especially when the app you run with WINE is a small-time program (like a custom software managing student records). A few little glitches in a mission critical application are enough to spur the administration to spend away the uncertainty. WINE doesn't hold a candle to VirtualBox with regard to application stability and support, though it does permit running windows applications in a linux environment without the expense of the windows license.

At the core of the problem is the fact that the legacy windows applications should be updated to run on the academy's Intranet (private network, web-based is best). This should be easily achieved by a professional programmer or programming shop for a fraction of the cost of the windows licenses with the bonus of being positioned to improve upon what is presently being used.

Best of luck.
30/06/09 @ 15:09
ray
Comment from: ray [Visitor] · http://lostaddress.org
http://www.skolelinux.org/en/node/1 has been around for a while and is in use in some UK school authorities.
30/06/09 @ 20:40

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