[H-GEN] Linux in Schools.

[Rick Phillips]

> Another beautiful story of Linux in (Australian) Schools.
> 
> http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=407925021&eid=-255
> 
> 
> There are many more.

Yep and we are one of them!

Noosa District State High School is making great strides with Linux.
This IS one of the bigger so called "bureaucracy" driven high schools
with some 100 staff and 1400 students.  About 300 machines are running
on this site with 9 servers doing different tasks.  Two and a half years
ago there was no Linux in this school and a very strong MS ethic.  Now
we have Mandriva 10.1 running our proxy server, our intranet & internet,
our staff CMS web site (Joomla), Moodle, MRBS (meeting room booking
service), Gallery, all driven by the usual LAMP combo.  All classroom
machines are dual boot (Mandriva) and Linux gets extensive use.  The
kids really like it!  When the main student server was down for nearly a
month, Linux was the only OS which could be used in classrooms.

After receiving advice from the Humbug list last night, phpGroupware has
now been installed to aid staff planning and we will make good use of
the inbuilt Request Ticketing system.

Two of the nine servers have been converted to Mandriva 10.1 with a
third to follow in a few months.  This will be running OpenFiler and
will be our main file storage.  We could in fact, convert all bar 4
server to Linux without missing a beat.  These remaining 4 run Windows
specific stuff.  As we replace each server, Linux will go on if at all
possible.

The school is seeing the benefit of open source and Linux in particular
to the point where it is actively promoting it.  It may not be very long
before the school switches some desktops full time to Linux as, out of
the box, it has some fine teaching tools such as the Gimp and Quanta
Plus, OpenOffice, Audacity (we have a film and TV group) and so on.
Students had no problems with OpenOffice during the "disturbance".

There was a cluster meeting (local headmasters) at the school today
where our Head actively promoted Linux and Moodle as a very successful
partnership froviding excellent outcomes for the students and parents.
The following snippet has just come to me from a member of NoosaLug
whose son attends one of the schools in the cluster.  It is NOT a self
advertisement - it just demonstrates the excitement that is building
around open source in this neck of the woods.

"Just got Tom home from grade 1 at Federal State School to be handed a
note by him, from his teacher / principle.  I mentioned to her that
there was a fantastic bloke with an ordinary bit of software(that may be
vice versa) over at the high school.

So apparently she went over to the Noosa High School at Cooroy, and saw
what she described as "absolutely fantastic"...............Moodle.
Rick's notoriety is on the move.  Soon he'll have a real monster on his
hands."

I have also just learned today that the Education Department has settled
on Joomla to provide school portals for parent/student access to their
school.  It will probably be mostly run on Windows ISA servers but it is
--- open source.

Good stuff eh!

Rick Phillips