Case Studies

Book: Energizing Education Through Open Source

cdwhittum — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:55:23 +0000

I'm Working on a book entitled Enerygizing Education Through Open Sources. I will be submitting it for publication later this month. In this book, I discuss Edubuntu and UberStudent Linux distributions, proposed curriculum integration, productivity applications, student information and course management software and educational software. The educational software is organized according to core curriculum. There is a veritable ocean of free, open source education-related applications available. In my book, I address over 80 of them.

School District 73 Open Source Initiative

dmonty — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:16:17 +0000

Since 2001 School District 73 has been using Open Software solutions. Implementing Open Software is not instantaneous. We start with one site that is willing to pilot new software, when it is successful then other sites ask to have their computers upgraded. It is important to give people time to adjust and have keen staff help others with Open Solutions. Over several years we slowly grew Open Software in the following order:

Skolelinux thin client solution

SchoolForge — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:47:20 +0000

Why Free Software?

We wanted a full working thin-client system, security simplified the administrator jobs and we wanted a linux system in our school.

The plan...

Success with K12 Linux Terminal Server Project (K12LTSP) turns school project into district initiative

SchoolForge — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:43:21 +0000

How things got started...

Aging Windows 95 and 98 school student PCs too much trouble to maintain, teachers not using student PCs in class instruction due to lack of reliability

Why Free Software?

K12LTSP chosen to convert aging PCs into thin clients. Survey of teachers showed that main apps of interest for students were web browsing and office apps, both readily supported in Linux Open Source Software.

The plan...

Free software used in teaching first grade students to read, write and speak digits and letters

SchoolForge — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:32:27 +0000

How things got started...

Ubuntu infrastructure provides superior architecture and cost savings for school IT project

SchoolForge — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:22:32 +0000

How things got started...

The school expanded from K-8 to K-12 in a new building and had an opportunity to design an IT system from scratch including the cabling. Unfortunately IT was not designed into the plan of the school from the beginning. Fortunately, I was available to do the planning over the summer. A round figure of $100000 was in the budget for IT, not including cabling. The problem was how to maximize usage of IT in the new school within this budget (which was extremely low, less than 1% of capital cost of the project).

Thin Client Solution for classroom computers

SchoolForge — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:16:46 +0000

How things got started...

The problem I am addressing is making use of legacy machines stock piled in some schools, going unused. Most of these machines were donated and came with "wiped" hard drives and no software. I will pilot a thin client solution and legacy Pentium 1's and higher.

Why Free Software?

Linux-based desktops, servers, and curriculum at private Christian school.

SchoolForge — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:08:39 +0000

How things got started...

We built our original computer lab using donated computers from surrounding businesses. These computers worked fine for a time, but when they began to fail, I started looking into new equipment. As a private school on a shoe-string budget, we needed to count every penny both for hardware and software costs.

Why Free Software?