[ale] Palladium/MS: ideas for retaliation

[Jeff TIllotson]

I have given the LINUX in the classroom thing some thought.  I don't know 
much about Georgia's school system so I don't know much about what is in 
the works, what they currently use and such.  What I do know is the schools 
by my house have no computer labs of any sort.  On that note what if this 
project start by setting up a single class room or lab in a school to use 
as a test bed?  You could incorporate it with a technology class or one of 
the talented and gifted programs.

The benefits of an approach like this are:
         1.  Results are close to immediate
         2.  There is little financial investment (most of it could 
probably be donated)
         3.  Generates some involvement and interest.
         4.  Use as a showcase.
         5.  Reuse capital investment of current systems (makes taxpayers 
happy)

Of course there are shortcomings:
         1.  No support from faculty
         2.  How to support?
         3.  Probably 10 more I haven't considered.

I think an idea like this would work best in a middle school.  I don't know 
how to get faculty support (sounds like a merketing thing) but support 
could be handled by volunteers giving training to the students/faculty once 
a week or something.  While the system could be designed to recover itself 
remote access could be built in for volunteers to maintain the system 
without being on site.

If it works well, which it would, then there is reason to start putting 
servers running LINUX into the mix.

It would be important that this lab:
         1.  Offer something to the students and faculty they don't 
currently have
         2.  Be available before hours and after hours.

Just my thoughts,
Jeff


At 11:16 AM 6/26/2002 -0400, Dow Hurst wrote:
>This is a good time to let your anger at Microsoft's miserable attitudes 
>and business practices motivate you to write your government officials. 
>Also, we should leverage our local influence and expertise into helping 
>local school systems avoid MS ensnarement before time wastes even more.


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