RE: [PLUG] Community Service Project (Devil's advocate)

[George Gallen <ggallen@slackinc.com>]

Title: RE: [PLUG] Community Service Project (Devil's advocate)

Are these computers for the home or for school?

If for school, then linux is an excellent choice
esp the networking end.

Do you think the school distict will accept the computers?
which could hinder them getting any grants in the near
future for newer computers, since now they will have
something usable. School politics are a nasty thing, my
wife is on our local school board, and red tape they need
to go through just to get something done is unreal.

If this is going to happen, another possibility would
be to approch the district in re-evaluating their outcome
criteas for technology, possibly having some of the kids
forming a technology committee to help steer the school in
the direction of implementing these computers into their
ciriculum. This also could involve parents, teachers, and
to some degree outside businesses to help. I sat on on our
local technology committee when they designed their 5 year
plan (which should be up right about now...)

George

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Arthur S. Alexion [mailto:arthur@alexion.com]
>Sent: Friday, July 11, 2003 7:15 AM
>To: plug@lists.phillylinux.org
>Subject: Re: [PLUG] Community Service Project (Devil's advocate)
>
>
>Paul wrote:
>
>> George Gallen wrote:
>>
>>> Very few games would run on these machines, but games
>>> I mean educational type games (Jumpstart, etc.) which
>>> could be borrowed from libraries and/or schools. As well
>>> what kind of computer system does the school system in
>>> Chester Co use? Do they require a windows type machine
>>> for any software that the techers might be handing out
>>> to supplement their textbooks?
>>>
>>
>> Very good point.  Dual boot?  Give the kids something that M$ would
>> never give them--a choice.  There is a lot of Open Source and free
>> software available which run under M$ Windows.
>
>Do you think the hard drives of these older computers --
>probably under
>4 GB -- have room for dual boot?
>
>Anyway, George, Chester is in Delaware County.  County government has
>nothing to do with school governance.  Certain goals and requirements
>are set by the state (180 day minimum year, Standards for graduation,
>etc.) while the details (and equipment acquisitions are done at the
>local, school board level (school districts usually mirror municipal
>boundaries, with some exceptions).  Chester-Upland is one of the most
>underserved districts in the state.  It is the first district
>taken over
>by the state for inept administration, several years before
>Philadelphia.  Before that, the federal courts were administering it,
>the problems had gotten so bad.  I think Jon's goal is large
>enough that
>the district will use what Jon gives it to use.
>
>--
>
>_______________________________
>Art Alexion
>Arthur S. Alexion LLC
>mailto:arthur@alexion.com
>http://www.alexion.com
>
>