Our implementation of Ubuntu is being used in Language Arts (That is, "English
class" for English speakers), and so they are mainly using the OpenOffice suite
(Writer in particular), as well as the web browser (Firefox).
We're encouraging the teachers in those classrooms to make use of our Moodle
server, and are seeing some progress in that, but then that's platform
independent as far as the user is concerned, it's simply having the 1:1
computing environment that makes that so useful.
On the sysadmin side, we're a previously homogenous Microsoft network so Samba
is incredibly important for reaching the students' "lockers" which reside on a
Samba share. I'm still in the process of figuring out LDAP and Kerberos to make
our Linux workstations function as any other workstation on the network:
authenticating to the Active Directory, and using Kerberos so as to only need
to sign in once.
I'd really like to see an "Active Directory Compatibility" package that can be
simply installed through Synaptic that depends on all the necessary packages
and configures them correctly, and I'd be willing to work on that (though I've
never worked on such a thing before, I'd need guidance). The sad truth is, in
any large organization that is previous Microsoft homogenous--like ours--Ubuntu
will only be a viable option when it plays nice with the locals without much
effort on the sysadmin's part.
That said, and with an eye towards the future, I'd like to see educational
software for all areas, especially what we call "Academic" subjects: Social
Studies (Geography, History, Government, Economics, etc.), Math (We teach from
Pre-Algebra through Calculus and Trigonometry here), and the Sciences (Very
broad topics, these, Chemistry, Biology, Earth and Space Sciences, etc. - our
Physics labs has sensors that plug into the computer via USB and communicate
with a proprietary program that runs on Windows, very spiffy stuff, though I
don't know if Wine would run that or not...).
The arts are fairly well represented in Ubuntu with the GIMP and Blender, but
how about Music? (Programs that can be used for Music Theory classes, for
example, not just Audacity for recording music).
Sim?n
________________________________
From: edubuntu-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Richard Weideman
Sent: Wed 10/18/2006 6:20 AM
To: LIST edubuntu devel
Subject: Edgy+1: Edubuntu for Secondary Schools & Edubuntu for Universities
So:
* if you are involved at a Secondary or Tertiary level what would you
like to see ?
** if you are involved at a Secondary or Tertiary level, and are using
vanilla Ubuntu with your own choice of application installs, what do you
already have running that is proving useful to the educators and
learners ?
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