Thursday, July 27, 2006

Presentation to Atlanta's school CIO about open source software

Daniel Howard made presentations to the CIO of Atlanta Public Schools on his case study at Morris Brandon Elementary School. He posted some of the many slides generated over the year in efforts to convince the school administrators to switch to K12LTSP, which finally happened by just doing it and showing the results.

Two Open Office presentation files can be used to convince your school IT folks of the benefits of Free and Open Source Software.

Presentation to Atlanta's CIO:
http://home.comcast.net/~dhhoward/BrandonFinalBriefingjul06.odp

Lots of slides used to convince school officials to make the switch:
http://home.comcast.net/~dhhoward/ElemSchoolTechRecomendationsfinal.odp


Third slide says enough:

By converting Brandon technology to Linux thin clients and Open Source Software:

The number of working PCs at Brandon was tripled

Maintenance problems all but disappeared

Teacher satisfaction with and use of technology went from nearly zero to 100%

Cost of technology was reduced by 90%

Academic performance and productivity saw significant improvements

1 comment:

Mark Rauterkus said...

"I have used the computers more in my teaching this year than all my previous years combined. They work all the time now, and the kids and I love it! Thank you!" 5th grade teacher.

"We're using the Linux educational software regularly now, for fractions, percentages, the periodic table, and even building molecules with the Atomix game. It's great!" 5th grade teacher.

"I'll take as many PCs as you can give me, now that I see that they work so well!" 3rd grade teacher.

"What's this new K12LTSP software we have to get trained on? I just saw an email about training for it." "You've been using it for the last hour to read your email on the web." "Oh, I guess I don't need too much training." A specialist teacher.

"You mean that's the same old computer that hasn't worked for the last several years, and now it works great? What is this stuff?" Kindergarten teacher.

"You know what I love about the new Linux software? The educational application software is on every PC, and I don't have to find the CD ROM, find the PC it’s installed on, unjam the drive the kids have jammed, and figure out which disk in the package runs the software and which disk has the bonus features." PEC teacher.
“Having 7 working computers in my classroom has helped increase student performance in both reading and math…my students are able to access and play the First in Math Website more often than the students were able in years past. My class is now first in the nation for first grade students. I believe the academic success of my students is directly linked to the wonderful technology solutions that you have implemented at Morris Brandon. Thank you so much!” 1st Grade Teacher