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Toronto high school expels Linux lab (ITBusiness.ca)
ITBusiness.ca
covers the story of the removal of a Linux lab at a Toronto,
Canada high school.
"Ed Montgomery, a computer science teacher at Monarch Park Collegiate, said in an e-mail to ITBusiness.ca that he was given a note in May, telling him that the Linux lab would be dismantled and replaced with a Microsoft-based Classroom Migration Technology Initiative (CTMI) lab.
On June 21, according to Montgomery, Terry Wister, the head of school wide services for Monarch Park, removed all of the Linux computers from the lab room under the direction of the school’s principal, Rob MacKinnon, while Montgomery was out at lunch. When Montgomery came back from lunch, he said all of the machines in the lab were running Windows."
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Nothing that a few knoppix or ubuntu discs can't fix... Posted Jul 7, 2006 18:58 UTC (Fri) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link] More seriously, aside from the stupidity of the decision, the way that it was carried out was rather petty.
Still, the teacher could leave Windows on and have kids reboot from CD at the beginning of class, purely in the interest of expanding their educational horizons, of course.
Nothing that a few knoppix or ubuntu discs can't fix... Posted Jul 7, 2006 19:43 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] More seriously, aside from the stupidity of the decision, the way that it was carried out was rather petty.Not to mention disruptive. Can you imagine what it would be like to come back from lunch and find that your home directory has gone missing..
Nothing that a few knoppix or ubuntu discs can't fix... Posted Jul 8, 2006 0:08 UTC (Sat) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] What better way to teach the real lesson of bureaucratic education?
Nothing that a few knoppix or ubuntu discs can't fix... Posted Jul 9, 2006 20:50 UTC (Sun) by im14u2c (subscriber, #5246) [Link] Wow. What a thoroughly depressing essay. Coming from a teacher, I would have hoped for fewer grammar errors, though. There are plenty of grains of truth in the essay, but I think as a whole it's perhaps overstated.
Nothing that a few knoppix or ubuntu discs can't fix... Posted Jul 13, 2006 18:05 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] Grammar errors? I thought he rebelled against the cookie-cutter style of business English, and perhaps the prose is purple, but it's thought-provoking.
Toronto high school expels Linux lab (ITBusiness.ca) Posted Jul 7, 2006 19:12 UTC (Fri) by flashydave (subscriber, #29267) [Link] Given the length of time it takes to install said OS and get all the security updates downloaded I'm seriously impressed that it was completed in a lunch time - or do the Canadians just take rather long lunches?.......
...Ah I missed the point - all those reboots and updates are actually an essential part of the curriculum for today's children getting them prepared for the real world. Running Linux based systems, whilst being a good thing from our perspective, would give them a distorted view of what you have to do in a typical office environment!
Toronto high school expels Linux lab (ITBusiness.ca) Posted Jul 7, 2006 20:32 UTC (Fri) by rcbixler (guest, #11917) [Link] From the wording in the story that the Linux systems were "removed", itsounds like they just swapped hardware. So probably Windows was pre-loaded on the replacement hardware. An alternative explanation is that the administrators ghosted a Windows image with the latest security updates applied over all of the Linux installations. Either way, I have to agree with the other remarks that this whole process from conception to implementation seems to have been done in a petty way.
Toronto high school expels Linux lab (ITBusiness.ca) Posted Jul 7, 2006 20:57 UTC (Fri) by meffie (subscriber, #3120) [Link]
Mr. Montgomery, the educator that was running the lab, has a blog at http://cdneducation.blogspot.com/. He writes the machines were replaced, and it was a down-grade to add insult to injury,
> Apparently, the linux machines have been replaced with old
Also, there is an interview of Mr. Montgomery at http://www.cluecan.ca/node/307
Sounds like a good excuse to try Knoppix Posted Jul 7, 2006 21:40 UTC (Fri) by freeio (guest, #9622) [Link] Assuming that the systems can still be rigged to boot a CD, what runs on the systems can be changed dynamically. That would inevitably cause a real uproar, but it provides a potential way out.
How many systems are there in the lab? Make that many Knoppix disks, and load them up. The cost is minimal, the results are Linux everywhere, and the disruption level is very low.
The only difficulty is that the entire matteris a school political matter, and in such a case, the instructor simply cannot win such a pissing contest with school administrators.
Toronto high school expels Linux lab (ITBusiness.ca) Posted Jul 7, 2006 23:50 UTC (Fri) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link] Score one for classroom politics.
VMWare runs on W2K, right? Posted Jul 8, 2006 7:20 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] Be gracious in victory, and gracious in defeat. VMWare works well enough, right? Leave W2K on there, install VMWare, and then Linux again. Boot one, run the other, either way. Problem solved, with no hurt feelings. Most likely the whole operation was just the condition for a donation, and the principal doesn't care what software he actually uses in class, as long as he doesn't actually violate the legal terms of the donation.
There must have been a fight before... Posted Jul 8, 2006 7:37 UTC (Sat) by dambacher (subscriber, #1710) [Link] I don't buy the 'It just happend and I don't know why'.
From my own experience (MS Win2000 expelled Novell 7) I know that this kind of 'replacement tactic' is always the last act in a kind of 'background
I don't think it is a plot against linux at this school.
There must have been a fight before... Posted Jul 9, 2006 6:27 UTC (Sun) by The_Pirate (guest, #21740) [Link] Hmm... The fight is certainly there.
Here in Denmark, just last week it was announced that Microsoft would give a number of schools a 'special discount' on MS Office.
The offer? US$ 3.25 for a full installation of Office.
There must have been a fight before... Posted Jul 10, 2006 14:26 UTC (Mon) by gfranken (guest, #22822) [Link] Hmm... The fight is certainly there. Here in Denmark, just last week it was announced that Microsoft would give a number of schools a 'special discount' on MS Office. It seems (even though i have no conclusive evidence yet) that the targeted schools are the ones running Linux... Especially now, where the govenment have been forced to use open standards, in particular ODF, it looks like MS wants the kids made dependent on their software. Right? Or should i start wearing a tin foil hat? The offer? US$ 3.25 for a full installation of Office.School officials don't get it. They should demand substantial subsidies from Microsoft for installing MS's Office suite and OS (a negative cost per workstation install). The economic model for getting software into schools is changing. Those poor school kids ... watch out kids, that first software taste appears to be free, then later on when you're hooked, you pay and pay and pay . . . and the school systems are facilitating your software addiction!
There must have been a fight before... Posted Jul 14, 2006 21:36 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] The article does give the other side, and it isn't nearly as odious as other commenters would like to believe.First: The giant city-wide school bureaucracy did not order the change. Said bureaucracy developed a homogeneous system of computer labs that could serve the entire district, in the name of efficient administration. But it did not require any school to use it. The principle of this school decided himself that the school would be better off with the district program, which happens to be based on Windows. Second: the principle noted that there was very little interest in the Linux computers. The teacher is surely interested, but only 6 students per semester took his classes that used them. It doesn't say what the new lab will be used for, or by how many students, but I presume it's something more productive. The article doesn't, however, defend the way the switch was done while the teacher was out to lunch. Although it could be innocent, it sounds to me a lot like the principle knew he would get a fight from the teacher, so did it this weaselly way. But the teacher clearly would not have won that fight, so it didn't really affect the result.
Toronto high school expels Linux lab (ITBusiness.ca) Posted Jul 10, 2006 23:06 UTC (Mon) by dps (subscriber, #5725) [Link] Anyone that chooses any OS, or other solution, for reason other than it meeting their needs is doing something stupid. When a solution that is not broke is in place disruptive changes are completely stupid, period.
I doubt microsoft will find many takers in schools not using their software, and suspect that this would apply even if they *paid* people to use their wares. All schools have a lot of investment in specialist software, and need to able to continue to use this software.
It would also be completely stupid to substitute a linux lab for a microsoft one, because as soon someone wants to use this or that not so standard program there is a disaster.
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