Linux Likes and Gripes (Response)

I solicited responses from members of our community and went back and did a content analysis on the survey data collected this year. I compiled a list of aspects of Linux that our students and teachers liked and disliked. I did not include items that are specific to our image choices. I tried to keep this agnostic to Linux in general as part of my feedback to the Linux Foundation at their Collaboration Summit in Austin, TX.

Here's the list including the number of times a statement was made:

Top Linux Likes:
Ease of Use (51)
Open Office (17)
Customization (16)
Desktop Effects (15)
Panel (10)
Stability (8)

Top Linux Gripes
Open Office (29)
Intuitive install (15)
Network Manager (11)
Ease of Use (10)
Samba (9)
DVD (7)
Power management (7)
Evolution (7)

Terminal Services: The good, the bad and the ugly

I am hearing a lot about terminal services lately. I am also seeing a lot of excitement about it. About two years ago, I was also really excited about it but time, experience and experimentation has cooled my excitement. Terminal Services offers a great deal of additional access at a much lower cost but ultimately alienates today's youth who have become accustomed to personalized technology.

First, let me offer a brief definition. Terminal Services is effectively offering multiple users access to a single computer from multiple locations simultaneously. Microsoft offers terminal services and various products offer add-on functionality, such as Citrix. At Whitfield, we use Citrix. We have four servers which have up to about 75 users a piece running either a full desktop environment or specific applications. Thus, 75 people are using the same computer at the same time. Now, this is a pretty strong server but that's still pretty efficient. Terminal services have also gotten a lot of attention through the K-12 Linux Terminal Service Project and Linux Terminal Services through Novell's Suse Linux.

The Good
The good side of terminal services is that it can drastically cut costs. Instead of buying beefy desktops who's CPU remains idle most of the day, you can place low cost desktops or thin terminal devices (or hold onto really old, crappy computers) and run state of the art software on the relatively few beefy terminal servers. Because you can hold onto (or resurrect) old computers, it is very possible to improve your student to computer ratio. Lower costs and more access is a good thing!

The Bad
Whenever you have multiple users simultaneously using the same computer, you need to be careful about one user destroying the experience of all the others. In a desktop environment, if one kids messes things up, he or she will usually walk away and find another computer. Though that one computer is down, everyone else remains largely unaffected. The necessary result of this is that you have to lock down your terminal servers pretty tightly. You also need to watch them pretty closely, though, when things are not right, you will hear about it as it affects so many people! Also, one of the greatest limitations of terminal services is that resources are only available when people are connected to the network. Though many terminal services can be made available through the Internet, you still have to be connected. How lost did you feel the last time you forgot your cell phone? Magnify that times ten for today's digital kids.

The Ugly
Because the computing environment has to be locked down so tightly, terminal services turn technology into a pure utility. Now, some companies are very excited about this. They don't want people doing anything on computers other than that which they explicitly allow. Shamefully, some schools are that way. At best, this limits innovation and at worst, kills a spirit of exploration, which is absolutely counter-intuitive to education. What happens is that student use of technology is limited to the creativity of the IT staff and administration (most all of whom are NOT digital natives, unlike our students). Our students have become accustomed to slapping different colors on their iPod, changing desktop backgrounds daily, setting up digital environments which allow for the intersection of their work, personal lives, and interests. Kids will meet their needs someway and it simply can not be met through terminal services.

Our Experience
At Whitfield, we worked extremely hard to create a robust, fast and slick terminal services environment. We redirected many of the personal settings to other servers so students could have as much control as possible. They obviously could not install software or change any of the configurations of the terminal servers themselves.

We were also aware that the major limitation of terminal services is that the resources are unavailable if not connected to the Internet. Thus, we provided them access to Novell Linux Desktop 9 (the vastly inferior predecessor to SUSE Linux Desktop 10). Our Citrix environment offered most of the best Microsoft had to offer. Our Linux laptop offered most of the standard set of tools available on Linux. The only major modification we made was to give normal users a lot of rights over the Linux laptop.

Even though SUSE 9 was pretty inferior compared to Windows 2003, students reported spending half of their connected time in Linux. With SLED10, students now report spending 80-90 percent of their time in Linux. Though some of that relates to the new features of SLED10, people are reporting that the real reason they spend time in Linux versus Citrix is because they can "make it look the way they want to." Personalization is the key and terminal services can't offer that.

Terminal services still has a place in our environment. Teacher's frequently use Citrix for a Windows desktop environment and we also have some applications that simply can not be run from a Linux workstation. However, our mission calls for us to be a student centered environment. I can't honestly claim to be supporting the mission of my school and limit the needs of my students.

A Compromise
One of the latest innovations that seems to offer the savings of terminal services and the personalization of personal desktops is the virtual desktop initiative (Please see my post on virtualization). This allows people to use a low cost device (or actually any device able to connect to the Internet) to access a remote session to a virtual desktop. That desktop is, functionally, a complete and personal machine. However, that machine is virtual and actually exists on disk. That machine is made available through a virtual machine server, like VMWare or Xen.

In this scenario, users can personalize a machine to their liking without really affecting other users. Also, because these systems or easy to restore from frequent "snapshots," you can give users a little more freedoms on the box, encouraging innovation and technical literacy.

Now, this environment requires a lot more disk space than terminal services and still REQUIRES Internet connection, which is still a MAJOR limitation in most towns (NOTE: I would argue that kids need access beyond home and school in order to gain full fluency but equity issues also would require home connection for all users). Those limitations keep this from being a viable option in the St. Louis area today. However, if I were the CIO of Philadelphia Public Schools or Milwaukee Public Schools (where I actually started my teaching career) I would be ALL OVER this solution.

Brainshare '07: SLED in a 1:1 Education Environment

I am currently at Brainshare, Novell's annual conference to celebrate and learn about Novell Technologies. We are heavy user's of Novell's products, primarily SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED 10) and Zenworks. I am giving two presentations at the conference.

The first is Using SLED10 in a Mobile 1:1 Education Environment. The presentation was created with OpenOffice but is distributed here as a PowerPoint file for those users who don't have OpenOffice. Obviously, if you have OpenOffice, you know you can open PowerPoint files.

I am learning a great deal at Brainshare and hope to find the time to share some of my discoveries.

Virtualization in Education

I've had the opportunity to talk about virtualization in a few different contexts lately and so I thought I'd put together a post on it.

What is Virtualization?
Well, that depends a little on who you are talking to. The most popular notion of virtualization is virtual machines. This means running another computer as a software instance on top of another operating system. An example would be VMWare Workstation. In this instance you may have a Windows XP computer running a "virtualized SLED 10" system. Thus, you could be running programs for both operating systems at the same time on the same hardware.

Taking that to another level, many people (such as Whitfield) use virtualization for server consolidation. We had about 8 servers coming to the end of their lease life. Thus, rather than replace them with 8 new pieces of server hardware, we bought two beefy blade servers for our IBM BladeCenter and bought VMWare ESX virtual server software. We then used a utility to automatically migrate our physical servers to virtual servers. Now, we have two pretty beefy physical servers which are running about 16 different virtual servers. Each of these servers is configured pretty much as they were before. We use Remote Desktop to access and control the servers and they function just as they would if they were on physical pieces of server hardware. However, in addition to all of the tools offered by the server operating systems themselves, VMWare offers additional tools to diagnose and control the system resources being used by these servers, helping us to tune them to a higher degree.

Another form of virtualization is application virtualization. This allows you to run applications on a system as though they are on another system. Mac does this with OS9 application being run on OSX systems. Linux does this when running Windows programs with WINE. Also, some people refer to hosted applications, such as Citrix as virtualized applications. In this case, programs such as Microsoft Word, actually run on a Windows server but appear to the user as though they are running on his or her Linux laptop. This is how we run Windows programs in our Linux Laptop Program.

What's the hullabaloo about Virtualization?
(Thank goodness blogs don't have editors that make me cut out words like hullabaloo)
People are excited about virtualization and there are reasons for this. Virtualization can save a lot of money. Effectively, you only need disk, rather than hardware, to run applications and operating systems. Disk space costs a lot less and you probably already have disk space you're not using! Another reason people are happy about virtualization is that it removes many of the traditional obstacles of IT. Now you can run Windows on Mac hardware, without buying and carrying two computers. You can run Windows applications from a Mac or Windows machine. You can also manage virtual systems quite easily with management tools. Many of these management tools give you low or no cost management of systems that would be unavailable or cost prohibitive on physical machines.

Virtual Desktop Initiative
This is perhaps the coolest combination of virtualization technologies. Though I have seen a few different applications of virtual desktop initiatives, I will describe one I've seen being done by a major financial services company.

When a new employee joins the company, they go to the "request a workstation" web page from the low cost thin terminal sitting at their desk. They are prompted to answer a series of questions through a webified wizard. It asks questions such as what operating system do you want, what department are you in, etc. Then, based off the user's department and request, the user is provisioned a virtual desktop that appears on their screen as though it is installed locally. This system is created in about 5 minutes from templates that already exist. They also are provisioned all of their applications via Citrix right on the machine.

Users have lots of control over these machines, depending on their role in the organization. Many are allowed to install software, change desktop settings, etc. The reason this organization offers these increased powers is because they can easily restore the computers back the a previous snapshot which is grabbed by default. What's more is that users can go home and use a web browser on their personal home computer to access the entire virtual computer and work just as though they were sitting at their desk.

OK. This post is getting long so I will stop here. I will post again soon on the up-sides and downsides of virtual desktops in education, particularly when compared to terminal services.

Teacher Professional Development

I haven't felt the need to write a post on professional development because it really falls outside the core purpose of this blog site. However, many people have asked me how you deal with professional development and teacher training when shifting to open source and Linux. Well, the answer is, the same way you deal with any other change in your organization. Though the transition to Linux and 1:1 computing was a major topic of professional development, the model we used was relatively unchanged. Thus, I will share with you what we did.

Create the Schema
It is important that people have some understanding of the change before they can personally assess what their concerns and needs are. I don't do a lot of "stand-up speeches" to faculty (though I used to and decided that was a bad way to train). However, to give them necessary exposure, I gave a small presentation on what Linux was and why we were trying it for the pilot. That took about 30 minutes.

Provide Basic Literacy
We then built a User's Manual for basic uses. This was a half-day workshop that gave step-by-step, hands-on instruction on basic uses, such as connecting to a home network, printing, connecting to Citrix, using Open Office, using Evolution for e-mail, etc.

The workshop that our teachers went through was broken up and teachers used that same curricula to teach students when we handed out the laptops. Thus, teachers were quite engaged because they would be teaching those lessons in a matter of days.

We took a whole day to do the workshop even though it was a half-day curriculum so teachers had time to reflect, ask questions and prepare themselves to be comfortable enough to train students on their new found knowledge.

On-going Support through the First Year
At Whitfield, we have faculty meetings for about an hour and a half once a month. Our Dean of Faculty, Larry Hays, has done a great job of surgically removing the announcements from these meetings so we have time to engage in professional development.

At the beginning of the year, we broke up into groups so teachers in the pilot (11th and 12th grade teachers) had time to express concerns and learn from one another. As the year went on, we learned that our teachers concerns indicated to us that our teachers were not looking at the program through the same looking glass. The problem was not the technology so much as it was what we were doing with it and how we were viewing it. Thus, we changed what we were doing in our breakout groups during our monthly meetings.

Mission Driven Development
Larry is an excellent writer and wrote a short essay tying the findings of the report A Nation at Risk to the core principles of our school mission. This was not much of a stretch as Whitfield is a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools whose model of education was created as a direct response to the findings of A Nation at Risk.

We then looked at the principles and tried to align our use of the laptops with our goals. We spent three months on this process. First we looked at the principles and aligned our teaching with them. Then we talked about how we could use the laptops and technology to enhance the presence of these principles in our courses. Lastly, we listed specific ways we are (or intended to) use these tools as instruments to further our mission.

This was an extremely valuable exercise. The best part about it was that it removed the focus from the technology and placed it on the mission. The technology ceased to become demonized then and was looked at as a tool to help in mission fulfillment, when appropriate and possible.

The Passing of Wisdom
At the end of the year, we do three days of professional development. About half of this three day block was spend on helping the 9th and 10th grade teachers prepare for the upcoming year when their students would get laptops. The 11th and 12th grade teachers broke into teams and worked with teams of 9th and 10th grade teachers to share what they had learned and shared "best practices."

This time was also designed to give teachers the time to express their fears and concerns. The experienced teachers did a wonderful job of realistically helping teachers deal with their concerns to design appropriate classroom experiences.

Ownership in Planning
At the beginning of the year, we do another couple of days of professional development with teachers before students arrive. We spent a very short time displaying the differences in the laptop design (we upgraded from NLD9 to SLED 10). We then let grade level teams divide into groups and decide how they were going to do the roll-out training. This decision was a direct result of feedback we got from them the first year. They now felt comfortable enough with the technology, they wanted greater control on when students received the computers and how the process would go. The only parameter we gave them is that it needed to happen within the first two weeks of school.

Some grades did it in a half day. Some grades took a whole day and one grade did a concentrated half-day session followed by a week of follow up training. It looks like a full day of training worked best but, to be honest, it doesn't matter. The value came from teachers owning the process. This way, when things went awry (because they always do, it's technology!) teachers dealt with it the way they would when things don't go well with one of their lessons. There was very little demonizing of technology during those two weeks. I was SO proud of our teachers

Reduction of Emphasis
We now seldom talk about technology in our monthly meetings. Teachers in each grade level get together each week to talk about grade level issues and student concerns. Laptop issues frequently get brought up but sometimes are not discussed because there is no need. That's transparency!

We are now working with 6th - 8th grade teachers to prepare them for their roll-out. We have planned for the "passing of wisdom" activities for them in the final months of the school year. We will also give grade levels time to plan their own roll-outs again.

Lessons Learned
Over the last two years, this is what I have learned about professional development:

1. Stop talking and listen - Giving faculty a voice is essential to meeting them where they are
2. Give ownership - Teachers know what teachers need and they carry the credibility to pull it off better than any technology director
3. Support individualized initiative and grow from the bottom up - Look for innovation or even teachers asking the right questions and give them the help they need to grow. Then let those teachers share their experiences with other teachers. The bottom up model always has stronger roots than the top down model.
   

Would you, could you, if you saved $2 million?

March is conference month for me this year. I kicked off conference month two days early by attending and presenting at the Midwest Education Technology Conference in St. Louis. I am currently soaking up ideas from brilliant people at the National Association of Independent Schools Conference in Denver.

I gave a presentation on Open Source tools at METC and was heckled by a bright guy named Steve Pillow from Raymore-Peculiar School District. In addition to a state championship football team, they've got a high caliber Technology Coordinator. Steve took a few jabs during my presentation which, as a former debate coach, I enjoy! We spoke after the presentation and he really got me thinking.

Steve presented many of the obstacles he faces in his his district. I may have misperceived him but it appeared as though he saw some of the value of 1:1 programs (where each student has their own mobile computer) but dismissed it because his superintendent believed they couldn't afford it. I suspect that is not uncommon. In fact, I would guess many districts don't even go as far as Steve and his superintendent and simply dismiss it outright.

Next year, when we roll out our laptops to the last group of students and implement some of the efficiencies and enhancements we have learned over the last three years, we will save our school $200,000 per year when compared to a traditional model of a laptop program. I asked Steve how many students he had and he responded 6,000. That means, conservatively, his school could save $2 million each year versus the model he spoke to his superintendent about.

Now, anyway you cut it, computers at a 1:1 ratio are more expensive than a 4:1 ratio. However, shouldn't $2 million per year allow you to get your foot in the door? Let this Linux/Citrix model allow your school to start having the conversation.

Now, in an earlier post, I explain "why Linux." However, Mike Vitiello, who runs a great program called LaptopSchools.com challenged me saying Linux is not for everyone. ABSOLUTELY! Mac isn't for everyone and Windows isn't for everyone but creating environments for our students to be empowered, creative, collaborating learners MUST be for everyone and well-done 1:1 programs do this as well or better than anything.

You see, that's the goal. We want engaged, creative, collaborative 21st Century literate students. I don't care how we get it. I just don't want the majority of our population left out because they didn't know they had other options.

Open Source - Doing More for Free

The title of this post links to a presentation I gave at the Midwest Education Technology Conference. The presentation covers open source titles applicable to education. We talked about the following programs and their proprietary alternatives:

Open Office<-->Microsoft Office
Audacity<-->Garage Band
Gimp<-->Photoshop
Moodle<-->Blackboard
iFolder (no competitive alternative)

We also talked about aligning some of these software packages with ideas to help train students on 21st Century literacies. That presentation can be found here.

My thanks to all those who attended!

Novell and Microsoft: The End-User Perspective

Several people have asked me to write a post on the recently announced partnership between Novell and Microsoft. My guess is that I will make as many enemies as friends with this post. People seem to fall pretty clearly on one side or the other on this topic. Thus, I encourage you to post your comments on this.

I am not an expert on business or technology. I am a technology director who manages a network of about 1000 users across 525 computers and a 4 server Citrix farm. My concern is for neither Novell nor Microsoft. My concern is for my teachers, staff, students and parents. My job is to support their pursuits; make it easier, faster and more attainable.

Though I have my concerns about Microsoft, we heavily use Microsoft Active Directory, Server 2003 and Exchange 2003. I believe many of the applications my users need to do their job well requires Windows-based software. Love it or hate it, we need Microsoft in our environment.

We also (as this site explains) heavily rely on SUSE Linux. I love that my students are exposed to open source software. I love that they are able to use the open source community and human readable files to solve their own problems. I love that the GPL allows me to afford to place a laptop in the hands of each student. Some of our users had trouble dealing with the learning curve of transitioning from Windows to Linux and some open source applications lack the polish of proprietary, Windows-based alternatives. However, we believe that the kind of access 1:1 mobile computing allows is precisely what our students need to succeed in the world. Thus, love it or hate it, we need Linux in our environment.

So, here is the ugly little conclusion that some people in both the Linux and Microsoft camps don't like to hear: We need Microsoft and Linux to work together in a way that makes sense for my end-users!

Oh, I can hear the grumbles from some of my readers already!

Most of the open source community recognizes the value of Linux and also recognizes, in varying degrees, that Microsoft is needed in many end-to-end enterprise solutions. For a further discussion on our impressions of the value of Linux, please read the Why Linux? post below. However, this is not the question many open source advocates have. Their question is why SUSE and especially why SUSE after Novell has decided to "dance with the devil?"

Why SUSE?
Linux is extremely powerful and varying distributions lend themselves to varying situations. We use Debian for a single app RT Helpdesk server. This was provided to us as a virtual machine from our good friends at Clovis School District. It does what it's supposed to. It's lightweight and runs like a champ. I know schools that use the K12LTS for labs and plenty of hobbyists and engineers that use Ubuntu on the desktop. The beauty of Linux is that is can be tweaked to meet your individual needs.

I needed an enterprise solution that was supported by people who understand schools. That solution needed to cover the needs of mobile users of varying skills, provide enterprise caliber user back-up solution, like iFolder, and provide a stable technology road map. I am not a Linux expert, though I have become quite comfortable over the last two years. I needed a distribution that would work for me on the desktop and server and come with a tremendous amount of support to compliment innovation. SUSE provided this.

SUSE also comes with Novell, which has years of experience working with Windows through their Netware platform and has a best of breed data linking tool with Identity Management. They also had (past tense) Jeremy Allison, the leader of the Samba project (more on this later). Few Linux partners offered such a robust level of support for our enterprise.

I suspect other IT leaders seeking enterprise solutions are also looking for that support, reliability and technology road map. Though SUSE may not be the strongest Linux appliance, web server or desktop (for really high end users) my personal opinion is that it is the best solution for the enterprise.

Why is Microsoft working with just one partner?
Why? Because they are a business and a competitor to the platform. Microsoft can no longer deny the fact that Linux is growing like crazy in the data center. They can no longer tell themselves that the world will be all Windows. Thus, they need to learn to "keep their enemies close." But, does anyone expect Microsoft to become regular contributing members to the open source community and embrace the GPL? Of course not! Also, for the sake of your own retirement funds, you should probably hope not as well! :-)

They need to pick a Linux "partner" that makes sense for them. Microsoft isn't in the network appliance business (to a large degree) and Linux desktop isn't really competing with Windows in the retail market...yet, so who would you partner with if you were Microsoft? Novell and SUSE makes the most sense.

Why should I not hate Novell now?
A lot of people in the open source community are pretty upset with Novell for dealing with Microsoft. Jeremy Allison left Novell over the matter. His core focus was making Linux work with Windows systems through Samba. In an interview with BoycottNovell.com, Jeremy states,
"I’m sad because I don’t think we needed to do this. We were gaining a lot of traction with SUSE Linux desktop, and from my perspective (admittedly not high up in the company hierarchy with views on revenue) we were winning. We had a good product, I was always extremely busy with new customer requirements, and was personally involved in winning new customers for SLED and SLES. It just feels to me like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."

I had the pleasure of working with Jeremy for a day last summer. We helped him discover a few bugs in Samba through our experiences with our laptop program. He is a thoughtful, brilliant, funny and humble individual. I have great respect for him and his work. I also respect his opinions.

However, I'm not sure I see the world as a Linux versus Microsoft battle. Samba was (and probably will continue to be) able to make Linux and Windows talk better than Novell or Microsoft can. They have the experience and the open source community backing them up. However, the two conditions are not mutually exclusive. Samba can continue to do this as can a Microsoft venture (with Novell, another Linux partner, or by themselves).

What can we expect from this venture?
Well, a lot has been promised. The key benefits center around three areas. First, we are promised smoother virtualization so you can run Linux on Windows or Windows on Linux. Next, we can expect better data linking across federated Windows and Linux systems using tools like Novell's Identity Management. Lastly, we should see improved file compatibility between Windows and Linux systems.

Now we haven't really seen anything out of this partnership yet. It is too early to really expect anything out of this partnership other than increased sales based on consumer confidence and the financial incentives of the deal. Walmart's major SUSE-Microsoft purchase is an example of this. However, I think Novell is on the hook to benefit the open source community with this deal and I think they will.

Folks at Novell like Nat Friedman and Guy Lunardi are really committed to the open source community. Novell has a track record of giving back to the community. They open sourced iFolder and are the second largest contributor to Open Office.

So what is this end user's perspective?
The jury is still out. However, I think the partnership offers promising opportunities to end users. SUSE already offers me a solid enterprise caliber desktop and server that works quite well with my Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange servers. My users, with the help of Citrix, can do almost anything anyone with either Linux or Windows can do. My hope and dream is that this partnership will yield application level virtualization, allowing me to run Windows applications seamlessly on Linux laptops without the use of Citrix. I hope it will also yield fluid file compatibility with easily managed cross-platform default applications. My hope is also that Novell maintains its commitment to innovation, while continuing to support standards based interoperability with Windows and Mac platforms. These are lofty goals for Novell and the partnership. I place a great deal of the burden in Novell's hands. However, I think they are capable of a lot more of it than many give them credit.

Why Linux Laptops?

We are over half way through our second year with the Linux laptops. It is already time to begin thinking about next year's laptop model and configuration. Microsoft's new Vista operating system is out now and the Apple MacBook is now available for under $1000 for schools. It is appropriate to ask myself, why Linux?

I will admit that although SUSE 9 got the job done, it wasn't the best solution. Also, we released SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 to our community this year and, although it was a MASSIVE improvement over SUSE 9, it was a little buggy, as all OS releases are before their first major service pack. (SIDE NOTE: I am on the beta team for SLED 10 and they have targeted all of the right areas.) We have had enough time to observe our users and talk to graduates and these are the conclusions I have made.

Why Linux?
Linux has grown up
It is no longer the domain of code monkeys and geeks. Linux has always been powerful and secure. However, now it is also pleasant. The transition from XP to SLED 10 went very well for some of our least technologically secure users. Though we purchase our computers for academic and administrative work, normal humans like to easily listen to music, share pictures of their friends, children and grandchildren. Linux does this now and it does it as well as Microsoft. It doesn't do it as well as Mac. Anyway you cut it, Linux is a viable option for the normal computer user. Some things it does better than its competitors and some things it does worse, but it's here and it's ready.

Why Linux?
Centerpiece of Open Source
When I speak at conferences now, most people at least know what open source is and a growing number of them have used open source tools, though it is still a solid minority. I really believe, here in the U.S., we have been living a fool's paradise. We have enjoyed industrial success greatly because most of the world couldn't afford to compete with us. Open source has changed this and our competitiveness has been slipping rapidly because of it. I had a small online business about 6 years ago. To get my website and basic accounting needs off the ground took a couple thousand dollars and a lot of time. I started another small venture about a month ago. Joomla, an open source content management system, GNUCash accounting software, Open Office and Gimp provided me pretty much everything I needed. The most expensive thing I've bought so far is business cards!

I consider myself reasonably well versed in open source options. This was not the case when we started our Linux laptop program. Linux provided the platform for me to explore and learn so many open source options that made my second business so much leaner than the first. I really like that our students are getting exposure to the tools that are changing the world which they are entering. I saw several recent graduates over the holidays and enjoyed hearing say, "Hey Mr. Inman, my college has a Linux lab and is doing open source stuff. I know so much more than the other students about this stuff." Well, here's to hoping the other students learn that "stuff."

Why Linux?
Because the community is winning
We say our school is a community of learners. I believe this. On any given day you will see teachers learning from students, administrators learning from teachers, parents learning from teachers and every other conceivable combination. When everyone takes the time to listen, we all grow. John Stewart Mill said he "found a livelier version of the truth through its collision with error." That's open source! We risk, try, fail and fix. Then, as soon as you are stable, someone introduces a new idea and you start the process all over again. The result is something like Moodle, an e-learning system, or Joomla, tools that actually beat their commercial rivals. What better model for our students!

A colleague from another school cynically asked if our students were actually contributing to the open source community knowing that we don't teach programming at our school. Very few of our kids are even looking at the code but I absolutely believe they are contributing the the open source community. They deeply explore the powers of their Linux laptops and bring me their problems and questions. Sometimes they post those concerns to community forums and sometimes I do. Also, many of their wishes and concerns have been brought to Novell and been included in SLES 10 and SLES 10 SP1. That is contributing and I am proud of our teachers and students for the contributions they have made. As with all contributions to open source, we have all enjoyed the benefits of their labor.

Why not Linux?
You know, all computers have bugs. Each new version of every operating system comes with a learning curve and software becomes obsolete on all platforms. We have experienced less down-time, more student initiated solutions to computing problems and generally good user satisfaction. So I guess the real question is, "why not linux?"

Moodle on SUSE Server

Though our back-end network is primarily Microsoft Server 2003, our use of Linux laptops has certainly opened our eyes to the power and flexibility of Linux servers. Last summer I saw a presentation on Moodle, the open source e-learning platform so we launched a pilot Moodle server for our dean of faculty to manage the faculty resource web page.

The resources of Moodle were quickly in demand in the classroom. By exam time in December, we had several classes hosting forums and posting work. A freshman biology section had over 40 threads with some threads containing as many as 155 replies! The amazing part is that the forum was only a week old! Students used it as a forum for preparing for the exam.

We realized we needed to put some more thought behind our Moodle deployment and so we built a new SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 server from scratch and installed Moodle. I don't know anything about mySQL or php and that made things a little difficult for me. However, between the powerful system tool SUSE uses, called YaST and some custom scripting by a brilliant Linux partner of ours, we've made the installation of this secure and pretty fool-proof. Click on the post title or on the link along the side of the page to get the directions we created. The directions will link you to the Moodle software and the little tool we created to help you with your setup.

Moodle is a powerful tool that you can really grow with.

Enjoy!

iFolder - Our Favorite Tool!

I haven't posted in a while. I must admit, the beginning of the year was busy. Moving from NLD 9 to SUSE Linux Enteprise Desktop 10 is like upgrading from Windows 98 to Vista (except SLED 10 works). The user interface is significantly more user friendly, which helped a lot but it was a pretty big move. We also added 150 new laptop users.

For about a month now, things have been quite smooth and I have had a chance to really observe what is going on. One of the most simple yet widely used tools is iFolder. This open source project (which is available in Windows, Mac and Linux clients) allows users to back up local folders automatically and then also collaborate with other users as well. It has saved students butts when they have laptop damage but, as important, allows them to really work together in a very powerful way.

Here's how it works. You have to download the server software and install it on a server, preferrably a dedicated server. Right now the server needs to be a Novell Open Enterprise Server but soon it can be any Linux server. Then you install the small client on your computer. Once the client has been installed, you can right click on any folder on your computer and "convert it to an iFolder." Once you "convert" a folder, the files and subfolders in that folder are automatically backed up to the server. Even if you stop right there it becomes an elegant back-up utility.

But wait! There's more!! If you want to share the data in that folder with other people, you right click on the folder and "share the iFolder." You are prompted to select the people you want to invite to your folder from the list taken directly from your existing MS Active Directory or Novell eDirectory. Those users you added will then be prompted to "join" the specific iFolder. A copy of your folder, which now resides and is syncronized on the server, is created on the computers of each of the people you selected. Now all people involved in the iFolder can work on the files whether they are online or offline because the files are stored on the local hard drive. When you are connected to the Internet (on the network or off) the files are securely syncronized. Conflicts are dedected and brought to the users attention.

Hold on! We're not finished yet!! What if you want to share your data with someone that doesn't have their own computer? The data stored on the server can be accessed through a website. Right now we have students at our school sharing documents on their laptops with students in Germany via the web accessible server! The German school couldn't ensure access to computers in their school as their lab is often full. However, this way, the students can work together whether they are in the lab, at the library or using their computers at home!

You can find information on the iFolder project at http://ifolder.com but the latest information can be found on a Novell Open Audio podcast.

Updated Presentation On Linux Laptops

The presentation I have given over the last year on the use of Linux Laptops has evolved over the year. It's latest version exists on the liks area on the left side of the page. This presentation is published in MS PowerPoint because people with Open Office can open PowerPoint files but people with PowerPoint can't open an Open Office Impress file.

Results of Linux Laptop Pilot Are In!

I don't know how many people are seeking this information but the results are in. The delay is due to the inherent challenges of starting the school year in a school with a laptop program. This year we have 450 latops with SLED 10 (SUSE Linux) deployed. It is a departure from the framework of the study, which investigated Novell Linux Desktop 9, but is fundamentally the same. SLED 10 offered us many of the improvement we sought as a result of the study's findings.

OK. Enough delay. What did the study find? Linux laptops cost us less in acquisition, and year long support. They cost about the same to deploy. Faculty were resistant but became less so with time. Students found the Linux problems easier to troubleshoot (which was a surprise to me). Also, given the choice between Linux and Windows via Citrix, students spent a slight majority of their time operating in the Linux environment.

A Linux laptop program is no different than any other laptop program in that it brings about a change in the classroom that requires preparation and training. You can never do too much. User satisfaction was generally the same as those found in the Rockman Report, which is a hallmark of laptop program research.

Our conclusion: Linux offers a viable computing ecosystem for a school laptop program for significantly less money. The complete abolishment of Windows and/or Macintosh is probably not in the best interest of the school. Also a phased approach is most valuable because it provides a growing base of linux and open source experts for your community and allows you to more wisely and gradually reduce Microsoft expenses as your community becomes more comfortable with open source alternatives.

The white paper summarizing our findings can be found here or at the link on the left side of the page. We also promised not to hide behind papers. The question by question summary of Phase I data can be found here or at the link on the left side of the page. The question by question summary of Phase II data can be found here or at the link on the left side of the page.

This has been a pleasant challenge and we have decided to continue to use Linux in our laptop program. In fact, based off data gathered in this study, we have designed our image to accommodate more time in the Linux ecosystem versus the Windows ecosystem, as this is what our students have called for in their actions.

Study coming soon!

In several presentations over the last several months, I have promised a study to be published on this blog. We are still making final changes on the study. By the end of the month, we whould have the executive summary, white paper and raw data available.

The study was commissioned in part by Intel, Lenovo and IBM. I have been very particular about making sure we are telling the full story. However, the same data set can be interpreted many ways. I fully accept that some of you will come to different conclusions than the study, or I have given the data. This is why I am publishing the raw data. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

The baseline data is available via a link on the right of this page. Soon we will post the final data.

Concerns and Responses to Linux use

While working on the beta program for SLED10, we asked our students and faculty to list areas of Novell Linux Desktop they would like to see improved. We listed their concerns below as well as how we are considering to rectify their concerns. This was simply pasted from a table in Open Office. I am a novice with HTML editing. I just pasted the code from Open Office so you could get a table. It's not gorgeous but it is readable! :-)