Linux and Free Software in Santa Rosa (California) Schools
June 6, 2009 by Clair Ching
Filed under The Free World.
Schools taking the initiative to wean students away from Windows is already starting in California. As the article Linux Makes the Grade in California Schools points out, this is taking place in Santa Rosa after a pilot program in Petaluma, California.
Their setup is basically:
Ubuntu LTSP + thin clients + servers
Their applications:
OpenOffice.org
Firefox
Typing Tutor
Virtual Machines for Windows-based classroom learning applications
Not all of their software are already free/open source but still, I think that this is awesome anyway. At least they are starting with something within their school district. The schools’ needs are being overseen by Logical Networking Solutions so that they could have a transition that’s as smooth as possible.
I hope that this project will become very successful and that their transition will become smoother as the months go by. Aside from that I hope that projects like this would encourage others to write learning software that students can benefit from. It would take the cooperation between educators and software developers and I hope to see more learning software that is free and open source in the years to come.
