Why

1st of July 2005

By project manager cand.scient Knut Yrvin 1th July 2005
Foils to free use and publication with crediting the author

Also known as Debian-edu ...

Prevent that the PC's breaks the schools budget

The situation at the schools

Economy

Experiences with centralised operation

Bandwidth

Digital Competence

Warning: Some of this is not for nerds

The economical realities

Huge differences

The ICT-operation at the municipalities of Nittedal supports 400 office PC's and 400 users with 6 employees Annually they pay Microsoft 50.600 EURO for licences

The operational cost for a PC in the municipality is 791 EURO a year

10 primary schools in Nittedal have 506 PC's with Skolelinux and 3200 users. The system is maintained with an operator with a half position (2 ½ days a week).

The operational cost for a PC in the school is 100 EURO a year.

In addition the schools have a local ICT-contact with 1-4 hours a week to do “helpdesk” support. They also have a pedagogic coordinator for all the schools with a half position. Totally this is about a 1½ man-year to support 3200 users, 37 EURO a user

The regional hospital paid 3.800 a year to the City Council at Akershus to operate a standard office PC in 2001 (ref: the contract)

The administration have 5 times more on ICT

Many principles have to choose between hardware or people. Most of the schools have to pay expenses that compare to one or two teacher positions, says the headmaster ...

Bandwidth, equipment, and placement

The suppliers have heavy interest in the solutions they recommend to the schools

Functionality of the user applications depends strongly on where the hardware is placed

The most important factor is to educate the teachers in use of ICT

What about FreeNX or Citrix?

Must have local thick client

Must have graphical terminal client

Runs user application centrally

Expensive local and central operation

FreeNX needs half the bandwidth compared to Citrix

Programs run both centrally and locally

Centralised operation with FreeNX

No support for media rich applications. National exams had to be done on workstations

To ensure local storage and Internet you need two structures for saving files and support services

Increased need for bandwidth. Less use of reused computers

«Double» structures for running user applications

~240 EURO annually to operate every PC
(ICT-contact is not counted in)

> 100 client machines

TC

TC

TC

TC

TC

File / login
localy

WS

WS

WS

WS

WS

Terminal
server
centrally

2-8 Mbit/s ADSL

TK = Tynnklient

AS = Arbeidstasjon

Real thin client

Old PC's (133-233 MHz) without local hard-disk

The applications are running on the server

Thin clients just handle keyboard and the graphics on the screen

No local administration!

All the programs are maintained centrally

Half thick client

Newer reused computers with 450-1000 MHz. Local Hard-disk as swap (stateless)

The client runs «everything». Video, usb-pen, DVD, heavy Java, games etc. ll.

As little administration as the thin clients!

The programs run locally but is administrated centrally

Centralised operation with Skolelinux

Full support of media rich applications and net based exams with thin clients

Runs thin clients (w/o hard disk), laptops, half thick clients, workstations etc.

Reduced demands for bandwidth Full reuse of older hardware from 1995 and newer

Simple structure for running user applications

~115 EURO annually to operate every PC

(ICT-contact is not counted in)

TC

TC

TC

TC

TC

1 x File- /
Client-server

WS

WS

WS

WS

WS

Centralised
services
e-mail etc.

1-8 Mbit/s til og fra

> 100 work stations

TK = Tynnklient

AS = Arbeidstasjon

Servers, bandwidth and clients

3 schools, 400 users and 150 clients at every school

* Advantage: use of max. 60% of the thin clients at same time

The amunt of servers

3 schools. 150 clients and 400 users at every school

* FreeNX or Citrix have limitations on supporting media rich appl.

Running cost:
locally or centrally

Ref: Teleplan and the Municipality of Oslo

What does this tells us?

Other suppliers have to cut the amount of clients or reduce the cost of operation to match Skolelinux. Why pay more to get less?

The money used in the municipalities is hard to get. Less money you apply for compared to more expensive solutions, more do you increase your chance to get a grant. That's because a less expensive ICT-effort does less damage on the budget

Skolelinux deployment

Learn

Norwegian labor law §12.3
= user participation

Get to know the
Skolelinux systemet (20 t)

Get to know the desktop (6 t)

Projecting

Building data net (320 t)

Get reused hardware and
new serveres (8 t)

Get the cheapest
broadband supplier (8 t)

Deployment

Installation and configuration (2 t)

Set up the klients at
whole the school (20-40 t)

Support

Local support (1-4h a week)

Centralised operation 10 schools (50% position a week)

Teaching

User education of the teachers (6 t)

LærerIKT with OpenOffice (40 t)

...

Skolelinux in whole of Norway

Also in Germany and other European countries, Africa ++
The companies for reused computers are essential

A little about ICT use in schools

Values

Do you take the drivers licence you learn to travel safe with constant change in the traffic

To drive the teachers BMW as fast as possible is not the idea

The traffic picture changes constantly

That's why the pupils needs to understand the road signs at the information highway

The traffic signs
has to be in our native language

Master thesis by
Åse Bratthammer

Do you want to learn math, you have to work with it. You need to drill. Then it is no help to make hundreds of Power Point presentations of the theory.

Not all ICT is bad ICT. We have to be selective.

The Schools has to use the advantages. Everybody knows the advantages with a word processor. That's obvious. There are simulations and animations that could be a great value for the single pupil, but it must not take all the time.

Kilde: http://www.bt.no/lokalt/hordaland/article336051

User friendly

“The usability threshold with Skolelinux is relatively low, and lower than when we went from win 3x to win 95”

ICT-contakt Frode Stiansen at Birkenlund primary school

“I have been surprised about how easy it was to learn Skolelinux. I believe it would not be difficult to get the rest of my colleges to use the system”

ICT-contact Marit Strømsøe at Holumskogen primary school

Warnings when starting up

Make a realistic user participated plan

Make realistic budgets. When using to little money you do not reach your goals

Increase your procurement skills

Use e-mail and web to get experiences

Buy equipment where everything is put together and tested, both reused and new

Think centralised operation

It's a big difference on a deployment plan of hardware, and pedagogic use of computer programs

..

Questions?

.

2004-02-19T10:58:03