Centralised operation with Debconf6 By project manager Knut Yrvin 10 th may 2006 Foils to free use and publication with crediting the author Experiences in Schools in 5 Norwegian Municipalities

Prevent that the PC's breaks the schools budget ● Client technology and network ● The operations ● Economy ● User experiences ● Whats next? Warning: This is complicated for teachers

The economical realities

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...

Oh, lets use grapical terminals as Citrix or FreeNX This could breath new life in the computers Yes, but it's expensive Real thin clients or diskless workstations gives the best cost/user ratio Why?

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 or Citrix ● Scarce 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 (you must have server at the schools) ● 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 File / login localy WS Terminal server centrally 2-8 Mbit/s ADSL TC = Graphical terminals WS = Workstations

Real thin client ● Old PC's ( 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 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 1 x File- / Client-server WS Centralised services 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

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

Objections about the clients ● Sound does not work on Skolelinux – Sound works on thin clients, but it has to be turned on. With diskless and thick clients it just works – Remember thin clients are intended to use on 10 year old hardware (133 Mhz). That's machines that had to be thrown away if using Windows that are supported with security updates – Consider diskless workstations for newer used hardware. Sound, USB-memory, CD/DVD just works. (>500 Mhz, 256 MB RAM, swap-disk)

Objections about OpenOffice.org ● OpenOffice.org makes a mess when people takes document home from school – This pupils has MS Office at home. ● What do we do with OpenOffice.org? – Turn on MS Office 07 as default doc – Teach the pupils to save in MS Office 97 for home use – Give them a CD with OOo to use at home. Tell the parents what to expect

Must learn Microsoft because of work possibilities ● My kid should not learn niche products – We did not know 15 years ago that Word Perfect should be replaced by Microsoft, we don't know what to expect in 10 years. The pupils should be able to handle change. That's why it's a good thing that the pupils learn different solutions. – The one thing does not exclude the other – Most of the teaching programs is platform independent in the browser, and Firefox is a marked leader both on Linux and Windows. So it's not so black and white.

You have to be a Linux guru? ● We don't trust Linux people that are interested in a cause – Many municipalities that has started with Skolelinux had no prior knowledge – They run big installations today without beeing a Linux guru, and they also support Windows on some clients – They realy little on external support that is easy to find in 2006, that was not the situation 5 years ago. Much have changed.

Other objections ● Not supported by the browser

Huge differences ● The ICT service at the municipalities of Nittedal supports 400 office PC's and 400 users with 6 employees Annually licence cost for Microsoft is EURO ● 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 (20 hours a week). ● The central operational cost for a PC in the school is 100 EURO a year. ● 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 1½ man-year, or 37 EURO a user The administration have 5 times more on ICT

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:

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 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?.