[Opensource] Getting rid of Windows on your R61 Lenovo

Wed Oct 14 14:46:26 EST 2009

Thank you everybody for your thought provoking responses. First of all I should say that I wizzed up my post first thing in the morning, before the usual heart and brain starting brown drink (Nescafe), and so might have come across a bit more grumpy than usual. 

I have to say that it has been nearly 10 years since I abandoned the robust and stimulating environment of the state school I worked in (I had trouble coping with destructive boyz), and took up a quieter life in a school for fairly polite girls. I had forgotten that state school teachers need to be more resourceful and adventurous in the face of variable support, and their experience reflected this. Our teachers are still fierce teachers , dedicated to their students, determined to make things happen for them, but seem to need their hands held, and demand we to solve their computer related problems. And so my question about how other tech ppl manage adventurous teachers came out of my experience over the last few years.

Thanks again

Jim Maunder

ps SPAM: My rock band is playing at the Como Gardens open day at The Basin on Saturday.

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We have to use this Disclaimer 

Views, opinions, etc. expressed reflect those of the author and not
Ruyton Girls' School 
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Jim Maunder
Laptop Technician
Ruyton Girls School
Melbourne, Australia
ph 9290 9374

>>> Cameron Bell<bell.cameron.p at edumail.vic.gov.au> 14/10/2009 9:59 AM >>>

I know that I am very lucky that my techie and I both have the belief that schools are places of learning and exploration. While having a uniform platform and a "corporate" approach to ICT infrastructure on a curric network certainly has its merits - particularly from a support point, I am lucky that my technician is of the opinion that we are there to support student learning and teachers in whatever they feel *they* need to use for better educational outcomes - not just what suits us. On our curric network we try to mimic the real world and so encourage a range of platforms and most importantly feel that teachers (like anyone) work best and produce their best when they are able to use whatever tools they are comfortable with or enjoy using. I don't tell my technical team what they can and can't use and don't expect them to dictate to me what I can ! and can't use. (We do have many discussions on the pros and cons and if there is an insurmountable issue then we err on the side of not totally stuffing it up for everyone. ;) 
 I could never work in a school that told me what I must and can't use - (hence my days of ever going back to the private system are over.) If I am fluent in Win, Mac and Linux for everyday use, I  can't see why I shouldn't be able to use the most appropriate tool for the job. I use a Mac so that I have access to all three OS's if needed. Schools are not corporations once you step into the classroom. 
When we hire technical support we insist that they have, or are prepared to learn, to deal with all three platforms. Most technicians know that most answers are only a click away or a discussion forum question from solving. There is also training available. However we also tell staff the price we pay for this flexibility is speed of response when it comes to some of the more ! unusual problems we get. If they want to delve into Ubuntu, Mac or swi tch to Windows  good on them and we will support them but we also encourage them to find out for themselves (lets be independent lifelong learners folks) - it's amazing how many teachers are staggered when they come in with a problem and we just google it if we don't know the answer. We also take time to explain to the user that they could possible do this and I am sure that this is already happening - many of our teachers who have recently switched to Macs are doing a great job of sussing things out for themselves - very few issues.
As for any policy - the core business of learning and what is best for the students comes first and if that means giving everyone - technicians, teachers and students the tools *they* want.....

(My  0.0181467 USD worth.)

Cheers
Cameron

On 13/10/2009, at 8:35 AM, Jim Maunder wrote:

Morning All -

This old laptop technician wonders how the tech support people in your organisations cope with teachers buggarising\\\\\\\\\\ changing the software in your laptops? Do you expect them to support the new improved OS and software or do you look after it yourselves?

I have nothing against Ubuntu - I often play with it myself here at work. I find it easy to use, and really like the software installation and update procedure - makes this sort of thing a breeze. The wireless works well in our open network, though mapping drives on the Novell network is non-trivial. We could not use it on desktop machines here (although I keep trying the new releases just in case).

I run Vista on my desktop, and because a couple of apps I like to use don't run in Vista I have Win98 running in a MS Virtual Machine (and Win311 in another VM just to see if I could), so I understand why one would want to try that sort of approach.

Anyway I was wondering what the 'official line' was on non-standard desktop environments?

rgds
Jim
(see my sig lines and disclaimer at the end)

-----------------------------------------------------------
We have to use this Disclaimer 

Views, opinions, etc. expressed reflect those of the author and not
Ruyton Girls' School 
-----------------------------------------------------------

Jim Maunder
Laptop Technician
Ruyton Girls School
Melbourne, Australia
ph 9290 9374

>>> Brett Groves<groves.brett.g at edumail.vic.gov.au> 12/10/2009 4:08 PM >>>
Greetings all,

Luckily I'm already bald or I would have torn out any hair left since I 
got my new R61 Lenovo a few months ago and have had to struggle with the 
joys of Vista. Blue screens, slow, "Windows has detected the cursor has 
moved, would you like to restart now" type messages.....I had had 
enough. So I set aside some time over the hols to look at Ubuntu.

Tried the alpha version of the new 9.10 release and it was lovely and 
very easy to configure but doesnt yet support virtualbox (more on that 
in moment).

I loaded as a final option instead version 9.04. I actually really 
didn't need to set aside much time at all. It was unbelievably easy to 
configure for EduPaSS wireless, the network share drives are 
ri! diculously simple to map, in fact the whole process has been quite 
pain free...a revelation!

So now my laptop runs at least twice as fast, never blue screens hasn't 
crashed yet, and installing programs like Rolands suggestion of Kdenlive 
was trivially easy.

......

Brett Groves - ICT Coordinator - Croydon Secondary College

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