Rekrapenator/Goal

Goal

Investigate and document how a New Zealand school can be effectively run using an Ubuntu installation

Time limitations as a teaching principal is an issue for pursuing educational goals

Goals that are not necessarily deemed school based; rightly, take a back-seat to classroom teaching and secondly to school administration

   * Share how and why Warrington School is now running only Gnu/Linux software using Wikieducator as an OER
   * To complete the Open computing case study showing full system configuration (see previous goal)
   * To learn to use Free software and Ubuntu competently to run a small New Zealand school
   * Use OpenOffice.Org Database for manipulating Warrington School's data
   * Compare other open source learning management systems
   * Link the school's library, pupil portfolios and other developing needs with the Ubuntu installation and Moodle
   * Share the use of Ubuntu, Free Software and Open Education with other local small schools possibly through the Three Peaks Cluster Muster
   * Run, organise or attend night classes on Free Software computing for the Warrington Community on 

  1. Installing Ubuntu
  2. Using Ubuntu and other open and free applications
  3. wiki editing
  4. Ubuntu Terminal server for greener computing 

   * Repeat the above sessions during the day for the staff and pupils of Warrington School and for the 3 Peaks Cluster
   * Find a sponsor for the project - Catalyst - 17/6/09
   * Use sponsor's $$$$ to release me from my administration duties one day per week, the balance of my time would be 2 days in the classroom and 2 days as school administrator
   * Use sponsor's $$$$ to take a block of one week, once per term to work with my hosts
   * The duration of the project would be for one year
   * Board of Trustees approval sought with this goal - approved 11/6/09
   * Employ a teaching staff member to take over my administration duties - sorted 18/6/09
   * 3 Peaks Cluster agreed for me to present idea as part of the Cluster Muster, Wikieducator 

  1. Cluster Muster date is October 28th 2009
  2. Venue Warrington School 9-4 

   * Hosts for the project -OER Foundation 5/6/09, Catalyst 17/6/09 and LinuxWorks, Dunedin 24/6/09 and Rob Pearson Information Systems Manager, Presbyterian Support Otago 

"A host’s role is to support and mentor and to assist the project"

If you have got this far you had better have some free music Plan

  1. Start term three 2009
  2. Progress report at the end of term three
  3. Use the Warrington Decision making process to test the project's impact upon the school
  4. Take up further funding from Catalyst until the end of term three 2010 if necessary
  5. Progress of this goal may be tracked via the history tab on the wikieducator page. You may have more than one host organisation, however, only include the organisations that you anticipate providing a sizable contribution rather than every organisation you might have contact with. Depending on the level of commitment required by the organisations involved, it may be more appropriate to use a single organisation as your host. 

The Contractual Type Bits

Catalyst expects:

  1. The school invoice each month
  2. The first invoice on or about July 1 as payment for the month of July with the last invoice expected 1 June 2010.
  3. Information when milestones have been reached.
  4. Requests for information about open source tools and technologies.
  5. To see progress on wikieducator.
  6. That the Ministry is challenged, but at all times treated with respect. 

Questions and Musings

• Some of these need to be understood by myself and others added to installation for me

   * How do we have ODT files directly available from the wiki in the same manner as we do pdf - I need to be able to share the school's documents so they can be accessed over the wiki and then be edited by others? 

Example of problem:Flag Swamp would like a policy on Hand Washing? Where can they ask this be accessed from. OER Repository NZ Primary Policy Hand Washing?

   * The above sending and receiving school would need to be running open standards software such as AbiWord or Open Office, creating spaces that only those willing to be using open standards could access?
   * Using Open Office for easy to create colourful newsletters - Mail merge from data base, data manipulation from spreadsheet to database and back
   * Photos stored on the server not viewable as thumbnails?
   * Open clip art as available in gallery of Open Office
   * Open office NZ spelling and thesaurus
   * Corruption of some files from a laptop to server - only room 3 laptop????
   * Getting all specifications on how to install printers etc onto wiki pages for staff
   * Terminal server set up? 

  1. Specifications
  2. One or two network cards
  3. Connecting to server 

   * Maori version of Ubuntu?
   * Updating from 8.04 to 9.04 etc able to at home not at school - server??
   * Still have some Open Office presentations that are becoming corrupt and not able to be repaired?
   * 2 computers in the admin area beside each other that began to beep on start up and would not start up from then on - I replaced these machines as i couldn't find any reason for this - i have just moved another computer into the classroom and it also has begun the same beeping and seems to have crashed but strangley the one beside it also has done the same thing - most odd? Virus? The ones that intitially beeped were from the uni and I wondered if it was anything to do with power fluctuation issues which we had had in the admin area.
   * Back up - we still have not resolved this issue - I wonder whether the simplest solution is to buy a large external drive and get a copy once a week of the partitions from the server - i.e network, storage office and do a manual back up
   * Installing adobe flash to play Youtube - no matter which way I try and download this it freezes part way through installation? 

I finally have the answer to my licence question - $186 per computer the MOE pays out - this is huge imagine if I had this to spend every year on computers in the school.

   * Ubuntu using VHF to access the Internet - Department Of Conservation Warden idea
   * Warden documentation filled out on a wiki
   * Welcome Flat/Wardening