[ale] [Fwd: [Am-info] Red Hat proposes alternative to MicrosoftSettlement]

[James P. Kinney III]

A point that has not been brought up is whether the schools systems WANT
the computers. Doing good for the kids is a great idea. I really like
the RedHat proposal. But wait until the free stuff hits the school
systems. It will be like the food rotting on the docks after it was sent
to Ethiopia in the late 80's.

I have encountered this personally with the Dekalb county school system.
I offered to provide several pc's to my daughters school which were on
par with what they already had. I would include RedHat and install them
and even volunteer to teach kids and teachers how to use them. 
1.Most of the teachers didn't use the computers they already had.
2.Many of the teachers were afraid to use computers at all.
3.It wasn't part of the "systems plan" (?!?).
4.No concept of "no fee for license" (who do we pay?).
5.The worst part is the use of computers for the worst part of
education, repetative drill. This teaches the kids that the computers
are boring.

They have a pile of edu-games (Broderbund, etc) that the kids are
allowed to play with, time permitting. The school system is so
micro-managed that the lesson plans must include how many minutes per
week is spent on each subject. This leaves no time for exploration of
new technology as part of a class. 


-- 
James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and COO      \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244             \.___________________________./

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7 



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