A few years back, school divisions in North Battleford and Moose Jaw underwent a full-scale implementation of thin-client Sun Systems (Sun Rays). At the time, I was one of the researchers who worked with SIDRU (Saskatchewan Instructional Development and Research Unit) to perform an evaluative research study of the complex processes involved in this large undertaking. Ever since this project, I have been particularly interested in alternative systems such as thin-client or Linux-based systems.
While the different school-divisions had varying successes with the new Sun systems, I was amazed at the ingenuity of the tech people and teachers involved as they adopted the systems to the needs of their users (students, teachers, admin).
One of the things that seemed to be a problem with the SunRay systems, is that they were a bit expensive to maintain (relatively). So I wasn’t incredibly surprised to notice (in Canopener), that the North West Catholic School Division is replacing their SunRay systems with Linux thin-client systems. See the full story here.
I am going to be very interested to see the results of this implementation.
(Hey Rob, do you know anything about this?)
Related posts:
I know a few details, Alec, but its a project of the *other* school division so you’d have to talk to Tom for full details. In our school division (http://www.bsd.sk.ca – if you don’t mind me putting in the plug) we were working with Linux thin clients and servers previous to the project with the SunRays, and it has integrated extremely well with the SunRay terminals and Sun servers to provide a very robust system. Its a good model for bringing access to computer based media to students. We are using quite successfully at North Battleford Comprehensive High School to deliver resources for our Drafting, Computer Networking, and Computer Science classes.
I could go on (and on and on …) but I think I’ll just blog a more considered response a bit later, and trackback to your post.
Thanks Rob … I knew it was the *other* school division in this case, and I do remember you heavy into the Linux thin client implementations previous to the Sun roll-out from the research. This is part of why I am still hoping to get a lot of rich data from you whenever this PhD research of mine DOES get off the ground! :-) I hope you are still interested in letting me tap into your experience!
Tap away – I don’t know how deep of a well of knowledge I have, but you are welcome to it. ;^)
Linux Thin Clients: Breaking out of the computer ghetto, and saving the world at the same time!
I read about this announcement a couple of days ago on Alec Couros’ blog. I’m really glad to see that Alec is raising the topic of *nix based thin client systems as a model that can work in the K-12