The school board member writes:

I have been looking into Linux and think we could do some travelling carts for pretty cheap. Or if not carts we could have some computers in the classroom. Linux runs well on old computers (Windows 98 or the Mac equivalent), which could be pretty cheap to get our hands on from places that are upgrading, and then you can run all sorts of free programs – word processing, etc. If you put Wine on the computer, it will emulate Windows and you can run many (not all) old software CDs. That would allow teachers to do keyboarding and art and math facts, etc. on the computers.  There is a guy on my work listserv who runs his whole law office using Linux, free software, and internet-based programs.

It might be something to look into for the future. Do you know much about Linux, or have you heard of any schools using it? We probably couldn’t do podcasts and things, but it might be a solution for the younger grades, which could free up tech room space for the older grades.

Now that I’m really on the home stretch, work is slightly more stressful than it was before Christmas break. I’m working very hard getting things done that I want settled before I start my leave in what I hope will be a few weeks yet. This week I started updating our mobile lab, which is quite a task when there really is nowhere to set them all up at one time attached to power. I have a few set up in my office and a few out on the top of the cart which is sitting in the hallway for lack of any other place for it! These laptops are pretty slow; they are Pentium III 650 machines with 256 MB RAM running Windows XP. I’ve been working with half of them on a wired 100MB network and the other half on their wireless 54MB cards. Windows updates haven’t been run for quite some time, so there are many!

We’ve also begun our 2nd Learnia test for the year. Since we are only giving one ClassLinks test, I wanted to make sure there was a similar ratio of standards covered as are on the ClassViews tests. That was no small feat for math since of the six from which to choose, none include all the standards. Reading was a bit easier; I was able to find at least one ClassLinks with similar standards to the ClassViews. I ended up building my own tests for math to include as close to the same standards as I could find. I had some trouble with matching up the standards with the actual items available to add to the tests, but I worked around it. We’ll see how it works out!

And then there’s the E-Rate process… We did not receive as many bids as I expected from our Form 470 posting. But now I think that is probably a good thing. With our budget the way it is for next year, I think we’ll hold off on the bigger projects and just apply for discounts on services we already have in place.

Do you know of any other good sites for images or audio for education?

The biggest challenge for Spellings is that her rhetoric doesn’t coincide with her actions. She says that underfunding of technology in schools is a big problem, but the Department’s failure to fund the federal Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program gives her statements no credibility. The federal Technology Innovation Challenge Grant program, the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund, the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) program, the Community Technology Centers, and the Regional Technology in Education Consortia – they are all gone. The only thing left is EETT, and now the feds have proposed zeroing out that budget yet again.

To say that this scares me as far as my job is concerned is certainly an understatement.  For those of us in the private sector, I can only think the funding is even less accessible.  I hope we can get some federal help and that my hours and hours of composing a four-year technology play are not in vain.

I hope I can convince my administrators of the urgency with which we must now seek out funds to budget for technology for school operations.  I will continue the crusade!