Sunday, March 8, 2009

getSTEM + Linux in the Classroom = Awesome!!!

[caption id="attachment_67" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Ahh,  the sweet smell of success.... and toner "]Me fixing the printer[/caption]

I recently had the pleasure of helping David Groos with a Linux networking problem specifically with setting up LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) with multiple NIC cards and subnets. I heard about this through my wife who works with Inetium in Bloomington, MN.  They are partnered with a group called getSTEM.  getSTEM is dedicated to helping educators find help, guest speakers, or just about anything from ordinary individuals and companies.  It's a great resource and is specifically dedicated to promoting the areas they call STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).

David is currently trying to further his district by bringing Ubuntu Linux into his science classroom. I really admire this initiative, and I feel that open-source software could dramatically change how technology-based education works in school districts. Because the software is free and works on machines that are a bit older, this could easily save districts millions of dollars in computer hardware and software.

I encourage people to look at David's blog and see what he is doing to change the way technology-based education. If you are interested in hearing about my contribution, the specific link is (http://groosd.blogspot.com/2009/03/fixed-network-and-thus-printer.html)