p2pnet - rss feed: Linux school lab ‘expelled’
p2p news / p2pnet: The story of how a Toronto school’s fully functional Linux lab was replaced with an elderly Microsoft system is spreading.
CLUE policy coordinator Russell McOrmonond recently told Ontario minister of education Sandra Pupatello how Toronto’s Monarch Park Collegiate had replaced the school’s Linux lab with Microsoft-based Classroom Migration Technology Initiative (CTMI) unit.
Now, “Was it a knock against open source, or just classroom politics?” - wonders IT Business’s Sarah Lysecki
Terry Wister, head of Monarch Park school services for, “removed all of the Linux computers from room 218 at Monarch Park Collegiate, while I was at lunch, on Wednesday, June 21, 2006,” the teacher, Ed Montgomery, told McOrmond. “The lab had been in operation for 5 years.”
The CTMI lab appeared in its place.
“It would be fascinating to compare my Linux lab experiences with other labs in the system,” says Montgomery.
“For example, my software costs for the past five years is…zero! I would estimate that the TDSB (and the Province of Ontario) is spending and sending millions of tax dollars to Microsoft each year in licensing fees, upgrade fees, maintenance fees, and a tremendous amount of money is also spent on dealing with a large number of support issues, etc. My attempts to date to find any of this information have been unsuccessful. I would have thought that this information would be public and easily available.”
On Digital Copyright ca, McOrmond says he’s asked the Toronto District School Board for documentation on CTMI, “with the hopes that they will document this on the board website”.
“Philosophically speaking, every teacher takes ownership of the course(s) that they teach. Regardless of what I or any other teacher teaches, whether it is computers, ESL, science, language, history, etc., the ultimate goal is to help expand the experiences of students, to broaden their skills and knowledge base,” says Montgomery on his new blog.
“Exposure to new ideas, new ways of thinking, that students may use to compare and decide on their own, is fundamental to what I and many other teachers try to do. Analysis of facts, debate, opinions, systems, etc. leads to improvements, choice, options, alternatives, etc. Much like political choice, democratic systems, etc. For all of these above reasons and more, I believe that linux systems should be available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Hence, I believe that when a teacher is willing to provide these oppportunities and experiences for students, these kinds of initiatives should be supported.”
In an earlier post, “Apparently, the linux machines have been replaced with old machines, based on CTMI/Windows 2000 computers,” says Montgomery.
“A Microsoft spokesperson said the school board should comment on its decision to change the lab and that the decision had nothing to do with Microsoft,” says IT Business.
Digg this.
Also See:
Digital Copyright ca - Toronto high school expels Linux lab, July 7, 2006
IT Business - Toronto high school expels Linux lab, July 7, 2006
told McOrmond - Dear Sandra Pupatello: Part II, July 3, 2006
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July 7th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Well, if the teacher is so vocal about his students using the linux enviroment, he could just go ahead and install some virtualization programs like vmware or virtual PC, and then run his linux distros on the machines like nothing happend. That would allow him to work within the confines of these machines. However, as virtualization has limits (troubles with clustering for instance) he could also opt for using a dual boot configuration, pleasing both students and school board.
Never see limits, just see possibilities!
As for our school, we’re using a compromise in which we sometimes get permission to overwrite the windows OS when lessons dictate such, restoration is via norton ghost, and is rather simple.
We also use virtualization technologies to a great extent, but in some instances, like with clustering, we were forced to forgo the virtualization issue and reinstall another version of windows.
July 8th, 2006 at 12:11 am
May as well have the neon “drink coke” black-boards flashing in the students face… Whats the diff….
July 9th, 2006 at 2:37 am
“Terry Wister, head of Monarch Park school services for, removed all of the Linux computers from room 218 at Monarch Park Collegiate, while I was at lunch”
How long was this guy’s lunch break?
July 11th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
I don’t understand why it has to be a one or the other decision. It seems to me a computer lab with a linux server(s), a win2k/win2003 server(s), some windows, linux and mac workstations would prepare students for almost anything they would run into in the workforce. Getting them all to work together would provide a nice learning experience.