FLOSS at Parrs Wood

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FLOSS at Parrs Wood

• Leslie Fletcher Chair of Governors
• Jo MacKinnon Deputy Headteacher
• http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/46424
  61.stm

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Parrs Wood High School

• South Manchester (Manchester LEA)
• Comprehensive, 11 18
• 2000 students, gt200 staff
• Dual-status specialist college for Technology and
  the Performing Arts
• No issues in last OFSTED
• Beacon/Leading Edge school
• From September, two head teachers
• Pilot School for two year Key Stage 3

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New building in 2000

• Land swap with a developer
• Not PFI or similar
• School not the formal client
• Governors got the building they wanted
• Cost 11 million

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ICT aims for new school(in 2000)

• Raise achievement
• Improve learning and teaching
• Enhance social inclusion
• Increase the involvement of parents

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ICT history up to 2000

• Dire provision in old building
• Money had been spent, but not well
• Licencing in total disarray
• Problems with technical support
• Though these were being alleviated
• Many offers of help during new build
• Serious risk of repeating past mistakes
• Tight capital budget

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Critical steps for ICT

• Thin client architecture
• Outside consultants
• One dogged, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, ICT
  technician
• Open Source infrastructure
• One dogged, ICT technician
• Visionary Headteacher supportive leadership
  team
• Spend available capital on network and servers
• Could have gone horribly wrong

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Implementing this

• Servers and network from building contract
• About 300, mostly thin, clients from
• Recycling existing desktops
• Hand-downs from local businesses
• Build from parts
• Windows on desktop via Citrix for Linux
• Team of four committed, hard-working,
  knowledgeable, technicians

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What we have now

• 1000 clients in school
• Thin clients
• Full clients
• Wireless laptops
• No gizmos (apart from a few whiteboards!?)
• Every classroom, ICT suites,
• 8 (dogged etc) technicians
• All staff, students and governors can, and many
  do, login from home
• Staff print directly to their area

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Where we are now

• ICT raises attainment 58 61 _at_ 5x(A C)
• measured via ICT accreditation
• ICT used in every area of the curriculum
• VLE (Moodle)
• Independent Learning Centre
• Web access
• email
• gt 100 free school laptops in student homes
• Parents ?

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ICT strategic aims in 2005

• Raise achievement
• Underpin improve learning and teaching
• Enhance social inclusion engagement
• Increase the involvement of parents and the wider
  community
• Support personalisation of learning
• Broaden the range of learning experiences we can
  offer
• 24/7 learning

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What else has happened

• Strategic commitment to FLOSS
• Advising and supporting the City
• Well Connected City
• Webmail for all schools
• Usable Internet access for all schools, including
  filters, firewall,
• based on FLOSS, scaling up the PWHS system using
  ideas from Powys LEA
• Networked behaviour management system
• Advising and supporting local schools
• Technical support service
• NW Region Focus School for ICT Register
• Red Hat Training Centre

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Where next?

• Fully on-line curriculum
• Progress data and other information online for
  students and parents
• already available for staff
• for students in Sept05
• Real performance indicators for ICT
• Support for any school which wants it
• Open Source desktop

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What have we learnt?

• OSS is a way of spending money differently
• Save on licences
• Spend on technical support
• Fulfils a civic agenda
• Network manager on Leadership Team
• Open source outlook and perceptions have changed
  significantly over 5 years
• Open source strategy feels right
• We are in control
• We are free to do as we decide
• Reliable, secure

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What we cannot comment on

• No real experience of user migration
• No real experience of licence migration
• Not on top of
• Training
• though recently become a Red Hat Academy
• Documentation
• Possibly dont contribute as much as we receive
  from Open Source technical projects

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What are the problems?

• LEA and DfES lip service to Open Standards
• Prevalence of .doc c (Teachernet)
• Websites which dont work with Firefox (VFM!)
• Student records and systems
• Curriculum materials
• Competence thinly spread
• Wariness about ICT widespread
• Unwillingness to try something new
• LEA treats officers and teachers differently
• Unease about Building Schools for the Future

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The main lesson

• Spend money on in-house technical support

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Misgivings about ICT component of BSF

• It is a wheeze
• Not directed at what schools (or 21st Century
  Learners) could need in future
• Money not spent where it is needed
• One size does not fit all
• Leaves no room for innovation
• LEA ICT strategies vary in quality
• Very difficult for FLOSS

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Classroom/Learning Impact

• There has been no dislocation
• Helps to get students thinking ( living) outside
  the box
• Freedom to adapt to our needs
• Moodle has brought significant progress very
  rapidly flexibly to 2000 users
• Expanded range of learning experiences available

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Leadership Impact

• Broadens the group thinking
• Gives us more options
• Makes it easier to share with support other
  schools less experienced in the new technologies

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Key factors in Success or Failure

• Risk-taking philosophy
• Leadership group
• Support staff skills (tech interpersonal)
• Relationships TRUST
• The systems/software have to just work

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