I recently asked a teacher whom our center loaned 20+ Dell Inspiron 4100 (aka, older) laptops loaded with Ubuntu Linux to reflect on her experience with them. At the time I delivered the laptops to her, she was familar with Firefox, but had never heard of Ubuntu. Below is her response (you may need to click Read more to see the rest):
Ubuntu in the Classroom
Maybe it’s because they are young and flexible but my students did not notice we were not using Microsoft on the laptops we borrowed from West Georgia RESA ETC. Students have been using a set of laptops operating on Ubuntu for the past few weeks and have utilized Firefox for internet projects that included research, access to the school website and some internet study programs. These were all carried out with great success.
Students were also given three different writing assignments they completed on these laptops. Students access Open Office Word Processing and Presentation to create documents which were either printed or displayed on a projector in the classroom. Students were highly engaged in creating materials which were well written and contained specific information as designated by the rubric. In order to fulfill the requirements students accessed printed research material and the internet.
As a language arts teacher, I recommend Ubuntu as an operating system. All the students agreed that using the word processor improved their writing and made it more fun. Some other comments were:
“I felt more like completing my work when I used the computer.”
“The computer made my work my fun and easier.”
“I wish we could use these laptops all the time.”
-- Pam Dycus, Villa Rica Middle School
