[Lias] An opportunity to grab!

[Andrew]

>>
>> Offers of pc's where turned down, when approaching schools. Computers in
>> schools are managed at a regional head office level. Take for example,
>> Trangie Central School (my old school, central western NSW, all pcs are
>> managed from Dubbo, 54kms (1 hour away), same as with Bourke (4 hours
>> away)
>>
>> Craig

A quick question in response to this bit. Did you find the offers were 
being turned down from a System Admin contact. ie was it the System 
Admin who was pulling the strings?

The reason I ask is that in the small time I have been trying to 
organise to get Ubuntu into a local high school, one of the biggest 
things I have noticed is how much control a single System Admin member 
of staff has, and this has proved the single biggest challenge to me.

Its probably a common thing in any corporate/goverment IT network maybe 
someone can enlighten me more on this? But the problem I have with this 
is the fact that a school of more than 80 teachers plus their entire ICT 
resources tends to revolve around the single member of staff.

The teaching staff I think have some very incorrect perceptions about 
what should be happening with ICT in schools and what they can and 
cannot do with computers and software etc. I hear so many different 
takes on the whole Microsoft in schools deal I wonder which one is right 
for the NSW DET. Most of these ideas seem conjured up by system admins 
to prevent other teachers from doing anything outside of their power.

Cheers,

Andrew Swinn