I'm at one of my Primary schools, and the head teacher is wanting to expand the amount of client computers we have in school. We are getting some donations from the local secondary school. Because monday is limited, as is the norm in most primary schools, we haven't got money to really increase the network infastructure, no more than possibly a new switch in one of the classrooms to make a mini suite.

I've been thinking, recently, about the possibilities of using Edubuntu on some of the older computers and have them as stand alone systems, possibly out in the foundation units. They would run along side the windows machines, already in there, so that staff can still use the software they are familiar with, but it occured to me that the Edubuntu standalone machines would be good for the younger kids to play on and use some of the educational software you can get for edubuntu.

Because they are running along side the windows systems, it won't be as bigger shock for the staff, I'm not taking away their comfort blanket, so they may be more willing to learn the new OS, even if it's just enough to get the games on for the kids.

It seems a shame, when the school is tight on money, to throw away computers just because they aren't up to running windows XP and office, if they can run standalone Edubuntu it will give them at least another 12 months service life if not more.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had any experience of running edubuntu in schools, or indeed any flavour of linux in schools, what were the staff reactions, possibly more importantly in my case, the kids reactions?

I'm going to install it on a spare machine and let the head look at it, see what he thinks and see if he'd like to trial it in one of the units, if it's something that takes off here then I'd be really interested in trying the same thing again in some of my other schools.

While Windows might be here to stay, in schools, given student and staffs fears of open source, of at least fear of the unknown, it doesn't mean that open source can't run along side Microsoft, this gives them more scope for the applications they can use and the lessons/ actvities they can deliver to the students.