I must admit, at a time like this, I am glad we have already gone
through any learning curve associated with Linux and open source.
However, necessity is the mother of invention and a catalyst for change.
For our community, Linux was the only option for 1:1 because we didn't
have 1:1 in the budget and the value outweighed the alternative of not
changing and staying with the labs.
I have talked to schools looking at two different ways to maintain or
increase service and lower costs. Two big pushes are open source and
virtualization. Virtualization requires more SAN and server but about
80% less than it used to. Thus, even people with reasonably small SANs
can get into the Desktop Virtualization game now.
Also, combine Linux and Virtualization and you've got one cost effective
solution! You've got to dig a little but VMware will even help you
tweak Linux clients to run Windows applications cleanly on them using
ThinApp. That means you can have your cake and eat it too (aside from
proprietary software costs.)
Take care,
Alex
Alex Inman
Director of Technology
Whitfield School
St. Louis, MO
314.434.5141
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Steve Taffee
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 11:05 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Economic Recession and Tech Budgets
Hello everyone -=20
I am curious to know if and how the economic recession is affecting your
technology budgets and programs for the coming year.
We are re-examining a number of our practices including email
(FirstClass versus Google), productivity suites (MS Office versus Open
Office and Google Docs), databases (FileMaker client versus FileMaker
web access), web servers (hosted site versus our
own Drupal server). These are good things to examine, anyway, and we
would have done so. But there's no doubt that the economy has built a
fire under us to look at these sooner rather than later.=20
On the hardware front, we'll be purchasing more RAM to nurse computers
along for at least a year beyond their normal retirement schedule
(typically 3 years for laptops, 4 years for desktops), and will think
twice about CPU-sucking upgrades to
applications and OS that we would normally roll out on an annual basis.
Our administration has heard from other schools that they, too, are
retrenching by delaying hiring, minimizing tuition increases, setting
aside more funds for tuition assistance, and - cutting tech budgets.
So the challenge for us, perhaps others as well, is to keep moving
forward with technology initiatives, to continue to provide great
professional development, and not lose sight of "21st century" learning
and teaching. Indeed, as an environmentalist I
have often thought that much of the 21st century could well be marked by
scarcity rather than the abundance we've grown so accustomed to.
So once again my question to the group: how are you coping with the
current situation as you plan for the coming year?
s
-----
Treat each piece of paper as precious and reduce waste - don't print
electronic documents.
-----
Steve Taffee 650.470.7725 (office)
Director of Technology 415.613.6684 (mobile)
Castilleja School 650.326.8036 (fax)
1310 Bryant Street steve_taffee@castilleja.org =20
Palo Alto, CA 94301 www.castilleja.org |
taffee.edublogs.org
Women Learning, Women Leading
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