TEXAS my state!

Audiocast: Thin Clients - State Virtual Networks

Pictured above: Angela Clark, Harris County Department of
Education

A new book review by the FreeSoftwareMagazine about David Richards’ Linux
Thin Client Networks Design and Deployment. The book reminded me
about my
district’s efforts at exploring possible solutions for a Dropout
Prevention and Recovery Academy lab for online courses aimed at high
school students.

Right-click and view image to see it at full-size. It represents my
burgeoning understanding of what we’re attempting.

It’s important to discuss the options, as well as consider what to do
about online high school courses against the backdrop of the Texas
Virtual High School (TxVSN.org) initiative launched recently. TxVSN
is a clearinghouse of online courses I hope school districts–and the
students they serve–will increasingly have access to.

Angela Clark and
Barbara (darn, I forgot her name) did a great job presenting on the
subject at the recent TCEA TEC-SIG Meeting. You can view
a copy of their Powerpoint presentation.

Listen to this short audiocast of Angela Clark (pictured below)
giving an overview of the TxVSN. Her
contact info is Angela Clark, Director, Digital Learning and
Instructional Technology Email: aclark@hcde-texas.org ; Phone:
713–696–0764

Against this backdrop, my team and I were asked to come up with several
options for what a computer lab might look like that included various
hardware configurations. This lab would be used for students to
participate in online high school courses, but not a la the mind-numbing
Novanet. The options
my team came up with included:

Traditional Computer Lab with a total cost of $43,460
Traditional Computer Lab with Thin Client Software (Windows Terminal
Services) - $52,182 (includes $4000 training costs)
Thin Client Lab (Windows Terminal Services) - $42,718.15 (includes
$4000 training costs)
Thin Client Lab (Citrix Services) - $54, 718.90 ($12,000 consulting
costs)
Thin Client Lab (GNU/Linux) - ???

All this talk of thin clients made me hanker for a simple, easy answer.
Of course, the online course aspect isn’t a cake-walk either.
Fortunately, more will be done in regards to the Tx Virtual School
Network. When we started down this road–oh, a week ago–my team stole
from NACOL’s National
Standards to come up with this rubric
for courses and scoring
sheet. Now, we find out we probably won’t need this since the TxVSN
folks will be reviewing all the courses and evaluating them–whew!

EXCLUSIVE vs INCLUSIVE
A fun conversation with one of the five
professional development providers who will train educators who will
teach electronic courses through the network today. The five providers
include the Education Development Center, Inc.; ESC Region 4;
ESC Region 11 in Fort Worth; Harris County Department of Education; and
Texas A&M University Center for Distance Learning Research. You
can find more at:

The first online courses for grades 9-12 will be reviewed for the
network beginning in summer 2008. The courses will be assessed against
the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum standards and the
National Standards for Quality Online Courses endorsed by the North
American Council for Online Learning. A list of the initial approved
course offerings will be available in the fall of the 2008-2009 school
year. A schedule will be developed for the ongoing review process for
additional courses and professional development providers. Information
about course offerings, approved professional development providers and
participation in the TxVSN are listed in the "About TxVSN" section on
the website.

She mentioned that Texas had chosen to be inclusive, rather than
exclusive. Simply, exclusive is represented by Florida Virtual Schools.
Funded for last umpteen years, it is a full accredited school district
and they compete for students and seat time with all Florida schools.
All Florida schools must allow students to participate in virtual
schools. Local schools lose funding that follows students when students
enroll in FVS.

Texas didn’t want to be exclusive, especially since there are others
such as Plano ISD, Houston ISD, Texas Tech ISD, and charter schools.
Legislature didn’t want to deny these long-standing schools, so they
designed an inclusive system. Texas virtual school is divided into 3
parts:

Setup a database and management system to manage all course providers
in the State to ensure courses meet state standards and teachers are
prepared to teach.
ADA funding will be available to school districts.
If a school district wants to enroll a student in an approved course,
then the school district will go to the Network, pick the course and
enroll the student. The Network will contact the provider of the
course and put them in contact with the school district contact. You
can still enroll students in online courses outside of the Network.
Spring 2009 is when all this will start.

She also shared that online courses aren’t just for any student. You’ve
got to have a well-oriented and well-screened student. This is not
particularly for students who are not on level or will not read. It’s
also not for the student won’t facilitate their own learning, is
unwilling to take chances or try to make things work. Kids who hit a
snag need to try to figure this out on their own. One of the programs
they use to help screen students for online courses is something called
the Skills for Success in Online Learning. It helps students
learn the "learning management system" environment. It also serves the
school district in getting the technology working well and gives
teachers the chance to discuss plagiarism, tech skills, etc. This is all
run by a counselor.

A remarkable result of the 1 week course that if the student didn’t
finish the course in the one week, they would not succeed in a 14 week
course. If students succeeded, then this was a great screening
indication that students would finish successfully. Students also
benefitted from a weekly checklist for students, sending schools a
weekly progress report, and incentives/rewards for students.

The Key to success is that schools need to have a liason that can be
assigned to the student and works as a member of the team. The more
involved the liason is with the student and teacher, the greater the
chance of student success. I asked her about whether this kind of
program would work well for dropout students. She mentioned these two
programs:

Colorado DropOut Recovery Program. Designed for Seniors.
Students had to pass a reading test to get into the program,
competitive in getting into the program, have teachers recommend them
for the program and the online component was part of this program.
Several teachers were assigned to the student. They had a 92–99%
success rate.
Harlem New York: Program of last resort for 8th graders. Setup
a faculty or program for these students where part of their curriculum
was online and the other part was online. They had a counselor who
worked with the students on anger management, PE, etc. They only
required students to retake the courses they had failed in the 8th
grade and put them in the 9th grade courses. When they were finished,
they became sophmores.

I’ll have to do some research on these two programs. So, after trying to
process this information from various sources about the Texas Virtual
School Network, it is clear that thin clients might very well be a
viable option. To that end, I was delighted to see a book that discusses
these items.

Here’s a short excerpt from the review:

The book is persuasive and gives attention to issues of users and
managers. The author is the same David Richards who led the government
of Largo, Florida, to adopt GNU/Linux on thin clients under the radar of
Microsoft, through the valley of thin clients, across the mountains of
IT to the promised land of GNU/Linux—before Munich and Extremadura. This
is also the same person who brought thin clients on e-bay…

ssues
of hardware are covered in detail. A network that must respond in real
time to users and to servers, not just carry bits, and must be designed
and tested for that load. The suggested server is an eye-opener for a
desktop user. The author suggests $30000 quad-processor 16 GB servers
per 50 users. Even with that top-of-the line equipment, the thin client
network pays dividends in hardware and manpower savings. He suggests
using multiple servers with one major application per server, and one
server for the desktop login and window manager. This increases the
already good reliability of the GNOME desktop by saving the session on
most server outages. He shows how to install Suse with GNOME and XDMCP
with customization of the login and using Main Menu (Slab) instead of
the traditional cascading menus.