The document discusses the implementation of free software at Geng-Fang Elementary School in Taiwan, highlighting the school's objectives to save costs, promote knowledge sharing, and foster a multi-information learning environment. The strategies employed include full involvement of staff, addressing user concerns, and gradual integration of free software alongside Windows systems. Challenges faced include outdated hardware, teachers' lack of skills with free software, and slow translation of software into Chinese, with suggestions for improvement involving principal persuasion, creating a supportive learning environment, and building a technical consulting team.

1. Experience Sharing of Introducing Free Software to Campus: Example of Geng-fang Elementary School, I-lan County, Taiwan Presented by Kuagn-chang, Lin [email_address] http://gavin.mytw.net

2. Outline About Geng-fang Elementary School Purposes S trategies P rocedure General Situation Difficulties Suggestions Q&A

3. About Geng-fang: Team Members Teaching Staff (including the principal) 10 (1 Ph. D. of education, 1 Master of informatics, and eight bachelors ) Office Staff : 3 Students :83

4. About Geng-fang: Hardware Tablet Computer: Every teaching staff and every fifth and sixth graders have an acer tablet computer. .

5. About Geng-fang: Hardware Electronic Whiteboard: 2

6. About Geng-fang: Hardware DRBL Classroom :3 ( There are 24 computers in one classroom, 17 computers in another, and 8 computers in the third classroom. )

7. About Geng-fang: Hardware DRBL Classroom

8. About Geng-fang: Hardware Educlick:2 。

9. About Geng-fang: Hardware Broadband: 100MB 。 Server: 4 ( 3 linux and 1 windows2003 )

10. About Geng-fang: Hardware Wireless Campus

11. About Geng-fang: Hardware Scaner server:1 。

12. Purposes Save expenses Due to the financial difficulties of the government, adopting free software saves a lot of expanses. Share knowledge and ideas Chinese people are not good at sharing. However, knowledge is valuable when it’s shared. Also, sharing makes the society to move forward. The idea of sharing should be involved in early education. Build a learning environment of multi-information An environment of multi-information is the crucial criterion for promoting creativity. However, 95% of elementary schools in Taiwan use windows system. Therefore, it’s important to introduce other systems

13. S trategies TQM Full-scale involvement: all the teaching staff are involved Customers first: teachers and students’ concerns are pun in the fir st place Continuous improvement: improvements and reflections are made all the time Step by step Like cooking frogs in warm water, we have users use free software in natural circumstances.

14. S trategies Set a good example (To be the role model of the team) In order to persuade the teachers into using free software, I have had replaced Windows XP with Fedora in my desktop and laptop. I did it to show my determination to promote free software and to examine the problems of free software as well. From students to parents and teachers First we change students’ concepts and habits. Then they may bring influences on teachers and parents.

15. Procedures Make communication and build up consensus Seize the opportunities of school meetings, morning meetings, e-mails, and having small talks to communicate with the staff to build up consensus. Introduce Software Software f or Ms-Windows Software f or Linux Most users are accustomed to windows . Therefore, while introducing free software, windows software should play the main part accompanied with the linux system. Set up an easy-manageable platform of information teaching - DRBL Personalized Linux environment

16. The generation situation: Setting up software and hardware Set up Diskless Remote and Boot in Linux classrooms by using the recycled computers. Classroom Three Zhong ( 三忠 ): By using the second-handed computers bought from the auction website, the DRBL techniques were adopted to build a computer-learning environment for 17 people to use at the same time. Comprehensive classroom: The 9 second-handed computers donated by High Court Prosecutors' Office were used to build the DRBL system. T he computer labs adopts DRBL system.

17. The generation situation: Setting up software and hardware There are 4 servers at school. Three of them use the linux system. The in-campus monitors adopt linux server to construct DVR. The in-campus servers adopt Linux+Apache+MySQL+Php to set up web models, such as xoops 、 school system 、 library system 、 plog 、 wiki 、 eyeOS 、 moodle 、 DVR and so on.

18. The general situation: Workshops 97 hours of basic, intermediate, and advanced workshops on Linux 2 lectures on promoting free software (6 hours in total) 12 workshops on introducing software (60 hours in total)

19. The general situation 4th grade: 3-4 sessions per week, DRBL is involved in the teaching. 3rd grade: 4-6 sessions per week. T here are computers in each classroom, so students ca n use computers both in class and during the break. 5th and 6th grades: 6-8 sessions per week. They use windows and free software in class. (Each one has a tablet computer.)

20. The general situation There is Fedora system in the comprehensive classroom, which can be used by eight people. S tudents can use it during their break time. T he third grade classroom provide the environment of 15 DRBL computers. Teachers use the moodle platform in their teaching.

21. The general situation Except the original system, there is also DRBL system in computer labs. Teachers are able to make liveCD by themselves. The cross-school technical consulting team was formed in 2005. The members hold monthly meetings to provide consultation and to solve technical problems. Assist the Information Wed Center to construct the website for exchanging free software. Ask OSSII to assist in translating software into Chinese and in setting up hardware. Cooperate with OSSII to promote the plan of using oss Chinese desk. ( For more details : ftp://ms1.gfes.ilc.edu.tw/odp/

22. Difficulties We have been promoting free software for more than two years, the following are the difficulties we met: The client computer of the DRBL system in the third grade classroom is worn-out, which results in poor working efficiency and affects the teaching efficiency. In ordinary classrooms, the screens of the DRBL system are too big for traditional computer desks, which may influence students’ vision.

23. Difficulties Teachers lack skills in using free software. The speed of software Chinese translation is too slow. Government did not provide a complete set of measures.

24. Suggestions Persuade the principal and the information section leader into using free software. Build the environment for learning software. Build or look for a technical consulting team. Build a teaching material database of software for teachers. First work on students. Students may bring changes to parents and teachers.