<html> <head> <style></style> </head> <body class='hmmessage'> Hello All, This email is from Marc Dubois who is Career Focused Education Technology Manager for Oakland Schools ISD who helps support and deliver services to the 29 school districts in Oakland County, MI. It gives you an idea of the technical direction large US school districts are going in. For this particular situation it would seem Sugar running in a virtual machine would be the answer? Do we have something presently available that fits this scenario? Would Sugar delivered through a virtualized desktop work along with Sugar on a Stick? Any suggestions on what I should get to Marc to test/take a look at would be helpful. In this situation Sugar's ability to run alongside all the other applications in a larger system seems to be the key. Not being a technical guru I need some guidance in this area. The BMMT refers to Business, Management, Marketing, and Technology Instructors who I will be meeting with here in the near future to discuss creating an Open Source curriculum for High School students at the four technical schools they operate. Hacking and testing Sugar will be high priorities for me to get embedded into the curriculum structure. Their idea is to test drive some things at the four technical campuses and then offer them to the districts when they are refined. Figuring this out gives access to the 199 elementary schools they serve. Along with the two XO's I lent him, I also gave him a Sugar on a Stick and Sugar on a SD card to test out. Your thoughts would be appreciated! John Tierney <hr id="stopSpelling">Subject: RE: Follow-up XO Laptop/Sugar Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:28:19 -0400 From: Marc.DuBois@oakland.k12.mi.us To: jtis4stx@hotmail.com CC: Mary.Kaye.Aukee@oakland.k12.mi.us <style> .ExternalClass p.ecxMsoNormal, .ExternalClass li.ecxMsoNormal, .ExternalClass div.ecxMsoNormal {margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';} .ExternalClass a:link, .ExternalClass span.ecxMsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;} .ExternalClass a:visited, .ExternalClass span.ecxMsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple;text-decoration:underline;} .ExternalClass p {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';} .ExternalClass span.ecxEmailStyle18 {font-family:'Calibri','sans-serif';color:#1F497D;} .ExternalClass .ecxMsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in;} .ExternalClass div.ecxSection1 {page:Section1;} </style> <div class="ecxSection1"> John – Thanks for following up.  With the start of school we’ve been very busy.   The XO laptops are being used by the BMMT instructors at the SE and NE campus – I’m hoping they’ll have lots of insight for you when you meeting with them via Mary Kaye’s meeting.   I haven’t had any time to review them myself but the research I’ve done leads me to believe that they sugar OS would not really support the type of applications we deliver to the students.  So, I don’t see this OS or device as being part of the infrastructure that Oakland Schools Career Focused Education delivers to students like a one-to-one initiative.   I’ve also installed the Sugar OS on a netbook and again think that we’d go with a more standard XP, windows 7 or virtual client to support our applications.  We are undertaking the virtualization of our devices used by students and plan to provide student access to applications and data via a browser interface in the classroom and at home.  Perhaps a different computing device would be more appropriate in this situation.   I do, however, hope that our BMMT instructors will jump on this as a great teaching and learning tool as part of an open source curriculum.  That is out of my scope but I’m sure you’ll have a good experience with the BMMT instructors.   I also appreciate your loaning the devices to us.  At any time I will be happy to return them to you.  They are hopefully being used by the BMMT instructors.   Thanks again, marc   Marc DuBois Technology Manager, Career Focused Education (248) 209-2183 <div> <div style="border-style: solid none none; border-color: rgb(181, 196, 223) -moz-use-text-color -moz-use-text-color; border-width: 1pt medium medium; padding: 3pt 0in 0in;"> From: John Tierney [mailto:jtis4stx@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 11:53 AM To: Dubois, Marc Subject: Follow-up XO Laptop/Sugar </div> </div>   Hi Marc, Just wanted to check in while I await next meeting with Mary Kaye Auckee and BMMT Group. I was wondering if you might have some time in next couple of weeks to meet and discuss some of the technical implications for you and the other IT Administrators in moving down or thinking about moving down the Open Source path. Would also like to get your feedback on XO and Sugar. Please let me know what might work for you. Best- John Tierney Educational Outreach-Sugar Labs #248-613-7392 </div> </body> </html>