[K12OSN] OT: Apple Imac lab

[Rob Owens]

On Mon, Mar 02, 2009 at 08:15:14AM -0500, Ryan Collins wrote:
> Terrell Prudé Jr. wrote:
>>> I agree completely with this and think it would be a very good  
>>> direction to go. I can understand why the teacher wants to have Macs  
>>> for a multimedia course. It's very difficult if not impossible to  
>>> compete against Garageband, iMovie, Keynote, and iPhoto with OSS  
>>> solutions.
>>
>> Then let that teacher pay for part of it somehow.  Say, maybe a 10% cut 
>> in either her pay or (more likely) some pet program of hers?  Let's see 
>> just how important those expensive Macs are to her.
>
> I think we're losing sight of our job in supporting technology in the  
> school. It's my job to provide my students with the most opportunities.  
> The best tool for the job.
>
> I'm a major proponent of OSS in our district, with over 100 thin  
> clients, so don't think I'm bashing LTSP or OSS (why would I be a member  
> of this list for over 3 or 4 years if I didn't), but I also know where  
> OSS doesn't cut it.
>
>> Those who think that OSS has a problem "competing" against Apple's  
>> proprietary offerings might want to speak with Paul Nelson more about  
>> that.  He's an actual classroom teacher in Riverdale School District in 
>> the Portland, OR area and one of the earliest adopters of K12LTSP.  He  
>> might be able to shed some light for you.
>
> You can't honestly say that Audacity is a better tool for students than  
> Garageband? Kino/Cinelerra to iMovie? I want my students to be able to  
> produce.
>
I'm not sure if it matters which is better.  I've heard so many of us say "teach concepts, not software" when it comes to office applications, and I
think the same should apply here.

David, you should try running Audacity on the thin clients like this:  esddsp audacity

Audacity doesn't support ESD natively, but esddsp will force its sound output to go through ESD (you probably already know this).  It's not perfect,
though, so make sure you test it.  You could also try that with the video applications, but I've found that it sometimes causes the audio and video to
become offset from each other in time.  Actually, that was while using "padsp avidemux" -- padsp does for pulseaudio what esddsp does for ESD.

-Rob