Open Source in K12 Education: Lessons Learned from a District Wide Deployment

Lessons learned from a large deployment of desktop Linux (12000+ clients) and other open source software to a school district. Covered topics will include hardware architecture, network infrastructure, software selection, training, maintenance, deployment and support. Cost and return on investment including opportunity costs will be discussed. Any large technology deployment will have its successes and problems, how they were dealt with and impact will be covered. Note that the large school district I gained experience from is Atlanta Public Schools, but the discussion is a generic overview that covers aspects gleamed from other experiences in Open Source deployments in schools districts.