Stooney Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 (Quick Edit: eyeos only has an online demo, you have to install it on your own server. So the access from anywhere comments would be a bit more tricky, but still possible) I have been looking into some of these Cloud OSs. One that has particularly caught my eye is called EyeOS (eyeos.com). It's basically a browser based OS. Now I am looking for some opinions about this. I am considering using this in a charter school I maintain consisting of ~100 computers. One option is dropping windows xp, installing linux and having kids log into a cloud os such as EyeOS. This would allow them to access their files and necessary software (writer/presentation, eyeos version of course) from any computer that has internet. So they could work on everything from home, then without worrying about jump drives come to school and pick up where they left off. EyeOS applications convert from word to rtf automatically when uploading files so kids don't have to worry about program incompatibilities. Rich text format is enough for middle school kids. Reason for doing so: money. Using this setup, they could use lower end computers with a free OS. All the computer needs is the ability to open a browser and connect to eyeos.info. They could therefore use their budget and buy more computers as performance isn't as much of an issue as with a windows machine. For any lack of software issues I run into, the fact that the computers are running linux gives me a big range of opensource/cheap options. I know I could just use linux without the eyeOS, but the eyeOS gives the kids the ability to work from anywhere. Some cons that come to mind are the fact that we would rely on eyeOS to protect our data from dataloss, we would be lost if they ever shut down, lack of control over the kids' OS space. I am not the power control admin type, but I'm not sure how teachers would react when they couldn't access the kids' workspace to make sure they're on track. What are your guys' thoughts on this? p.s. Sorry for the long post + multiple posts this week. I've been in huge demand of opinions lately and phpfreaks is a great source for great opinions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 Maybe I'm just traditional, but sounds kind of bleh to me. "This would allow them to access their files and necessary software (writer/presentation, eyeos version of course) from any computer that has internet." You could do that without cloud computing.... (Well, you couldn't ensure that students would have access to the editor though.) And... These kids don't need anything more advanced than RTF, but they will need to access files from home? I personally would feel crippled by the RTF thing, but I'm not a middle school student, so I don't know how it would be for them. Instead of cloud computing, couldn't you just put stripped down linux with Gnome on the computers and have a file server? What are the specs on most of the computers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stooney Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 Something to keep in mind is that these kids need things to be fairly simple and fool proof. If all they need is a web address, username and password for anything they need to do anywhere they need to do it, there's not much that can go wrong. As for rtf, I may be wrong but from what I've seen at the school they just type boring paragraphed essays, nothing special. Maybe I'm wrong and rtf is crippling like you say corbin, I will probably have the teachers vote on issues like this. One option to get around this is a 'fancy lab' where the computers have decent specs and run windows xp and have ms office for when the linux/cloud os doesn't suffice. The specs on the computers vary from bad to worse. The 'better' machines, are single core pentium 4's with 256-512mb ram. The worse ones are old windows 98 machines, now using windows xp pro and sporting a pentium 3 and 128mb-256mb ram. I do believe they had their hard drives upgraded at some point before I started there as most of them have 80gb. Half of the computers are also on wireless until they move to their new building (~1 year away) where I will have a full wired network installed. Not much to work with unfortunately Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted February 21, 2009 Share Posted February 21, 2009 Wow @ the computer specs.... X.x "Something to keep in mind is that these kids need things to be fairly simple and fool proof. If all they need is a web address, username and password for anything they need to do anywhere they need to do it, there's not much that can go wrong." I've always just wished that my school would allow remote access to the file servers.... Then again, I'm not in middle school, and I consider my self more computer-knowledgeable than most. I guess it would be nice for kids to be able to do it so simply (that was a horrible thing to say out of context), but would they ever need to? Do they frequently bring stuff from home on flash drives now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stooney Posted February 21, 2009 Author Share Posted February 21, 2009 I've always felt the same way about remotely accessible file servers. At least until recently, I just run my own server now with everything I need it to do. Do they frequently bring stuff from home on flash drives now? Basically they required to all have their own flash drive where they save everything to. The main problem I've noticed with this system is virus's. It seems that every student flash drive has at least one virus. And they're always different. So if you take 1 unique virus per kid, the number of different kids on each computer daily, and you have an idea of how often i am imaging machines. It would help if I could restrict their accounts to almost nothing, but that just annoys the teachers when x person can't do x. I'm thinking a switch to Linux/Cloud OS has more pros than cons right now. I'm going to give it a test run in a couple classrooms starting Monday and see how everyone reacts to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted February 22, 2009 Share Posted February 22, 2009 I remember until high school, my school didn't allow flash drives. I guess the administrations figures we're all not entirely computer retarded by high school. I still don't think cloud computing is necessary for your needs, but I don't personally know the situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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