Germany is a core area for the +Debian Edu and Skolelinux +user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang +Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany. + +
Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
+ +I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in +Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school +"Westfalen-Kolleg +Dortmund", a second chance school. Here, young adults is given +the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school +examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This +second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective +or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.
+ +Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a +blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other +information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been +teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my +school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at +the end of April this year.
+ +How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu +project?
+ +The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my +attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server +Project). At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997 +using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since +2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin +clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of +reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the +Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About +two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only +known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system: +Skolelinux.
+ +Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a +better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin +clients. The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI +was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI +and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for +the admin teachers.
+ +What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?
+ +It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's +Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented! +So it was a perfect choice.
+ +Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's +possible to point teachers and students to programs like +OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp. It's of +high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of +a school and to choose where to get support for this.
+ +What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?
+ +Nothing yet.
+ +Which free software do you use daily?
+ +At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice, +Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF +Annotator). At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit, +LibreOffice.
+ +Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to +get schools to use free software?
+ +Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But +that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more +interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.
+