Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > December > 11 > Entry
AISD director of technology ‘Embarrassed’ about bad Linux publicity
Gray Salada, the executive director of technology for the Austin Independent School District, said he was “Kinda embarrassed, actually,” when he read Web posts about a local middle school teacher who was said to have confiscated Linux operated system discs from a student, then fired off a an angry e-mail to Austin HeliOS founder Ken Starks.
As of late Thursday afternoon, it was not clear who the middle school teacher was who created a chain events that has led to worldwide publicity about the exchange. Salada said he has spoken to Starks, but as of yet, AISD did not know the identity of the middle school teacher or, in fact, whether the incident occurred as described on Starks’ blog. Salada says he was only told that the teacher doesn’t teach technology.
“He doesn’t want any harm to come to the teacher and the district,” Salada said of Starks, “he won’t give me the name or the school.”
Salada said that AISD received several e-mails after the blog post was referenced on popular tech blogs like Boing Boing and Slashdot. He said some e-mails were merely letting the district know that the story was floating around online while others were less-than-supportive. “We got e-mail from people who were very indignant there was a teacher who could be totally clueless like this,” he said. Others were more constructive: “Some said that somebody needs to go talk to this teacher (about Linux). It’s tough to do because there’s no name.”
The AISD official chalks it up to an e-mail and blog exchange that got too emotional. If the incident did occur, he said, the teacher said things she had no business saying about a topic she clearly didn’t understand. “It’s just giving us a bad name and it’s sad,” Salada said, “it’s so the opposite of what we are and what we’re trying to be.”
Of the district’s 36,000 computers, two-thirds of them run Windows. However, these computers also run Open Office, Google Earth, Google Apps, Firefox and many other free software, much of it open-source. In addition, the district has 100 Linux servers and a lot of its infrastructure runs on that platform, Salada told the American-Statesman.
“We pretty much look at what the best product is to get the job done and we’re very price-sensitive as well,” Salada said.
Salada said that although AISD would love for the whole situation to blow over, they aren’t making a concerted effort to identify the teacher, identified only online as “Karen,” or to discipline her. In fact, Salada says he understands the teacher making sure inappropriate content wasn’t being brought into the classroom. “She was really doing her job,” he said, “I think where this thing melted down was in the interchange (online).”
So there you have it. AISD clueless about open-source? Not quite. At the very least, its technology director certainly understands how things spread online: “I guess it’s just the nature of what the Internet can do,” Salada said, “it happens fast.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Internet
Comments
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By MEh
December 17, 2008 7:04 AM | Link to this
Note from Omar Gallaga -- I don't tolerate personal attacks in comments and we don't allow profanity in comments on this site or libel -- I reserve the right to edit your comment, delete it or remove parts that violate our terms, ESPECIALLY if you are posting anonymously. Have a nice day! -- omar
____ original comment:
Salada sounds more like he is just covering his own (FANNY!), after spending a few hours online finding out what Open Source and Linux are, and if that is not the case, the teacher should be punished in some form. The kid got detention for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
These kind of people with their corrupt logic and corrupt souls need removed from teaching, or anything that is, or may some-day-be, important the the world, or a large quantity of people. These kinds of news articles are what make me the lazy son of a (LADYDOG!) I am in life. Every day it's another story about some stupid individual, in a position they shouldn't be in, or a job they aren't qualified to do (any paper-work aside, such as college diploma ect.).
I swear this world is going to end while I'm alive.
By Omar Gallaga
December 15, 2008 8:33 PM | Link to this
Hassan -- absolutely, and Ion Audio makes it, too. It's called the Tape 2 PC and you can find it here: ionaudio.com/tape2pc.
By Hassan
December 15, 2008 7:52 PM | Link to this
Thank you for your information on Dec/15/2008
on All things consider/NPR about VCR 2 PC by Ion Audio.I , would like to know if there is similar device that would convert the audio casset tape to digitize format in the market?
Please email me if you do know.
Thanks in advence
By Steve Hargadon
December 12, 2008 1:05 PM | Link to this
I've run the Open Source Pavilion at some of the major K-12 Ed Tech shows for several years now. I also am the director of CoSN.org's K12 Open Technologies Initiative (www.k12opentech.org), where my job is to help technology officers understand Open Source, Open Content, and Open Standards.
I've started a new community network for educators interested in helping others learn about Open Source. It's at http://community.k12opensource.com/.
By Omar Gallaga
December 12, 2008 12:02 PM | Link to this
AmelieWannabe -- that is a very interesting point and one I have called AISD about. Waiting to hear back. Starks told me he had protected the identity of the teacher in his communication with AISD (at least with the technology directory), but I am waiting to find out of his original call included the teacher's identity.
By AmelieWannabe
December 12, 2008 11:10 AM | Link to this
If the email exchange between Stark and the teacher in question is accurately portrayed on Blog of Helios, then the AISD should know the identity of the teacher. In Stark's response to "Karen", he wrote, "I have placed a call to the AISD Superintendent and cc'd him a complete copy of your email. It looks like we will get to meet in his office when School starts again after the holiday. I am anxious to meet a person who is this uninformed and still holds a position of authority and learnedness over our children."
By Richard clinker
December 12, 2008 4:32 AM | Link to this
I've been following this story with interest & hope it doesn't sour the relationship (Such as it is!) between the educational and Linux communities! I have sent a message to Mr. Starks offering a bit of info that he might like to forward to the teacher in question to help enlighten her, so I'll offer it here too. Here's a link to my modest efforts to promote the use of Linux and/or FOSS:
http://www.btinternet.com/~richard.clinker/rich_it.html
By Julie Gomoll
December 11, 2008 8:15 PM | Link to this
This is a great opportunity for the open source community to facilitate change. Educators are following this story - they couldn't be more eager for information.
Seems ripe for some BarCamp thinking.