Whitfield’s students and faculty utilise Linux on their Lenovo ThinkPads to access applications that enhance the student’s learning experience. For example, 11th grade English classes use the notebooks to design book covers that visually depict a 'truth' in the literature they are reading. Spanish and French classes at Whitfield use audio tools to record and listen to conversations in different languages.
“Lenovo understands the needs of educators to have cost-effective, reliable and manageable technology solutions, and has designed and tested its ThinkPad notebooks to meet these requirements while providing students innovative tools for a superior learning experience,” said Alex Inman, director, technology, Whitfield School. “Lenovo support for Linux is the best we’ve seen and has helped us achieve our 1:1 computing goals within the first three years of the Whitfield PC programme.”
Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks are being used to support student work conducted in both Windows and Linux environments. A study conducted by the school since the inception of its PC computing program in 2005 indicates by the end of the first school year, students using ThinkPads spent 50 per cent of their time on the PC in the Linux environment. This increased to 75 per cent in the 2006-2007 school year and 86 per cent the 2007-2008 school year ending in June 2008.
Whitfield deploys ThinkPad R61, R50e, R51 and Z60t notebooks running Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. |
