The Asian PenguinsMiddle Schoolers, Linux, & the Digital Divide:

I want to tell you a story about a girl named Cindy. Shes in high school now, but not long ago, she was a student at my school. While there, she was a pretty typical middle school girl. She liked hanging out with her friends, enjoyed going to the school dances, liked listening to K-pop, and had fun making music and singing.

Two years ago, Cindy decided to try something new at our school. She saw a club that some of her friends were involved in, and signed up herself. These kids were learning to install, configure, and use Linux and other open source software. Some of the computers getting this software stayed at school, while some went to homes of families that needed them. As Cindy stayed with the club, she learned to do these things, too. And over those two years, more and more opportunities to try new things with open source presented themselves.

Heres Cindy going with a team of students to a home to provide a computer to a needy family.

Heres Cindy with some of her friends installing Linux on laptops for our middle school.

Photo: Pioneer Press

Here she is mentoring a sixth grade student on how to install software.

And heres Cindy when, on behalf of the club, she was selected to give an acceptance speech for an award from the City of Saint Paul. In her remarks, she said, We fix up used computers and give them to families in our community. In order to do this, we dont work as a team. We work as a family.

What made this possible? The free availability of open source software, and a club of enthusiastic middle school kids using it. You see, Cindy was a member of the Asian Penguins.

I am the technology coordinator at Community School of Excellence, a charter school in Saint Paul, MN. Our school is almost entirely populated by refugees or children of refugees from Southeast Asia, the majority being Hmong from Laos and Thailand, with a smaller portion being Karenni from Burma. About 80% of our students are English language learners, and over 90% qualify for free or reduced price lunch due to family income. On the surface, we look like many schools in the Twin Cities metro area, an unlikely place for a technology revolution to happen.

But our school has something special. CSE is home to the Asian Penguins, our schools computer club. The Asian Penguins are, we think, the first and only Linux users group based in a Hmong school anywhere in the world. We are at the center of a unique experiment into what happens when you mix open source software, recycled hardware, and the energy and drive of middle school kids. The result has been a remarkable impact on the learning landscape of our school, our students, and our community.

Today, I am going to talk about the history of the Asian Penguins, the impact the club has had on our students and families, the changes they have brought to our school, and a challenge to all of us who love open source.

The Beginning 2011-2012

CSE starts 1:1

How did all this start? Back in the 2011, I was a new teacher at Community School of Excellence, and the school had just started a 1:1 laptop program. It wasnt long before we discovered what so many schools before us had already discovered: middle schoolers break laptops. Lots of them. To supplement the shortage of laptops I was running into, I got a grant of four desktop computers from a great nonprofit in Minneapolis called Free Geek Twin Cities. They try to close the digital divide by recycling computers, using Linux as the operating system.

I used Linux, so I thought that was cool.

The First Group of Penguins

Well, now I had 4 Linux PCs in my room, and it wasnt long before kids really started getting into using them. In fact, I had a group of kids who would stay in my room after school, just to use the computers while they waited for the after school program to start.

I thought it would be fun to teach them about how the computers worked, so we started doing hardware and software lessons, eventually teaching them how to install the operating system itself. I thought such a group should have a name. The kids were Asian, the mascot of Linux was a penguin, so I suggested Asian Penguins. They all loved it, and so the name stuck.

Year 2: The Laptop ExperimentThe following year, we got permission to run an experiment, in which we converted some school laptops to Linux to see how well Linux would work for our students. We surveyed those students at the end of the year to see what their experience was. The kids overwhelmingly preferred Linux over Windows for speed, look and feel, and general stability.

From CSE Academic Plan 3.0:

While CSE still uses mostly Windows, we convinced the schools leadership to allow us to continue using Linux on at least some school computers. In fact, I am proud to say that our schools Technology Plan states that we are One School with Three Platforms: Windows, iOS, and Linux.

Missions BeginThen something happened that radically changed the course of the Asian Penguins. Our kids saw what Free Geek was doing in Minneapolis by recycling computers to help people, and then they looked around at our school. According to a 2012 survey of our students, about 30% of them did not have computers at home. The kids looked at our digital divide and asked the question, If Free Geek can do something about it, why cant we?

We got ahold of some older machines, the kids learned how to install Linux on them, and we found some families to help. The first one was a Karenni family of 8 who had only been in America for about 2 months. The family welcomed us into their home and the kids set up the computer. It was our first attempt, and we had to make it up as we went along, but when we left, the family had a working computer, the kids had shown the family the basics of how to use it, and we had made some new friends.

The Asian Penguins December 2015

After that first trip, the kids started calling these trips missions, and every kid in our club wanted to go on one. More kids at school came to the Asian Penguins wanting to get in on the action. After all, other people talked about changing the world, but the Asian Penguins got to skip class and actually go out and do it!

From there, the Asian Penguins activities grew into a variety of things, including fundraising and obtaining computers for use in our middle school. And things are still growing today.

Impact on Students and Families

We have slogan in the Asian Penguins, stolen from Apple Computer, that says, The people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.

We put our own spin on that. We turned it into a call and response. Every Asian Penguins meeting begins the same way. The meeting leader, always a kid, will stand up, get the attention of the other members, and ask the question, What are we trying to do?

To which the kids respond, Change the world!

Then the meeting leader asks, How do you change the world?

And the kids yell back, Be crazy enough to think you can!

That all sounds good, but what effect has all of this had on our students and families?

I went and asked some of them.

A 6th grade student named Chee Moua got a computer from the Asian Penguins last year. He said the he uses the computer for email and school assignments, while his mother uses it for Facebook, keeping in touch with family and friends. He told me, The computer helped us very much with learning stuff and researching stuff.

Another student named Yeng told me that he uses his Asian Penguins computer to play games, do homework, and do school assignments through email. He said, I research about stuff in Google Chrome. Its hard to do that without a computer.

Andrew

Vincent

Luther

Anita

I also asked a few of the Asian Penguins what impact the club has had on them.

Andrew said, Its like another family with all of the friends and stuff.

Vincent said, The club lets kids experience new things and gives us a chance to take on new challenges.

Luther said, Helping other people is fun, and its great for your personality. Truth be told, Luther had plenty of personality before he joined the Penguins.

And Anita said, I like the missions and giving computers to families because youre helping people. I like installing software, too. Its fun.

Lee Reh

I saved Lee Reh for last, because hes not only a member of the Penguins, but hes also a recipient of one of our computers. He told me the computer he got helps him get good grades and do research. When asked what he likes about being in the Asian Penguins, he said, I like giving away computers to poor families who cant afford computers. The Asian Penguins gives him the opportunity to be the generous one.

Asian Penguins at MEA 2016And as for those challenges that Vincent talked about, he would know. Vincent, along with Anita, Lee Reh, and a few other kids, helped present a workshop last week at Minnesotas state teachers convention, teaching education professionals about having a Linux club at school.

Sustainable St. Paul Award

And last year, the Asian Penguins got to meet the mayor and city council of St. Paul when they won the 2016 Sustainable St. Paul Award in the Youth Leadership category. The city was recognizing their efforts to reduce ewaste and to help families be more self sustaining through tech.

More than ever!

All of this has made our students more confident, more successful, and has brought more positive change than I ever planned or hoped for. Remember, when we started, I was thrilled just to be able to say, Hey! We brought Linux into a school! Some people think it doesnt belong here, but here it is and its working! I was like a kid in a candy store.

It was the kids who really transformed this thing into something more. One bit of evidence that we are on the right track is that this year, we had so many kids want to join the Asian Penguins that our waiting list would be about the same size as the club itself. We made the decision then to have 2 teams. Grade 6, our Junior Varsity team, meets on Wednesdays, while Grades 7 & 8, the Varsity team, meets on Thursdays. We now have a total of 62 members.

Operation Upgrade

In the spring of 2015, the Asian Penguins and I decided to take on a new challenge. Remember those Nobi laptops I mentioned from our 1:1 program? Well, here we were 4 years later, and even though we werent 1:1 anymore, we were still using those laptops. By this time, many were damaged and all were slow and worn out. They needed to be replaced.

The school at the time (and this is not meant as a slam) had large, pressing issues to address, and didnt have a timeline for when they could replace these computers. I was using a cart of 30 of them in my room, running Linux of course, and thought we could try to do something about the problem. I suggested to the kids that we try doing a crowdfunding campaign on the internet to see if we could replace those 30 laptops with something better. So we created a crowdfunding site on Indiegogo, complete with a video to make an appeal for money to the general public.

September 24, 2015

The campaign started on July 20, 2015, and before that first week was over, we were already over halfway to our goal. Im pleased to say that some of our contributors are at this very conference. For those of you who gave, you have my thanks.

With a few days to spare at the beginning of September, we made our goal and exceeded it. But the exciting thing was that the project itself exceeded our expectations. You see, a guy in Hastings, MN heard about our campaign and wanted to donate, but instead of donating money, he donated laptop computers. This enabled us to expand the scope of the project to fill a second cart. On September 24, after a lot of software work, we presented both carts filled with Linux laptops as a gift to the school.

And then there were 4

It seems, however, that Operation Upgrade never really ended. In May, we received another donation of laptops from our friend in Hastings. These computers, along with some from other projects we did during the year, gave us enough add a third Linux cart. And then, two different groups donated laptops in July, giving us enough to upgrade a fourth cart.

Today, we have four laptop carts with a total of 120 computers running Linux. This means that on the all students in grades 5 through 8 use Linux at least part of the time. That is a greater deployment of Linux for student use than at any other school in Minnesota, we think. It didnt happen all at once, but it did happen. Most of the software work for these computers was done by the kids. And all of the computers were provided to the school at no cost to the school.

In June, I was interviewed by a university student for a thesis he was writing on open source software and recycled hardware in public K-12 education. He asked me what policy decisions drove our activities. I had to laugh at the question, and then explained that for the Asian Penguins, it worked the other way around. Policy did not drive our activities. We made it up as we went along, and eventually our activities drove policy. Thats just the way it worked for us.

Conclusion

Weve seen that since the beginning of the club, the Asian Penguins have brought positive change to our students, our families, and our school.

The club has provided our students with opportunities to learn new skills, take on new challenges, and make new friends. Our families have been provided with free technology in their homes. And our schools technology situation has been dramatically altered. Open source has a home at Community School of Excellence, and thats not changing anytime soon. I want to very publicly thank the leadership of CSE for their encouragement and support. They didn't always understand it, but they did support it. And there are plenty of administrators who would have said no. Our leaders said yes.

But one of our goals remains unfulfilled. We are the first Linux group at a Hmong school, and I cant find many examples similar to ours at other middle schools. We neither want or need to be the only such club. As we say, the question is not, why does CSE use Linux? The question is, why dont other schools?.

I come here today with two takeaways for this session. The first one is simple enough. The Asian Penguins exist because of the freedom open source software gives us. Software that has been developed by at least a few people in this building. Software that has been promoted and propagated by all of you in the open source movement. On behalf of the Penguins, you have my undying gratitude. Thank you.

Examples

Robert Litt

Charlie Reisinger

But I also want to bring a challenge. Schools that use open source with students do not have to be isolated examples. Robert Litt in the Oakland school district has done some wonderful things bringing Linux into his school through the use of recycled hardware. My friend Charlie Reisinger from the Penn Manor school district in PA led his district to adopt a 1:1 laptop program running all open source.

GoSuch examples are the exception, but they dont have to be. Message, folks. All of us live in a school district somewhere, and many of us live near charter schools that struggle with a need for tech and a tight budget that wont meet that need. What we have in open source can make a difference in your neighborhood. Go. Go home and look for ways to plug yourself and your awesome code into peoples lives. Contact your local school. Connect with a public library. Network with a non-profit that helps to settle refugees or recent immigrants. Mentor or start an after school club. Donate computers to a church, a synagogue, or a mosque. Be the technovangelist your community needs.

Thank you!

The codes free. Youve got nothing to lose, but kids like these have a world to gain. Thank you very much.

Q & A TimeContact Info:Email: stuartk@csemn.orgTwitter: @StuKeroffHastags: #CSEAsianPenguins, #kidschangingworldWebsite: www.asianpenguins.orgYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CSEAsianPenguins