brief mention Re: Education strategy

I do not want to take any momentum away from Nick's email below.

But I do not not think that I have mentioned to this list (at least not in
a long time) that we have an international GNU/Linux in Education Case
Studies Repository project.

Please feel free to contact the schools listed in our repository at
http://casestudy.seul.org/ for your efforts advocating free software in
education.

If you are with (or know of) an educational institution that is not yet
listed in the repository, please click on "Enter a new case study".

Raphael Cavelli (mea culpa: spelling?) was kind enough to email with me
about some of the work that has been done in the past, separately, in
Europe; and to update everybody, I'd like all to know that we are trying
to offer the European listings that Raphael offered us as well (it may be
a few more months still).

My most humble and greatest intent is to provide a suitable webpage, and
materials to aid anyone performing advocacy or academic research, for
adding listings and viewing listings of the GNU/Linux in Education Case
Studies Repository.


Thanks for your comments, and help,
and best of luck to Nick and his team of DemoGNU/Linux volunteers!

 -Karl



On Thu, 9 May 2002, Nick Hockings wrote:

> Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 00:16:06 +0200 (SAST)
> From: Nick Hockings <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Education strategy
> 
> > From: Ian Lynch <[email protected]>
> > Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 08:48:30 +0100
> > 
> > Has anyone else got a strategy for developing the use of free software
> > in education in their country? 
> 
> I am pulling together a team of volunteers to distribute DemoLinux CDs with 
> OpenOffice 6.0 to MPs and others. The point is to raise the profile and 
> demonstrate the functionality of free software to decision makers. I think we 
> should consider some collaboration here. 
> 
> E.G. If you are sincerely promoting the pinciples of free software (ie the Four 
> Freedoms, copy left licencing etc) then I would list your company, its www site 
> and existing projects as contacts/resources. You might consider sponsoring a 
> set of such CDs to be sent to schools around England. 
> 
> Technical note: DemoLinux is a variant of Debian Potato produced charitably by 
> a small group of accademics in Paris, http://www.demolinux.org/  . IT RUNS FROM 
> CD WITHOUT INSTALLATION.
> 
> 
> > In England, there are government targeted 
> > funding initiatives involving ICT that we can use to get some significant 
> > presence. So far we have two 30 station networks ...
> >...Without a number of successful and working desktop sites, few people 
> > are going to take the risk. 
> 
> I take it you have some expertise/experience wrt raising govt funds. It would 
> be great if you could share this. The ideal place to post info wrt UK govt 
> funding would be   [email protected]  . (That's the Association For Free 
> Sofftware (AFFS) mailing list. They will one day become FSF-UK when the FSF 
> aproves.) More general or EU funding info would be great to put on  
>  [email protected]   . But please do keep this list alivee too!
> 
> 
> wrt raising profiles/show sites:  if you can ideaologically convert the schools 
> you work with to support the principles of free software, then their www 
> sites/contacts can be included in any DemoLinux CD we distribute. That means 
> schools can call/visit other schools who already have working free software. 
> Ideally we should start a chain training system where by each school trains 
> staff from other schools to spread the skills. (This is a "Big Cake" strategy 
> for your business whereby you get a small slice of an expanding market.)  
> 
> 
> 
> > The main problem is inability to run Windows
> > based education software - WINE is a possibility but we have to get hold of
> > the software to test and testing takes time. For the time being we are 
> > concentrating on low cost thin clients 
> 
> There is a lot of free educational software that could be substituted. There is 
> also the important task of getting teachers to contribute GPL'ed content for 
> new free educational e-books etc..  Keep it free and maximise cooperation => 
> productivity & efficiency. If you are being ordered to buy a particular 
> proprietary product then blow the whistle here and in the TES etc..
> 
> 
> 
> > Getting education titles to run under WINE
> > is a high priority but difficult for a small company.
> 
> WINE is said to be very good now but most free software was written to run on 
> GNU and BSD. (BSD licening is to be avioded due to propritization, vis Mac OS 
> X.)
> 
> 
> 
> > In broad strategic terms, getting a good presence for free software in a
> > market sector such as education provides a profile to show others. I
> > believe that critical mass will be achieved by getting focus in a particular
> > sector rather than a scattergun approach. 
> 
> It has taken time to develop the GUIs and then the GUI based apps for lay 
> users, now we are ready. We don't have big budgets so our publicity must 
> exploit our freedom not our wallets. DemoLinux will help us get attention and 
> prove the functionality, utility and quality of free software for lay users. 
> 
> wrt scatter guns, in a free society each individual follows their own 
> interests. No "great leap forward" has matched the prodcutive genius of liberty.
> 
> 
> 
> > Once established in one sector the methods can be repeated in others.
> >...(Scotland has a completely different system so its not sensible to talk 
> > about UK education)
> 
> Do you have any contacts in Scotland or Ireland?
> 
> Don't forget to write up what you learn from your projects and publish it in 
> the Free Software Magazine  (see fsf-china). And put the Magazine on the 
> desktops of your LANs for the users to read.
>  
> 
> Nick Hockings
> 
> <[email protected]>,
> <[email protected]>,
> <[email protected]>
> 
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