Fedora Education Initiative Launch
by Warren Togami
I met David Trask and Matt Oquist at LinuxWorld Boston last week and we
had a great discussion with a few other Red Hat folks about the current
successes of K12LTSP and ways to improve the software and community
around it. This is significant because this is the first time we got
other Red Hat people aware of and excited about the K12LTSP project,
which today exposes Fedora to hundreds of schools and countless
thousands of students worldwide.
We came up with some objectives and action items from this meeting to
further the goals of both K12LTSP and the Fedora Project. I believe
that we have a huge opportunity here to work closer together and better
the software for the education community.
Goals for us on this list are mainly development and administration of
Fedora related education initiatives. I envision keeping k12osn as
mostly educator end-user support for now, and we can later reorganize
the community infrastructure around K12LTSP when we have a clearer
picture of what it becomes.
Strawman Objectives for the next six months include:
====================================================
- Development discussion related to merging K12LTSP to become an
official supported part of the Fedora Project. This means that more
contributors will help K12LTSP development goals.
- Perhaps K12LTSP can be a "mode" to enable in the standard Fedora.
- Eventually convert K12LTSP to use the Muekow framework. Muekow
potentially aligns with the basic building block goals of the Fedora
Stateless project, so hopefully we can combine resources from multiple
Fedora projects and achieve this by FC6 in a clean and Fedora supported way.
- Collaborate on Samba and LDAP related integration possibly with Fedora
Directory Server in order to achieve out-of-the-box centralized
authentication between mixed platform school networks (Linux, Mac, Windows).
- Plan Fedora's involvement in Open Source in Education conferences
coming up, like the ones in ME and NH during June and July.
- Reorganize the community to better support educators in the use of
K12LTSP.
- Design messaging for the promotion of the K12LTSP model.
- Write more documentation to promote the K12LTSP model, and make it
easier to setup a K12LTSP lab.
- Professional production of an educational documentary video
demonstrating the success of the K12LTSP model. A well made video would
make it easier for LUG's worldwide to convince schools to try K12LTSP.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-education-list
Please share your ideas, comments, or questions here on
fedora-education-list.
http://k12ltsp.org/contents.html
K12LTSP Home Page
Warren Togami
wtogami(a)redhat.com
18 years
Development Focus
by Warren Togami
Since opening this list I was surprised by the enthusiasm especially for
educational conferences. However I strongly believe that both my and
Red Hat's efforts, time, and resources going toward K12LTSP at this
point should be focused mainly on developmental priorities at first.
1) Development work to get K12LTSP merged as an official part of the
Fedora distribution.
- Submit all K12LTSP packages to the Extras review process
- Adapt to the MueKow framework in order to eliminate lots of the
redundant OS building.
- Make K12LTSP into a "mode" you can enable and configure from a GUI
interface after you install Fedora.
- Write improved tools like selection of interfaces and it tells you
what it will happen. That way you aren't surprised when a DHCP server
pops up on an existing network, causing all kinds of fun conflicts. =)
2) Development work of marketing, promotional and educational materials
in order to allow the message to scale to greater audiences with less
effort and low marginal cost.
- Educational videos
- Pamphlets
- Books
I *will* participate in the New England Linux education conferences
because I am relatively nearby. If we have a hack-a-thon I will
probably want to participate in that too.
Maybe we could set aside some private time for K12LTSP integration or
MueKow integration design discussion sessions at one or both of the
NELinux conferences?
Warren Togami
wtogami(a)redhat.com
18 years, 1 month
Open Source Lab Details for NECC 2006
by Steve Hargadon
We've just finalized the speakers schedule for the Open Source lab at
the National Educational Computing Conference 2006 in San Diego. Very
exciting.
We'll have 15 hour-long sessions that will be held in a lab setting
with 25 computers, with some GREAT speakers:
David Thornburg: "When Best is Free: An Educator's Guide to Open Source"
Michelle Moore: "Use Your Noodle, Learn Moodle: An Open Source
Learning Management System" (3 sessions - boy is she popular!)
Will Richardson: "Learning With Blogs: Bringing the Read/Write Web
Into the Classroom"
Jeffrey Elkner: "A Tour of Ubuntu with Free CD"
Jenny Horn: "Hello World: Starting at the Very Beginning with PHP"
Bryant Patten: "Open Source Technology: Why Teachers Should Care"
Tim Frichtel: "Great Web Sites with Open Source Content Management Systems"
Steve Hargadon: "K12LTSP: Low-cost, Stable, and Reliable Computer Labs"
Chris Walsh: "Content is STILL King: FREE Blogging & Content Management Systems"
James Klein: "Creating Communities with Open Source Tools"
Tom Hoffman: "SchoolTool: a Free, Open Source SIS and Calendaring System"
Vernon Ceder: "Computer Programming for Everybody: Teaching
Programming with Python"
We'll also have a "birds of a feather" meeting on Open Source software
in K12 schools, to be followed by a proposed dinner event with those
interested in talking about the future of Open Source software in
Education.
Mike Huffman from Indiana has also said that he will be attending, and
we're going to try and find a venue for his participation as
well--many of us are very interested in an update on the Indiana
ACCESS program!
In addition to the Open Source lab, we'll have a "Playground" area
with 6 booths to showcase different Open Source technologies
real-time. Currently planned are booths for:
SchoolTool & CanDo 2006 (A FREE, Web-Based, Competency Tracker)
Ubuntu & Fedora Core
Moodle & Moodle e-portfolio
Open Office & Firefox
Gimp
Asterisk & Mambo/Joomla
We do need people/students who can help staff these booths! Please
let me know if you might be able to help organize some booth support!
--
Steve Hargadon
steve(a)hargadon.com
916-899-1400 direct
18 years, 2 months
FOSS and Schools - No Valid Objection Left - Norway Report
by Bryant Patten
[cross - post from schoolforge. Traditional duplication apologies
apply]
From: knuty(a)SKOLELINUX.NO
Subject: [school-discuss] [IIEP] Report: Experiences with Centralised
operated Skolelinux installations
Date: April 13, 2006 12:46:32 PM EDT
To: ELEARN-OPENSOURCE(a)LST.IIEP-UNESCO.ORG
Reply-To: schoolforge-discuss(a)schoolforge.net
By Knut Yrvin - Skolelinux / DebianEdu - April 12th 2006
The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research has founded a report
about free software in schools. It covers planing and deployment of
Skolelinux/DebianEdu that currently includes 234 Norwegian schools,
33,000 client machines, and 101,000 pupils and teachers. The focus
is on technical issues, economy and organisation. There is also some
feedback on how the teachers use free software in their teaching.
The main conclusion is that no pedagogic, technical, or economical
objections using free software in schools remained valid. The numbers
show that the municipalities save more when running and maintaining
the schools ICT equipment centrally at many schools. The savings are
considerably lager with GNU/Linux then with Microsoft Windows. Market
prices show that the most cost efficient alternative are Skolelinux
diskless workstations. This is at least 40 % cheaper than to operate
traditional workstation pools (with thick clients).
Experiences from the municipalities show that the cost of running thin
clients (ltsp) is more cost efficient than thick clients because it
increases the lifespan on the hardware. Surprisingly, the cost of
running graphical terminals such as Citrix is the most expensive
solution. It is at least three times more expensive than Windows thick
clients when comparing prices in the market. When using graphical
clients such as Free NX the schools would get around the same expenses
with operating the system.
The ICT coordinators in the different municipalities say that there
are considerable challenges when introducing computer tools in the
school. The management at every school must establish a maintenance
regime and the teachers must learn to use computer tools actively in
the learning process. The activity have nothing to do with the
operating system in use. But the schools running free software can
afford more equipment, and the lower cost of maintaining the system
allows more resources to be used in teachers and the learning process.
The 17 page version for the report in English (that sums up the 65 pages
report in Norwegian):
http://developer.skolelinux.no/artikler/2006-04-02-debconf6.pdf
The 65 pages report in Norwegian (also with a short one page version):
http://d.skolelinux.no/ressurssparing.html
Sincerely
Knut Yrvin
--
Project manager (cel: +47 908 95 765) Skolelinux Norway.
Office: IT-Staff Akershus County Council, Schweigaards gate
4, 0185 OSLO, NORWAY.
18 years, 2 months
Soliciting Contributions for "Open Source In Education" Book
by Steve Hargadon
I posted this to some other FOSS in Education lists a couple of weeks
ago, but not to this list. Sorry for the duplication if you have seen
it already.
ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education
(www.iste.org), has asked me to coordinate the writing of a book on
Open Source Software in Education, which they will publish.
I'm interested in:
1. Ideas, feedback, brainstorming, etc. What topics should be
covered in this book? What specific programs? Who is the audience?
Are there books already written that we should look at?
2. Contributors. Would you like to contribute? Can you think of
someone I should make sure has a chance to contribute?
Please post this to any other lists you feel could help in this effort.
Thank you.
Steve
--
Steve Hargadon
steve(a)hargadon.com
916-899-1400 direct
18 years, 2 months
Re: national OSS-ed summit & barnstorming
by Jon maddog Hall
Tom,
tom.hoffman(a)gmail.com said:
> I do, however, get the feeling that there is a bit of a Fedora/Ubuntu/Debian/
> K12LTSP vs. Novell/Linspire schism, although it is hard to say.
>From my experience in both the commercial and free software world, little things
tend to make big differences.
I think that Red Hat and Fedora sponsoring a portion or even all of the
effort is fine, and giving credit where credit is due is fine. But naming
the effort after only one of the distributions is slapping people in the face.
This, however, is the last I will say about it.
md
--
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director Linux International(R)
email: maddog(a)li.org 80 Amherst St.
Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org
Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association
(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant
to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
countries.
18 years, 2 months
Re: national OSS-ed summit & barnstorming
by Jon maddog Hall
Hello,
There are (at least) two methods of attacking any computer audience:
Horizontally and Vertically
Horizontally means going to "computer" trade shows and events like
Linuxworld, the old Comdex, MACWorld, etc. You write for blogs that are
oriented toward computers, magazines that are oriented toward computers, etc.
The further away from your core technology you are, the harder it is to get
recognized, but the easier it is to reach the "unwashed".
Vertically means going to events like EDUCAUSE and speaking with those
educational types that make policies for Universities, or attending any of
the educational conferences that go on.
You can find out more about EDUCAUSE at http://www.educause.edu/
For the past thirteen years I have been going around and speaking about FOSS
in a horizontal method, but which often heavily included education. I was a
former college professor for eight years (3.5 full time, and 4.5 part time),
so I understand what FOSS would mean to education and research. The problem
is that from a horizontal perspective, there is so much about FOSS that it is
impossible to talk about all of it in a 45 minute "keynote". Therefore often
the educational part of FOSS takes a back seat to government and commerce.
Lately I have been purposely requesting that the conference people that
pay my travel expenses (note, I do not often require an honorarium for my
speaking, and never ask for one from Universities) to also line up speaking
sessions at local Universities. This happened in Oman recently, and I addressed
the CS staff of the University of Oman (their ONLY public university) for
about an hour on the benefits of FOSS in teaching. In a tour of their labs
I showed them how they could teach two more effective courses using FOSS. I
think my speech had a deep impact on their thought processes. They are currently
completely a Microsoft shop other than one professor who is "FOSS".
But again, this is only one university.
Unfortunately to attack something like EDUCAUSE it takes almost a full time
(or at least half-time) job. Their membership is only made up of
academic institutions and corporations in the "educational domain".
Microsoft is a member (Platinum) and Novell is a member (Bronze). EDUCAUSE has
no individual memberships.
EDUCAUSE has an "Open Source" panel at their upcoming conference in Washington
D.C. (which overlaps with Linuxworld Canada, where I will be), but no listing
of who is on the panel.
And that is just EDUCAUSE. There are many other "Educational" events,
magazines and groups in the world.
>That's a good example. We need something like Linux (in schools)
>International.
Well, it actually should be "FOSS (in schools) International". :-)
There is a third method of reaching the audience that you are talking about
and one that I am executing with Linux International. That is of the "grass
roots" method. Don't catch fish, but teach thousands of people how to fish.
LI will have a "Special Interest Group" devoted to Education. With LI as the
"corporate umbrella" they will have access to groups like EDUCAUSE as well as
others. LI will supply them with the materials necessary to convince people
at all levels of education that FOSS is better than closed source, proprietary
code.
I note, by the way, that your email list is "fedora-education-list(a)redhat.com"
This is a recipe for failure. It is the same philosophy that killed Unix.
It should be "FOSS-education-list", or better yet
"FOSS-education-list@some-neutral-body". That way groups from Novell, Ubuntu,
Debian, Slackware and others can join you.
Grow the pie, then cut it up.
Warmest regards,
maddog
--
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director Linux International(R)
email: maddog(a)li.org 80 Amherst St.
Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org
Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association
(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant
to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
countries.
18 years, 2 months
some thoughts and an idea
by Lucy Ringland
Greetings,
This group has been discussing mostly school-based linux initiatives,
but there is an active non-formal (think Scouts or 4-H, or church
groups, etc. here) community out there that is just as excited at the
possibilities of linux in their work - just as underfunded, in many ways
even less supported. Can there be cross-discussion about both sides of this?
May I throw out the idea of:
LIFE / LINE
(LIFE = Linux in Formal Education / LINE = Linux in Non-formal Education)
This could be the "summit" we have been talking about.
Or an umbrella group that provides research, support, training -
whatever - for educators and kids interested in open-source/linux - all
flavors and colors. Gather interested parties together and look at the
current puzzle pieces, and how the fit, what's missing, who's playing,
and get a sense of what the picture looks like now and what we want it
to look like in the future.
Also, there seem to be several big chunks to the question "what do we
need to do to get linux/open source into education?" There is the
software side - how to make it better, faster, lighter, easier for kids,
teachers, parents, administrators (both system admins and school admins
:-) ). There is the support side - how can we provide good tools for
people wanting to put linux into their school/after-school programs -
mentors, documentation, case studies, etc. There are surely other sides
I haven't thought about.
And, how can we tie linux into teacher training at the
college/university level, so teachers come into school settings already
familiar with open-source? Wouldn't matter what distribution, just
matters that they are exposed to alternatives that allow for community
interaction.
Sorry these aren't fully developed thoughts, yet. Feel free to beat on them.
Lucy
18 years, 2 months