The Education Strategy

William Cattey wdc at MIT.EDU
Wed Aug 20 17:50:55 UTC 2008


Jack,

Your scope and rationale make 100% good sense to me.

I see the Campus Reps and RHH initiatives as places were MIT and  
Fedora can more fully engage.

Well done!

-Bill

----

William Cattey
Linux Platform Coordinator
MIT Information Services & Technology

N42-040M, 617-253-0140, wdc at mit.edu
http://web.mit.edu/wdc/www/



On Aug 19, 2008, at 6:49 PM, Jack Aboutboul wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> I realize that some people have been confused, perplexed and  
> perhaps annoyed at the lack of information being disseminated about  
> what is going on vis-a-vis some programs being planned in the  
> educational realm.  After my brief comments at the NA ambassadors  
> meeting a few weeks I would like to outline what has been going on  
> to provide some clarity as well a grounds for discussions for  
> everything.  Let me start by saying that I apologize if it seemed  
> like this was being done in secret, which it absolutely isn't, its  
> just the choice was made to keep everything quiet until we could  
> make some formal announcement in the coming months and that lead  
> people to believe we were trying to cut people out of the process,  
> which is not the case at all.
>
> First of all, let me make a few thing we are *NOT* trying to do  
> clear, based mostly off concerns people have brought to my attention:
>
> 1. Create a private initiative - Again, we were just being mum  
> until we could make sure we would get the most press punch out of  
> this.
>
> 2. Uproot/Replace/Rename/Repurpose the Ambassadors program - This  
> is absolutely not true one iota!!!  The purpose that we are  
> considering this initiative to be a separate entity has nothing to  
> do with anything malicious.  This is intended to be a pilot program  
> and we thought it might be less of a burned on Ambassadors if it  
> was run by one person initially, figure out if it has legs, gain  
> some organic growth and then integrate it into the fold rather than  
> stick in a whole bunch of new people with seemingly narrow-focused  
> objectives into an already ongoing and vibrant Ambassadors program.
>
> 3. Replace current Ambassadors who are students - Again, not true.   
> We really would like everyone to keep doing the great job they are  
> already doing, day in and day out.  We didn't start by approaching  
> these ambassadors, because strategic partnerships with certain key  
> universities are important to Red Hat as well as Fedora and we are,  
> and I especially have been, working on building those bridges for  
> the past few weeks.  We don't want to kick anyone out of place, on  
> the contrary--we are trying to make more places in which people can  
> be.
>
> That being said, I am going to highlight some key pieces of  
> strategy which for better or worse comprise our Fedora Education  
> Strategy and feel free to comment on and/or disagree with any of  
> these--thats why I'm putting this out, to get everyone involved in  
> the process:
>
> 1. Open Source Curriculum - We are working with a talented group of  
> people to try and put together both a platform and set of course  
> materials in order to teach people and students world wide how to  
> program using modern software engineering methodologies and with a  
> focus on Free and Open Software tools and philosophy.
>
> 2. Campus Reps - A US Pilot program to try and get students on  
> college campuses involved in Fedora and general FOSS advocacy.   
> Initially, they will all report back to one person within Red Hat  
> who can be help responsible and accountable for all this.  Purpose  
> is two-fold, first, students advocate for open source and fedora on  
> their respective campus.  Second, they provide eyes and ears on the  
> ground and work with students and faculty to find interesting  
> opportunities.  Students also provide a face for us to the faculty  
> which is familiar to them which doesnt seem like its some corporate  
> backed scheme to recruit students without paying their sometimes  
> insane fees.  Reps have a few basic responsibilities, mainly  
> holding one event a semester, whether it be a tech talk or info  
> session about something fedora or open source related and  
> maintaining good rapport with faculty to try and make new  
> opportunities spring up.
>
> 3. Red Hat High 2.0 - Redefine RHH as a program working with the  
> country's elite science and math high schools in order to get  
> students familiarized with open source at the high school level.   
> This ties in with the Open Curriculum.  We know there are a number  
> of similar initiatives but none which focus around getting students  
> familiarized with open source.
>
> Thats basically that, I'm sure everyone will have more questions  
> and comments and suggestions, so let's get everyone involved in  
> this.  What do you think?
>
> Jack
>
>
>
>
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