The Education Strategy

Jonathan Roberts jonrob at fedoraproject.org
Wed Aug 20 17:51:51 UTC 2008


>>
Firstly, let me say that from what I know of the work you're doing  
with education it's really exciting and got loads of potential. In  
fact I think it's one of the most exciting things happening in Fedora  
at the moment!

>> 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.

This to me is a very exciting direction for Fedora to be heading :)

>>
>> 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.

This I am less keen on. I loved the idea of RHH, but I don't like the  
idea of targeting the elite only. I don't know how it works in the US,  
but many of the "elite" schools here in the UK are private and the  
kind of people who can afford to attend is extremely limited - even  
indirectly by the property prices near by.

Further, school doesn't work out for everyone, and there are many  
extremely talented people who aren't "elite" but who would probably  
find RHH exactly the kind of thing they need to kick start their love  
of learning, or their love of anything! I would hope that these are  
the kind of people that a project like this would target.

>>
> Lack of openness
> One of the things we've talked about in IRC and I'll reiterate here is
> that lack of openness makes people think the worst. I think that
> largely such things have little if any place within the Fedora
> community - there are a few exceptions, but I am not sure that this is
> one of them. I also don't see the benefit - I know we talked about
> making a big splash at Seneca in October, but that type of 'marketing'
> is more reminiscent of Steve Jobs than of Fedora.

Agreed. I realise that sometimes a "lack of openness" isn't  
intentional, and just happens (I've certainly been guilty of this at  
times), but I don't see any reason other than legal obligations to not  
be entirely open with everything that we do.

Jon




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