Re: [schoolforge] Thank you and agenda items

[Matt Jezorek <matt@bluelinux.org>]

Hey I know one acheivement that should happen in the next month, BlueEDU 
will be releasing beta 1 =)

But yes I agree, getting press releases picked up are kinda hard to do, 
articles about things thats a bit easier but still not real easy.

David Bucknell wrote:

>I apologize if you get this more than once. I sent it from the wrong address, 
>and it appears to me to have bounced, but ... sorry if you get it more than 
>two or three times ;-).
>
>Dear Web Building Team,
>
>I'd like to thank you for all the hard work and say that I think the site
>is looking better and better.
>
>I have especially enjoyed seeing how diverse the membership is and how it
>continues to grow. I like the Les's Web form and Felipe's multilingual
>press releases.Nice job.
>
>I'd also like to thank William and Doug for doing most of the press
>release work and for all the translators, whover you are. You have added a
>great deal of credibility to the project.
>
>Obviously, one unfortunate thing is that schoolforge was not picked up by
>slashdot but that's a lesson for us. Despite lots of planning, we managed
>to overlook
>the fact that most of these news sites/orgs/papers do not take press
>releases, but articles based on them. So, I think we might do well to try
>for a press release a month announcing collective/individual achievements
>and attempt to get articles written about those achievements. That way,
>schoolforge itself wll garner weight as having begun to fulfill its
>ambitions of fostering a cohesive and more
>effective common effort for free and open "resources" in education.
>
>By the way, where is the media contact list again? I may be duplicating. I
>finally got EDTECH to post the announcment today and have sent to Edpage,
>Benton Foundation, a bunch of edtech Webzines and the NYTimes (three
>different editors in hopes one of them would find it interesting -- no
>contact on their Web site for either education or technology).
>
>Re this mailing list: any hopes of aliasing it to the schoolforge.net
>domain?
>
>What about having a schoolforge list that isn't restricted to member reps?
>
>A couple of suggestions to start the next round of Web site revisions.
>
>*My own "what is schoolforge" should be revised starting with changing the
>"I" to "we";
>
>*We should add the OSI (http://www.opensource.org) to the resource list --
>especially since we've got the FSF (http://www.gnu.org) there already.
>
>*We should ask of our members to make sure they've got one of the and the
>link on their Web sites.
>
>*I still think we should have a contact form, not just a mailto link; the
>link is strange to me as I thought Felipe wanted to avoid spam; moreover,
>a form is IMHO _much_ friendlier and more efficient.
>
>*I know it should wait until there are more content revisions, but I was
>so impressed by the power of the multilingual press releases, that I hope
>we will soon
>have the site in multiple languages. Of course, down the road, this could
>mean considering mirror sites.
>
>As for our tasks, I propose, in addition to a monthly press release, the
>following "agenda" items:
>
>*Should this discussion be taking place on the seul-edu list instead,
>except for voting?
>
>*PR: I hope we will work toward a common pr package that members and
>supporters
>can take with them to conferences. If of interest, then I suggest that we
>discuss what this might consist of exactly.
>
>*Training Recommendations: We could also come up with a common statement
>and set of recommendations, and even alternative standards, for training
>and proficiency goals for each of the normal positions in a school: sys
>admin, tech faculty-student advisor/trainer (often called a "tech
>coordinator in the US), school admin, teacher, student (at each level).
>ISTE has done a great deal of this and we might be able to create an
>addendum rather than undertake a complete alternative.
>
>Extras for down the road:
>
>*Software project hosting
>You may remember my fixation on the sourceforge.net software. I think we
>are missing an opportunity by not moving all hosting of educational apps
>to schoolforge. It's what people expect.
>
>*Curriculum/course project hosting
>Likewise, you may remember my complaints and then submission to the wiki
>as a course/curriculum building instrument. I do think that wiki (which
>won't work from behind most MS-enabled-disabled firewalls because they
>strangely disable 8080 ports as well as ssl) is useful, and it may be the
>way, but I'm still stuck on setting up a matrix of common school format
>and then asking people to set up projects to build opencontent parts, such
>as geometry 1 for average high/secondary level students, or English for
>7th graders/year 8's/13 year olds. In fact, I'm building it now. If you're
>interested, let me know.
>