Re: [school-core] Affero's concept

[XIARCEL@prodigy.net]

I believe I missed the Affero concept as originally presented?

I imagine that it is very difficult to break into the educational
trade-shows if such a barrier exists...

Have we attempted to negotiate with the holders of these
conferences, pointing out that we have no "product to sell", no
"revenue to generate" from these visits?

On a side note...perhaps there are editorials, op-eds, etc...that
can be done in educational journals?  Are any of us educators by
trade?  ((Do any of us work for the educational system in some
manner?))..

Another way, perhaps, to get our name out there... is to approach
the "homeschool" front.  These are educators of a different
sort... but they strong mind-share there might also help...

~Dave

--- Original Message ---
From: Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>
To: schoolforge-core@schoolforge.net
Subject: [school-core] Affero's concept

>Just so we can continue the discussion on this, I'd like to say
>something about where financial support would be very useful.
>
>About a year or so ago we realized at SEUL/edu that we were talking
>to people who already understood and agreed with our positions, but
>we weren't reaching people outside that group who we needed to
>convince.  What we (and all of us here, actually) need to do is to
>present the case for free and open resources in education to the
>_educational_ community, not to each other.  To do that, we need to
>attend educational conferences as exhibitors.
>
>Unfortunately, that's not nearly as easy to do as it is to attend
>Linux conferences.  The educational community expects to be marketed
>to, but not to be approached by grass-roots organizations.  For that
>reason, exhibitor space at its conferences is ofter prohibitively
>expensive, precluding participation by any except corporations.
>That's a self-fulfilling prophecy situation, but there it is.  Any
>funds we could generate should (I think) go toward having a presence
>at various technology in education conferences around the world.
>That would include exhibitor fees, lodging and travel expenses for
>participants, etc.  These things would require not insubstantial
>amounts of money, but would have the greatest potential for
>broadening the reach of our message.
>
>Outside of finding some well-to-do and generous sponsors, I think
>the Affero donation method may be the best way we have of generating
>the funds for such things as this.
>
>--
>Doug Loss                 All I want is a warm bed
>Data Network Coordinator  and a kind word and
>Bloomsburg University     unlimited power.
>dloss@bloomu.edu                Ashleigh Brilliant
>
>

~Dave
               ||* Projects, active *||
Dustyscript (children programming): 
  >http://dustyscript.sourceforge.net/<
xTable: http://cxtable.sourceforge.net/
Grapevine: http://grapevineproject.org/