Re: [school-core] [Fwd: Re: Regular media contact]

[David Bucknell <david@members.iteachnet.org>]

Good points, Doug. Before we go any further let me say I'm not suggesting you or
anyone else should change what they're doing; I am saying I think I should
change my focus and I'd like to see opensourceschools.org disappear and a front
page of schoolforge replace it -- it would be clearer that _all_ organizations
involved in schoolforge could call attention to themselves profitably there. If
other journal/newszines in the group feel the same, then they should join me in
recreating a front page.

David
Quoting Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>:

> David Bucknell wrote:
> 
> > That said, I think we should do some or all of the following:
> >
> > 1)Seul and Open Source Schools and a few other orgs are not local, but
> central
> > by design -- meant to be clearing houses and gathering spots. I say we
> combine
> > them as schoolforge. I would like to continue as rabble rouser/editor of
> the
> > front page, and we've had this discussion before, but my thoughts keep
> coming
> > back to the duplicated effort. I would like to invite anyone who's doing
> what
> > opensourceschools.org is, free/opensource resources in ed journal/newszine
> to
> > subsume under a new "front page" for schoolforge. I have more thoughts on
> the
> > "how" of this if anyone's interested.
> 
> When we formed Schoolforge we were concerned that it be seen as a coalition
> of
> equal partners and not as a renamed SEUL/edu or Open Source Schools, which is
> why
> we kept those organizations separate.  Since the unveiling of Schoolforge
> in
> January, we've (SEUL/edu) worked on moving general discussion on the use of
> open
> resources in education from the seul-edu mailing list to the
> schoolforge-discuss
> list and reserving the seul-edu list for topics specific to SEUL/edu, which
> are
> mainly the maintenance of the educational applications index and the case
> studies,
> and the development of the educational ISO (an image file of educational
> software
> that can be used to burn a CD-ROM).  We haven't been completely successful
> in
> getting all general discussion off seul-edu, but I think the separation is
> becoming clearer as time goes on.
> 
> I don't have any problems with having our various clearing house
> organizations
> subsumed into Schoolforge if that's what we want.  But I want to make sure
> that
> whatever development projects (such as the ones I mentioned above for
> SEUL/edu)
> they're doing continue or get absorbed by similar ones with other
> Schoolforge
> members.
> 
> To that end, I'd be happy to put out the biweekly Linux in education reports
> under
> the Schoolforge aegis rather than the SEUL/edu one.  We'd have to look into
> moving
> them all together, but I doubt that would be very difficult.
> 
> I'd want to keep the application index, case studies, and ISO projects as
> SEUL/edu
> ones, though, since they require management and programming efforts that I
> think
> are best done outside of this mailing list or the schoolforge-discuss one.
> 
> >
> > 2)I think we should either start a new org a la a (very) cheap version of
> the
> > w3.org and ask the opensource ed foundation to ramp up to be the funding
> arm
> > of schoolforge, or create a new npo/ngo. This could be done in a way that
> > encourages the formation of local groups, perhaps as complements or
> sub-groups
> > of LUGS world-wide. If we go the LUG sub-group way (as a strategy), there
> > might be no need to form an official npo/ngo. That could wait until some
> > university or large foundation is convinced to fund a serious effort. It
> looks
> > like I'll be doing a doctorate Edtech at Nova-Southeastern (US/Florida),
> > mostly via the Web. Maybe they could be convinced to "look good" by
> supporting
> > an organization. Maybe MIT could (SEUL?)
> 
> This gets into something we've wanted to do at SEUL/edu for over a year,
> but
> haven't had the resources to start.  We want to develop LUG support materials
> to
> help LUGs approach and support their local schools about the applicability
> and
> desirability of open resources in education.  This project may be better done
> by
> Schoolforge as a whole than by SEUL/edu.  We'd need to contact as many LUGs
> as
> possible and get them to designate an educational contact we can send things
> to.
> We'd also need to develop advocacy documents and advocacy HOWTOs to help them
> make
> favorable impressions on the school administrators.  These things aren't
> fundamentally technical in nature, which is why I think they may be better
> done
> through Schoolforge than SEUL/edu.
> 
> As to the npo, I'll leave that to people more knowledgeable/skillful than me
> at
> that sort of thing.
> 
> >
> > 3)Take William up on his offer but more as a writer and strategist than as
> a
> > spokesman, although he will inevitably be that, too. But his job, as he
> > himself, foresaw would more appropriately be to make each part of the
> > coalition shine. For one thing, I would like to see him as co-editor of
> the
> > new Schoolforge frontpage/journal/newszine. Anything too serious without
> a
> > salary would obviously be unreasonable for William, so we have to make
> good
> > use of his time. If we ever _did_ get financial support, maybe we would
> be
> > able to pay him.
> 
> William, you can define your role here, I think.
> 
> >
> > 4)Redouble efforts to reach an international audience and get someone to
> help
> > Felipe organize a translator's group.
> 
> I think this is extremely important.  Could each of the Schoolforge member
> organizations try to find at least one person willing and able to help Felipe
> on
> this?  If your group is national/regional rather than internet-based, you
> would
> clearly be better at translating Schoolforge material into your
> commonly-used
> languages than the rest of us would be.
> 
> >
> > 5)Plan one or more (international again) free/opensource in ed
> workshop(s)
> > conferences. Again, balance local and international: we could probably
> > centrally develop the workshops that could be locally delivered for free
> or
> > for profit, as suits the needs/desires of the ones actually getting people
> to
> > listen and learn.
> 
> This would take some major investment in time, effort, and money.  It's a
> good
> idea, but I think it might be best to try to convince the management of some
> of
> the existing educational technology workshops to add free/open source tracks
> to
> their programs.  That way we could concentrate on the message rather than on
> the
> management details (renting facilities, tables and chairs, etc.).  In
> addition, I
> think these workshops are run in many countries, so the internationalism
> would be
> built in.  We should probably look at developing a standardized presentation
> that
> can be customized for local or regional differences, and that can be
> delivered by
> people from any of our member organizations.  That way we could have a
> common
> message going out, but delivered by local people familiar with the specific
> needs
> of the schools in the area.
> 
> >
> > 6)Continue the current efforts to develop a cd or two with good stuff on
> it.
> > These could be touted at the workshops/conferences.
> 
> We're definitely continuing to work on that at SEUL/edu.  I encourage anyone
> on
> this list to let your organization know about this and to consider having
> some of
> your members help with it.  The web page for the project is at
> <http://www.seul.org/edu/iso.html>.  We especially need help from teachers
> and
> school administrators for Phases 1 and 2.  If anyone is interested in taking
> part
> in this, have them join the seul-edu mailing list by filling out the small
> form at
> <http://www.seul.org/edu/>.
> 
> 
> --
> 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
> 
> 
> 


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