I like Joel's prose. It got me thinking, though: Schoolforge is a coalition of those already involved in free and open sources for education -- mostly. So, that makes it less than helpful for most new users. Two possibilities come to mind -- or three.
1. We look to one or more of our "members" who already serves new users.
2. We tell them that we're going to work on materials for training teachers -- but that's still one level up from the normal user.
3. We create new mailing lists such as school-user
What do you think?
David
----- Message from jj2kk4@xxxxxxxxx ---------
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:13:06 -0800 (PST)
From: Joel Kahn <jj2kk4@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Teacher Needs Help
To: "schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Justin asked:>Does the website fail to welcome folks that may feel judged>by asking questions that demonstrate ignorance?A website, like any other medium aimed at the public, has to have acertain generic quality to it. The people who maintain the site mustmake basic assumptions about a target audience. The assumptionscan never be perfect; there will always be, at least once in a while,someone coming along who might be helped by the group runningthe site but who is not ready for what the site holds. This is whySchoolForge mentions the school-discuss list right in the middle ofthe home page, and why the real work can not be done by merewritten words and pictures--it is the one-on-one actions of experiencedpeople working with newbies that create genuine progress. That iswhy I have been slowly leading Kelly into SchoolForge, and whyI hope there will be a number of you who will have the time to joinin the effort to help her. That is what the real community is about.Perhaps a variation on the preceding paragraph, with appropriateimprovements from some of you, should appear in the SchoolForgeFAQ. This might help to address these concerns.Joel
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