[school-discuss] Thoughts on how to make Schoolforge more effective

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

I'm forwarding this message from Paul Querna with his permission.
I've marked the parts Paul wrote, and my responses, with our
respective names.  I'd like everyone else here to join in on this
discussion.

----------------------------

Paul: I agree with inf ["inf" is the IRC nickname of Teemu Arina,
another member of our group] that SchoolForge doesn't have the feel
of a community.  I do feel distant from it.  The Linux in Education
reports are great, I applaud them, and I enjoy reading them, but it
doesn't bring the people together.

Doug: Thanks for your encouragement.  I never meant the Linux in
education reports to be a rallying point so much as a snapshot of
our ongoing discussions and work for the rest of the Linux and
educational communities to see, so they can be kept abreast of what
we're doing and what problems we're finding.

Paul: I think that inf is correct in that a Web based Fora/Forum
software is needed.  I personally much prefer these.  What would be
better is a Fora/Forum that can automatically take in the mailing
list and cross post, etc...( a complete forum <-> email gateway is
needed, I don't know if one exists, but for a normal forum also look
at phpBBv2, which I feel is better than phorum.  I think I could
even write a forums <-> email gateway pretty easily if it comes down
to that.)

Doug: I personally prefer email mailing lists, but I recognize that
tastes differ.  I'm happy with having a web-based forum so long as
there's a fully bidirectional web<->email gateway between it and
this mailing list, so we have one discussion with two interfaces to
it rather than fragmenting the discussions by creating two fora in
different media covering the same topics.  To that end we're looking
at Phorum as the software for implementing web fora because it has
such a gateway.  Harish Pillay is planning to set it up for us.  If
anyone has suggestions for a better program for this purpose, please
let us know.

Paul: Also, one thing I think that could be helpful is a technical
discussion area.  I know there are others out there programming for
Schools, but there is no central place for all of us to confer on
formats, design plans or even help out on simple programming
problems.  I know this is part of the idea of the mailing list, but
I feel that most of the developers have not used the mailing list
for this purpose, so I think that web based forum would be more
receptive to them.

Doug: We talked about this a little while ago when the EduML
discussion was running.  It was definitely too early at that time to
fragment the list, but Paul's point is well-taken.  One of the
reasons Schoolforge was formed is so people from various projects
working on creating free/open source software for use in education
can talk to each other and collaborate on areas of common interest.
The general discussion list can be used for that (but currently
isn't being so used), but might that tend to chill other types of
discussion?  We need to keep the general list open and available for
any type of questions people want to ask.  Would it be useful to
setup other more focussed lists for technical discussions or other
specific areas?  If so, how should we keep the discussions going on
on these various lists connected?  We don't want to have questions
being asked on one list that are easily (or have already been)
answered on others.

Paul: Another thing I think would be nice is to create a running
list of what is *needed* for Open Source education software.  From a
Gradebook program, to 3rd Grade History about the Oregon Trail,
creating a list that identifies the need and allows a coder like me
with an interest in helping know where I can help, and lets the
non-geek users have an easy place to let the coders know.

Doug: Les Richardson set up a Needs, Problems, and Opportunities
Database at <http://seuldat.seul.org/npo/> for just this purpose.
It hasn't had a lot of use, probably because it's not been widely
publicized.  Take a look and see if it will fill your needs.  Of
course, it will only do so if people actually _enter_ their needs,
problems, and opportunities in the database.  Take a look, folks,
and let's see about using it.

--
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