Here is a list of responses to the questionnaire that we sent out, the initial thoughts that I had when viewing this - the scope of projects that work to promote open source in education is incredibly huge. I see that there are aspects covered in training, media distribution, hardware/software, podcasts, etc. These were people contacted from what was listed on the Coalition members page, but I don't think this signifies an updated list of 'members' (some have confirmed an interest in being Coalition members and are included here) as the procedures are still a work in progress and there are still some things to work out. I'll create another discuss message to share some ideas on that.
There are a lot of ongoing projects that have been discussed on the list that list members are active in, so this would be a good opportunity to share information on these efforts as well. The format that has worked so far is this..
Silverio Carugo
s.carugo at didasca.org
Name of Project:
DIDASCA http://www.didasca.it/
Purpose of
project:
DIDASCA is a non profit cultural association. Its
mission consists in spreading and supporting computer literacy in Italy.
DIDASCA is the hub of nearly 500 'DIDASCA e-Learning CENTERS' focusing their
activities on the ECDL - European Computer Driving Licence certification.
Target Audiences:
DidascaKids, DidascaJunior, DidascaCampus,
DidascaYouniversity - DIDASCA is trying to establish 'LifeLong Learning
Partnership' with the Italian formal education system.
Other
information:
DIDASCA is actively engaged in promoting the use of FLOSS
in education throught the FLOSSIE channel located in the above mentioned
websites.
Gunnar Stefansson
gstefans at gmail.com
Name of Project:
Tutor-web
http://www.tutor-web.net/ http://www.tutor-web.info/
Purpose of
Project:
Providing a base where instructors can share material and
students can use for self-study and both can use for student evaluation.
Target Audience(s): teachers and students
Is there anything
else we should know about your project?
The tutor-web is being
converted to use Plone, more tutorials are being added etc.
Tom Barbalet
tom at nobleape.com
Name
of Project:
Noble Ape
Purpose of Project:
See; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Ape
Reasons people would visit your site:
The Simulation
The Documentation
The Podcast
Target Audience(s):
teachers, parents, students, administrators, IT, K-12 + college +
Ed Wiget
ewiget at rhpstudios.com
Name of Project:
Maysville Linux Users Group - http://www.maysville-linux-users-group.org
Purpose of Project:
Educate businesses, non-profits, schools,
new users, existing Linux users about linux through online discussions, help,
articles, and distance learning
Reasons people would visit your site:
rated in the top 30,000 sites by netcraft - contains thousands of
articles concerning linux, using linux, configuring linux
Target
Audience(s):
The Maysville Community & Technical College uses this
web site as a reference and help with their Linux web servers, they also offer
Linux training and I serve as an adjunct faculty for these courses. The
web site serves as complimentary information to the courses taught at the
college. Many businesses use the distance learning courses we have
available to train their work forces in using linux for desktop (general) usage
and to train their internal IT staff on configuring linux. Many non-profit
businesses use the web site to train employees. All sectors of business we
serve also uses the web sites information to make informative decisions about
using linux.
Is there anything else we should know about your
project?
We have a program referred to as the Business Linux Initiative
that allows businesses to purchase pre-configured Linux workstations and servers
that include lifetime remote support and administration for the products.
This administration is handled by various members of the web site who have the
technical knowledge to perform these duties. We have quarterly meetings
that last 4+ hours to train those who attend in various aspects of linux.
We accept sponsorships of those meetings so that we have items to pass out to
members.
ilpo.halonen at dlc.fi
Name of
Project;
Eduprojects.net, http://www.eduprojects.net
Including Comenius 3 network COMP at CT (WWW), Dafnord, European
Schools Project in Finland
Purpose of Project:
eJournalism
as an approach to eLearning, educational collaboration across borders,
e-journalistic activities of learners in project-based learning
Reasons
people would visit your site:
global contacts with project makers,
interactive synchronous and asynchronous online services including live
online sessions, projects in English, German, Swedish and Finnish
Target
Audience(s):
teachers, students, staff of educational
institutions
Is there anything else we should know about your
project?
Learn Internet Projects by Doing - LIP 6 Live Online course
will be implemented in the school-year 2006-07. There are live online sessions
starting in August 2006. Teachers from everywhere are invited to these
pilot sessions, and they will get training about how to participate in
educational collaboration across borders live online. After training in the
autumn 2006 they have the opportunity to take part in the course LIP 6 Live
Online that will start in January 2007. They will work as virtual partners
with the Finnish participants of LIP 6 Live Online. The course will be organised
by COMP at CT in cooperation with OPEKO, the National Centre for Professional
Development in Education in Finland. The course is free of charge, and the
virtual partners only participate in the Internet, not F2F.
Please
contact the course coach Ilpo.Halonen at dlc.fi .
More information about the course in http://esp.eduprojects.net/en/training.html
.
The Comenius 3 network COMP at CT , funded by the commission of
the European Union in 2002-2005, is the core network maintaining our project
activities. As the network has no legal status, Euneos Corp. was founded in 2004
to represent the network in the EU projects where the COMP at CT network/Euneos
Corp. is a partner. Projects we are involved are the Comenius 2.1 project
EFELCREN ( http://efelcren.cesga.es )
where learning scenarios and learning objects are created, domesticated and
disseminated, and the Minerva project WEBCEF (no website yet) where oral use of
European languages is compared and evaluated according to the Common European
Framework of reference (CEF), with the help of videoed samples of oral speakers
of different languages. You know the diversity of languages is a very
challenging topic in the European Union.
enmac at linuxmail.org
Name of
Project:
LTSP, The Symbiont Workstation Manager http://ltsp.org
Purpose of Project:
To
enable schools to easily adopt and deploy diskless thin client solutions.
Diskless Thin Client solutions save money, provide a computing environment that
is more secure, runs faster, more reliable and environmentally friendly.
Reasons people would visit your site:
To learn about our open
source development efforts within the LTSP (Linux terminal server project: www.ltsp.org) and our commercial (supported and
actively developed) solutions branded, The Symbiont ( www.TheSymbiont.com). We offer
Symbiont Boot Appliances (LTSP appliances) as well as Diskless Thin Client
workstations that are fully compatible with our Symbiont Boot Appliances, LTSP
and K12LTSP. We are also partnered with IBM, HP, Microsoft, Novel, and
Redhat so that we can readily deploy Microsoft Windows and/or Linux desktop
solutions all with 100% diskless desktop hardware.
Target
Audience(s):
Mainly teachers with interest in an alternative use of IT.
Nbedoucha (Norbert)
nbedoucha at xtlabs.org
Name of Project:
Burgundy eMontion (NOTE: I have this listed http://www.xtlabs.org/, don't think this is
the same project, please update with URL)
Purpose of Project:
Inner city development aimed at three groups
a) 15 - 24
school dropouts
b) Immigrants
c) Single Parent families
To teach these groups about entrepreneurialship, financial
responsibility and IT in a hands-on project.
Is there anything
else we should know about your project?
This a new venture, regrouping
government, private and public sector, to aid the community to help itself and
break free of the "welfare state" trap so prevalent in our communities.
Chris Gregan
Name of Project:
Aptenix http://www.aptenix.com
Purpose:
An
advocacy and migration services company focused on the promotion of
open
source solutions for small business, local government, public
education, and
non-profit agencies. Aptenix Desktop Solutions offers
existing system
migration, configuration, and support, as well as new
system sales. This
gives Aptenix clients flexibility in choosing the
option that best suits
their organization's needs.
Shane
shane at edu-nix.org
Name of
Project:
Edu-nix http://edu-nix.org
Purpose:
EDU-Nix
aims to provide Public Schools with Open-Source alternatives to expensive
proprietary software products. The project will consist initially of a
redistributable CD that has both a live CD environment, as well as Windows
versions of the office and productivity programs.By ensuring that all students
and faculty have equal access to high-quality Free Software, EDU-Nix will help
to bridge the digital divide in American schools, allowing students access to
the same software they use at school wherever they can get computer time.