Re: [school-discuss] About Open Source in European Union

[Teemu <teemu@ionstream.fi>]

>  I hope MimerDesk is goung to apply!  Everyone, if you could please alert
>  any European project leaders you know about this.  It sounds as though
>  this is directed specifically at our type of groups; we should try to
>  see that they get a great response!

We are applying as part of a bigger eLearning project here in Finland. There 
is a research paper under development that describes what eLearning standards 
exist, what to choose and what to develop in order to build a good eLearning 
strategy. I have a feeling that Open Source technologies will be considered 
as the best alternatives from an educational point of view. We propably take 
this research paper when it is ready as one of the guidelines for mimerdesk 
2.0 development (build from scratch). 

Current version of MimerDesk is just a prototype. The development has been 
learning by doing in practice. We have now learned a lot about what it could 
be and what standards and technologies to use. MimerDesk 2.0 aims to be the 
result of this knowledge.

There is a good reason why European Open Source projects should atleast send 
an application to EU commission eventhough it doesn't result into any funding 
or such: EU wants to support open technologies and when they know about the 
existing ones and organizations like SchoolForge it's only a good thing for 
the Open Source community. Through the effort to get more publicity we are in 
a much better situation.

I'm preparing to translate SchoolForge press release to Finnish when I have 
the time and send it to local news papers, educational news papers and IT 
news papers. Are there any swedish people on the list? I'd like to see a 
swedish translation too!

Oh and the info where to send applications... I'm trying to get the requested 
information and post it here. I don't have it right now because I'm not the 
one sending the application.

Best regards,

Teemu Arina
MimerDesk.org