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My current Linux in Education project is to offer a couple of high school courses that exclusively use open source software. I am still working out the details. A couple of weeks ago I sent out email to Texas schools as a market study and about 10 districts responded that they were interested. I think we can overcome some of the roadblocks by giving teachers more tangible resources. Of course there are many available already - more than I am even aware of. Maybe we need to get the word out better? For example, I just discovered the OpenStudio info on this list (don't have time to read the list regularly) - and wow . . . I need to check them out. Anyway, I think these classes will bring Linux into schools who otherwise wouldn't be looking at it. So . . . rather than just trying to win them over at a technical level, maybe start with subject areas and work backwards? I'm attaching my market study email at the bottom. Ideas are welcome. What do you think? Hope you're having a great day! Marilyn ***************************** Would you like your students to be able to enter a similar competition? http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5651 Good
Morning!
You are listed on the TEA website as an email contact person for your school district. Would you gather this information and return it to me at the same email address? We need a response by this Monday. The purpose of this correspondence is to identify if there are schools who would be interested in two online fine arts courses, "3D Modeling and Animation," and "Music Composition" (see course descriptions below). The coursework is authored by a certified Texas teacher who taught music and computer animation with great success for twenty-two years, using computers in teaching as early as 1982. They will be hosted by a corporation who provides online coursework for most of the major textbook companies and many universities (Texas A&M is a client) and supported technically by another company who partners with Novell, Dell, and Gateway. We are ready to offer these two classes this fall. If schools wish to expand their core of creative offerings, we also have plans in the future to include "Digital Video Creation and Editing," "Music Videos From the Ground Up," Writing Scripts for Television," and "Writing and Illustrating Books for Children." Both of these classes are well suited to online coursework since the assignments would be done on a computer and group work is not required. A great advantage to you and your students is that we exclusively use professional grade open source software, that you download free from the Internet. The courses are designed to accept students at many different proficiency levels, however since it is at least half project based, assignments must be completed to pass. The classes address all Texas State requirements. Are you already offering these courses as part of your curriculum? If you are - that's great! If not, you can really give your students something wonderful without having to hire additional personnel. The author was motivated to create these courses because her own children attend an otherwise wonderful 2A school in Texas, but with very few fine arts courses. There is no commitment involved at this point. It is just prudent for us to make sure there is a market for this product before we continue its development. Please reply with answers to these three questions:
If we get a high enough response, we will proceed with our plans to offer these classes and contact you with the enrollment information next month. Sincerely, Marilyn Hagle, Representative Linux in Arts Education Cool Tools for Texas Schools 903.695.0837 Course Descriptions: 3D Modeling and Animation This course begins with the basics of computer graphics (tools, filters, effects, layers, textures) using a professional grade open source software program called "The Gimp" (http://gimp.org). Students use this same program to learn the basics of animation technique and create animated gifs (the short animations found on the Internet). The larger part of the course revolves around "Blender 3D" (http://blender.org), a modeling and animation program used to make films such as "Finding Nemo." At the end of the course, students will be able to create short 3D animations and advanced students may choose to create simple games. |