[school-discuss] Schoolforge.net has a new Web site

[David Bucknell <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Schoolforge Colleagues,

Justin Riddlough has been taking care of schoolforge.net over the last
five years.  He revised the site using Drupal 5 and then, as happens,
got busy.  Recently, he has upgraded the site to Drupal 7 and has
given us a great start on a new SchoolForge Coalition web site.

See the new website: http://schoolforge.net  (Thanks to Justin, it
redirects to https://schoolforge.net).

You might know, also, that the site has been quietly hosted on the
original SEUL (Simple End User Linux) server run by Roger Dingledine,
among others.  There are a number of members of the list who
participated in what was, in retrospect, a uniquely selfless effort
led by Doug Loss and Roger to unite groups dedicated to "fostering"
free and open sources in education rather than to promote one group
above all the others.

Of course, this strategy assumed that we would actively engage in
sharing and promoting resources for all concerned with the users
(students and teachers) being the ultimate beneficiaries.  We should
continue to look at how to achieve these goals.  Consider the website
and this discussion list as a commons area for our community, and how
each of us could contribute and benefit from these resources.

If your project has an active representation on this mailing list and
supports free software in education, you are welcome to sign up to our
coalition list.  This shows that you are a ‘keeper of the commons’ and
are working to strengthen our community.

https://schoolforge.net/join-schoolforge-coalition

As Justin has pointed out, we owe Doug and Roger, the AI lab at MIT
where the server was located, and all of the SEUL group who worked to
create schoolforge.net a great debt for their selfless work all these
years.  Feel free to share a thanks to Roger and SEUL by donating to
another project he started,  Tor.  Recently, the maintenance of the
server has become a bit of a pain for them, so, as you may remember,
Justin and I took on the task of updating the site and deciding what
to do.  As I have a server with space, and I knew I could eventually
give trusted members access, I suggested moving the site there.

As I said at the beginning, Justin has updated the site.  Let me be
the first to say that he did a great job and I didn't help.  I can,
however, promise to update the software and watch over the site with
Justin or whomever else has time to act as a moderator.  Now, from
here, we will, of course, consult your expertise and opinions about
the site, and this brings up the next important issue which is
establishing goals and procedures (again).  But in the meantime, we
would like to re-invite LM and others who are interested to join a
small Web site committee that can share the work together on where the
Web site should go next and how.

So, please join me in thanking Justin, and if you would like to be
part of the Web Team, please let me know.  If you don't have time,
you can talk ideas on list when you think relevant to everyone, or, if
not worth everyone's time, just send me a message and I'll inflict it
on the other victims ... er, volunteers.

We'll send out another message with more specific job descriptions as
soon as we know how people think about the new site and the way
forward.  As it's a new site, we'd be grateful for any reports of
problems you could send us as well as your comments and suggestions.

Best wishes,

David Bucknell

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