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[school-discuss] Re: Linux inservice day
To bring the conversation back around to the inservice day, I had
proposed an international "Open Source Day". Burkhard Woelfel then
suggested a "hipper" (and "hippier") name: "Free Software Day".
I did some further searching and found that Tony Stanco, founder of
FreeDevelopers.net, had tried to get one together last October, but
it didn't happen. He is still in support of the idea, though.
I think the "day", whatever it be called, would be a good idea that
wouldn't necessarily require a lot of organization, money, etc. If
we just agreed on a day (or even week or month), then anyone that
was planning to do such an inservice presentation could tie it into
this.
This would give us a common deadline with common goals, and we could
all develop and share resources (slide shows, HOWTOs, resource
links, etc) for putting on our own local presentations. Of course,
we have a slant towards education, and our resources would reflect
that, but others could join in with other emphasis if they wished.
So, some things to consider:
1. Are you in favor of having such an "Open/Free Software" event?
2. What span of time should it cover: day, week, month? A single day
might be too short, maybe a month is too long...
3. What would the name of it be? Open Source, Free Software, or
something else? "Freedom of Software Week"?
4. What date(s)? It would be nice if there was an important day to
celebrate, such as: the date of the birth of GNU, Linus's first
post, RMS's birthday, etc. There is Feb 14 that is stamped on Tony
Stanco's "The Declaration of Software Freedom", on-line at
http://freedevelopers.net/freedomdec/index.php, but that is maybe
too political, and Feb 14 has other celebrations (Valentine's Day
here in the US).
I don't necessarily want to bombard these lists on this topic if
y'all aren't interested. So, let's do this: send me specific answers
to these four questions, and I'll summarize in a week or so. Or, if
you have general comments that everyone would be interested in, post
them to the
list so that we can discuss.
Thanks,
-Doug
Douglas S. Blank wrote:
> This is a great idea, and one that we should all do!
>
> How about an annual, international day that we celebrate and
inform our local
> schools about open source in education? But larger than just
Linux, an "Open
> Source Day".
>
> Maybe there is already such a day? I did a quick google search to
see if I
> could find one. There have been days called "Open Source Day" but
I could only
> find one-time deals. Nevertheless, there are some useful
resources, for example:
>
> http://www.dclug.org.uk/ossday/ (April 27)
> http://www.holtww.com/newholt/hww-news.shtml (November 22)
>
> This would give us some momentum and some exposure. It would
certainly
> encourage me to target a specific day to finally do some local
informing. What
> do you think?
>
> -Doug
>
> Scott Brooks <scottbrooks@telusplanet.net> said:
>
>
>>My father is the assistant superintendent of the local school
board, so
>>I have started to talk to him to see if at the next teachers
convention
>>if I could do a Open Source in Schools presentation, or something
like
>>that.
>>
>>Does anyone know of any resources, notes, or any wizdom that would
help
>>make this presentation better.
>>
>>It's an idea that just came into my head today, so I don't have
much
>>down in terms of a plan, but it would probably be something like
the
>>following.
>>
>>1) Brief intro to Open source, and it's Philosophies. Talk a bit
about
>>how the principles of Open Source are things we would like to see
grow
>>in the students (sharing, cooperative work, etc)
>>
>>2) Bring in my system from home running LTSP, and have several
boot
>>disks to quickly convert a lab into a linux lab for them to try
on.
>>
>>I would run them through Open Office, The Gimp, Mozilla, various
>>educational pieces of software, etc.
>>
>>3) Wrap things up with about 15-20 mins of question and answer,
hand out
>>CD's with the windows ports of Open Office, The Gimp, Mozilla,
etc.
>>
>>Depending on the crowd I might spend more time on the LTSP part to
show
>>some of the power of a fully multi user OS.
>>
>>Does anyone have any wizdom as to showing something like this to
>>teachers, I would love to hear it. The presentation would not be
until
>>march, but I would like to get started on things now to have a
good
>>outline done.
>>
>>Thanks
>>Scott Brooks
>>
>
>
--
Douglas S. Blank, Assistant Professor
dblank@brynmawr.edu, (610)526-6501
Bryn Mawr College, Computer Science Program
101 North Merion Ave, Park Science Bld.
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 dangermouse.brynmawr.edu