Re: [seul-edu] [j-tamara@uniandes.edu.co: Experiencies with Linux at Bogota Colombia]

[sala@cbint.org]

Wow! In my own country and i didn't knew about this? 


Roger Dingledine escribió:
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from owner-seul-edu@seul.org -----
> 
> Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 06:52:50 -0500
> From: Igor Tamara <j-tamara@uniandes.edu.co>
> Reply-To: ikks@bigfoot.com
> To: seul-edu@seul.org
> Subject: Experiencies with Linux at =?x-user-defined?Q?Bogot=E1?= Colombia
> 
> Hi everyone, the first thing I have to say is to apologize for my
> english I hope the most of you understand what I say in this e-mail

Same here, don't worry :)

> 
> I've been working with GNU/Linux from two years ago, I made my thesis of
> 
> computer science using it, the main goal was to develop some Natural
> Language Processing, especifically in Spanish, you can visit
> http://asismat4.uniandes.edu.co/plena to see some of this work, if
> something is wrong, please let me know, sorry, right now is in Spanish,
> I'm planning to translate that to English.  It's of course under GPL.

Here being in spanish is a feature, not a bug :)

> 
> At the moment I'm working at a school that uses only Linux for every
> process involving computers, all the students, the teachers, and even
> the secretary.

I'm making advances toward that goal here too.

> In the first grades we are using a software that was used in Tandy 
> Color Computer 3, and running xmess we are able to do in Linux,
> if you want to know and download it, you can go to
> http://structio.sourceforge.net , where we have a plan that is called
> Structio on globalize all the processes in the school, learning,
> evaluation, administration.  Again in Spanish.

That's a very good idea.

Here we're depending on a windows program for many administrative tasks
(BTW, anybody has got Visual Foxpro 6.0 apps to run under Wine? i'm 
commisioned this week to see if i can make that app run without windows
(good mission, don't you think? :)

> 
> In the later grades we are using typist with lessons adapted for the
> school, also GPL, olders are using Logo, StarOffice to explore word
> processing and all those stuff of office that they will find in every
> work place, we use also dia to make charts, diagrams of UML, we also
> teach "C", some introduction to database with PostGreSQL, pgaccess,
> HTML, and finally Java.  We also are teaching how to use EMACS, the all
> powerful editor. We are also planning to translate the gimp tutorial.
> 

Good. I'm trying to break the teachers' mental model of "MS Office is
the 
Operative system, the workforce, and the only and one true reason for 
ownind a computer, besides internet". You're lucky :)

> We have found some useful software to construct cognitive maps, you can
> visit http://cmap.coginst.uwf.edu to learn about it, and ask there for a
> Linux Version free for educational uses.  And if you want, I can give
> you a URL where you can download this.

Yes, i want :)

> 
> Another useful tool is wiki-wiki, I don't remember the URL, but I think
> is a useful tool to share thoughts and other things, a good
> coolaboration thing to use and evaluate.

Wiki-wiki. I've heard of it, and sounds like a good idea. The URL is 

> We are currently working on putting that info in the net, we are looking
> 
> for hosting at this moment.  But when we finish the administrative
> issues we will be telling more things about the experiencies we have
> had.

I'll be waiting :)

> 
> I hope my brother write soon to the list, he is the director of the
> project structio mailto:vtamara@bigfoot.com . Any comments, suggestions
> will be appreciated.  If there is someone else in the list located at
> Bogotá and wishing to colaborate or know more, see the things working,
> feel free to write me, so I can show you what we have.
> 

I'm not in Bobota, but on Barranquilla (and i couldn't go to the
congress,
Linus will be there the friday at 8:00AM :(

If i can help, i will (i don't have a lot of free time, but....)

> I've been pretty excited about being member of this list, I hope we can
> do many things in favor of education. At the moment I'm doing my math
> thesis, usign modulef, also a GPL tool of finite elements if someone is
> interested.  Sorry if I don't do the translations to english quickly.
> 
> I can tell you about the work made with a net of a few computers 586
> with 16 MB Ram with hds of different sizes, from 200MB to 1.6 GB. We are
> using NIS to authenticate and NFS to share programs  and home
> directories, with a P 200 MHZ.  Our budget is pretty tight but I think
> we are doing our best.

Hey, that's my network! you stole it! :)

Now seriously, that's about the same network we have here. How do you
manage
to use staroffice in those conditions? Here i had to push to upgrade the 
old clunkers to 32 Mb (fresh new this week!!!), because with less than
that
it was unbearable, too slow (and i'm using a network install)


> 
> Sorry if the mail is long, but I really wanted to share this with you.

Mine was long too, i can forgive you :)


> I hope Vladimir write to the list telling something about Structio and
> Manta.

I hope too.

> 
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Igor TAmara Pati~o
> mailto:ikks@bigfoot.com
> http://members.bigfoot.com/~ikks
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----