Re: [seul-edu] Beta draft of initial public announcement for Tuesday

[Harry McGregor <micros@azstarnet.com>]

On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, Doug Loss wrote:

> William Abernathy wrote this for us with recommendations from David Bucknell
> and me.  Read it and give us your opinions quickly, so we can revise it if
> needed and let our translators work on it.  We'd like to have it available
> and ready to go in all languages by Tuesday.
>
> SCHOOLFORGE COALITION TO ADVANCE OPEN RESOURCES IN EDUCATION
>
> THE INTERNET, January 8, 2002 -- Schoolforge, a global coalition of online
> groups dedicated to promoting open resources in education, announced its
> formation today. The online project is located at
> http://www.schoolforge.net.
>
> In November of 2001, members of the online groups SEUL/edu
> (http://www.seul.org/edu), Open Source Schools
> (http://www.opensourceschools.org), and the K-12 Linux in Schools project
> (http://www.k12os.org) decided to develop a central organization to provide

I would like it if OSEF was included in this, www.osef.org

I will also see what I can do to find a quote from Kim Grimes (Librarian
at Corbett, who recived the ALA award this past year), about open
technology.

			Harry

> help for educators seeking to pursue the advantages of open resources and
> open source/free software. Composed of twenty-six open-resource-focused
> educational organizations on five continents, the all-volunteer Schoolforge
> project hopes to harness the collective strengths of educators by enabling
> them to share technical and pedagogical expertise far beyond the confines of
> their districts.
>
> "For too long," says SEUL/edu leader and Schoolforge spokesman Doug Loss,
> "our any projects suffered from isolation and low visibility. Our lack of a
> unified organization often meant that our efforts as educators and as
> technologists were wasted on duplicating each others' work, neither building
> on each others' successes nor learning from each others' failures."
>
> Schoolforge is intended to help its member organizations to:
>     * introduce open resources, including free/open source software, to
> primary and secondary educational settings;
>     * help educators use and develop open resources, including free
> curricula and free software;
>     * foster local and global volunteer support networks to implement
> free/open source educational solutions; and
>     * provide open forums for educators to share information with
> colleagues, and with corporate and governmental educational stakeholders.
>
> Schoolforge member organizations are made of volunteers, teachers and
> technicians in elementary and high schools who are committed to harnessing
> the Internet and open resources to help teachers teach and help students
> learn. Contributions to open resource projects are free and open to anyone
> who desires to use them, and can never be withdrawn from public use.
>
> Schoolforge's member groups will bring the power of open resources to
> primary and secondary educators. While some groups are focused on bringing
> open source and free software resources to schools in need of low- or
> zero-cost alternatives to proprietary software, other member organizations
> have broader goals: "When we use the term 'open resources,' we mean a lot
> more than free software," Loss says. "Open resources are educational tools
> made by educators, for educators, sharing the experience they've gained in
> both the classroom and the lab. That can include everything from folk wisdom
> to lesson plans to technical documentation."
>
> Visitors are invited to review case study files from SEUL/edu, including
> successful free software deployments in schools from Pasco, Washington to
> New York City, from Zacatecas, Mexico, to Aldgate, South Australia and to
> read thought-provoking articles from educators around the world at Open
> Source Schools. In addition to these technological successes, Schoolforge
> member projects such as the Open Book Project (http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/)
> and the new OpenSchooling Project hope to empower educators to create a
> free, standards-compliant curriculum for K-12 schools.
>
> "We're hoping," Loss said, "to put behind us the day when computers were
> used simply to teach students how to use branded computer products, and to
> lock hapless school districts into a never-ending treadmill of spending on
> hardware and software. We don't want another teacher ever to have to learn a
> proprietary interface, only to have his or her experience rendered useless
> with the next product upgrade or business failure. Open resources promise to
> make technology a powerful tool for education, not the other way around."
>
> CONTACT:
> The Schoolforge member organization or individual that sent you this
> release, or
>
> Doug Loss
> (570) 326-3987
> dloss@seul.org
>
>
>

--
Harry McGregor, CEO, Co-Founder
Hmcgregor@osef.org, (520) 661-7875 (CELL)
Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org