Re: [seul-edu] Linux in Education Book?

[Khawar Nehal <khawar@atrc.net.pk>]

I am interested in helping out in writing any chapters that others are
having any difficulty with.

On Tue, 2003-06-17 at 17:32, David Bucknell wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> This message is a proposal for a community-created online, open content 
> licensed book about free/libre/open source in education. Please feel 
> free to forward this message to relevant lists. It is an idea many of us 
> have been thinking of for a long time and Bill Kibler's message inspired 
> me to try to get it rolling. I'm a teacher and it's summer and I'm ready 
> to start. Here goes:
> 
> I would like to turn this book idea around and make it both doable and 
> give it some strength it wouldn't have if just one of us did it. I've 
> personally been working on one (Open Source Schools was the working 
> title at one point) for a couple of years. Actually quite far along at 
> one point, but things change fast.  I would like to pool interested 
> efforts for two things: an online, ongoing project, perhaps as part of 
> Schoolforge.org (I would host it on the same server as 
> opensourceschools) and also as part of Open Book at ibiblio -- if they 
> would agree.
> 
> The committee would decide on the container software and format 
> (hopefully quickly). I would suggest Plone or Geeklog, but we could go 
> with straight html.  Nothing fancy.
> 
> Graphics and multimedia folks would be welcomed participants.
> 
> Bill, you may just be the one to do it on your own, and if so, more 
> power to you. The rest of us are too busy to do the whole thing and, as 
> I said, I think we could give different things to the project.  In many 
> ways, the parts of a good book already exist on the net in various 
> places (and people).
> 
> My idea is that we each contribute to an online (open content licensed) 
> version.  Anything after that, such as a printed book, is gravy.  We 
> need a time-line, a site, an editorial committee and, most importantly, 
> contributors.
> 
> I volunteer myself and any writers among us to join in the project as 
> members of the editorial team.
> At the risk of upsetting those mentioned or not mentioned, but in the 
> interest of getting the ball rolling, I'd like to mention a few possible 
> names: I'd start the list with Doug Loss, Mike Eshmann, Daniel Carter, 
> Hilaire and Bruno, Frederick Noronha, Paul Nelson, Jeff Elkner, David 
> Trask and any others willing.  Note, like any other open source project, 
> the proof is in the work produced. I volunteer to be overall 
> coordinator/edior. If someone is more qualified in a certain area than I 
> am, I will readily defer. The writers of the original 
> opensourceschools.org would be fantastic contributors. Meanwhile, there 
> are many, many other folks who haven't spoken up yet and have something 
> to offer. A few of them would, I'm sure, like to contribute in some way.
> 
>   I'm ready with the site and the mailing list for any willing.This team 
> would write, but also recruit, work with hard-core topic writers. Some 
> are both. For example, Matt and Paul might do it all, but I would 
> willingly work with Teemu or Myles on an intro for Mimerdesk and 
> Schoolmation. Many of the app authors have already written fantastic 
> docs to which we would only need to add an introduction with a link to 
> their work. Hopefully, authors themselves will write their intros. They 
> are probably too busy with their existing projects to join this one 
> except to write their intros to their products.
> 
> 
> If we did it right, this could be the first group and another could do 
> the revised edition next year. I'd say that in 3 years, the situation 
> will have changed sufficiently to merit a new approach.
> 
> If you've read "Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution,"
> (http://www.openresources.com/documents/open-sources/main.html) you'll 
> see what I'm thinking of -- at least for the first part, which would be 
> the argument for free/libre/open source in education -- and, of course, 
> not just for software.
> 
> PART I:
> 
> *Why free/libre/open source software?
> *Why free/open content?
> *What's happening in education?
> *From the student's viewpoint
> 
> First, I'd like to see Schoolforge coordinate this task because I'd like 
> to see it
> 
> *draw internationally on those, and I count myself among them, who have 
> spent considerable amounts of time promoting the idea with bosses and 
> community members;
> *be done with internationalization in mind
> 
> I thought that we might divide up the work along the following lines:
> 
> PART II:
> Meeting Schools' Needs:
> Tools and how-to's
> 
> *OS Linux and BSD
> People like Matt are heavy hitting-enough to do their own distros: Blue 
> Linux should have a strong part in it. So should Freeduc and the 
> in-progress Seul ISO project. k12ltspk120s.org is/are another important 
> part, along with alternatives to it.
> 
> *Connecting to the World: Server side infrastructure:
> Router:
> *Nat and Firewall:
> *Proxy and Filtering:
> *DNS
> 
> Web and Mail:
> *Apache, mysql, php
> *SMTP
> *Zope
> 
> 
> File Sharing:
> *Samba
> *NFS
> *Mac Netalk
> *NIS
> *LDAP
> 
> Web Apps:
> 
> Portal/Site Builders (The nuke, slash, postnuke, Metadot, Plone road show)
> intranets: (I'd like to see chapters by the makers of Mimerdesk, 
> Schoolmation and others)
> Course builders: (Manhattan, FLE, Moodle, etc.)
> Student database: Report Cards and Transcripts (Les Richardson's OAfS:
> http://richtech.ca and others interested)
> Help-Desk (Help ICT looks very good)
> Scheduler (Lots of promise on recent schoolforge-discuss discussions: is 
> this happening?)
> School Library (see below)
> Budgeting and Purchasing (Don't know)
> 
> Calendars, To-do lists, contacts, etc. (shared and private -usually w/
> mail)(Ximian?)
> 
> Separate tools:
> Bulletin boards
> wiki's
> 
> 
> PART III:
> Open Content
> 
> "Technology Integration"
> 
> WebQuests and/or "Course Readers"
> This is the real on-line curriculum resource to which we should link and 
> for which we should give space for new ones and for agglomeration (is 
> that a word?).  If any of you coders want an eye-opener, check out 
> Bernie Dodge's site: http://webquest.sdsu.edu/matrix.html
> 
> The School Library:
> koha and friends
> 
> The Solar System: An example of what can happen when free and open 
> source ideas meet education.
> 
> PART IV:
> Multimedia: the intersection of content and software
> Desktop:
> graphics
> k edutainment
> All the great apps involved such as GCompris, DrGenius, KStars, 
> TuxPaint, KTouch, All the science apps. I hope we can get the authors 
> and others involved in these projects to write their own intros and 
> point us to guides and other relevant work.  What's on k-12ltsp, version 
> 3 is an incredibly great start. Same with Freeduc.  Seul's ISO will kick 
> in here, too.
> 
> PART V:
> Case Studies (Could link to and augment existing case-studies on 
> SEUL/edu, Freeduc and other places.)
> 
> PART VI:
> Getting involved
> Joining an existing project
> Starting your own Schoolforge group
> 
> 
> What do you think? I'd like to do this. If you would,too, please speak up.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> David
> 
> 
> I have divided the text up into these parts for which we could form a 
> group of contributors:Quoting Matt Jezorek <matt@bluelinux.org>:
> 
> > I to had been thinking along these lines. If you want to chat sometime look
> > me up and I will be more then happy to exchange ideas with you.
> > 
> > Matt Jezorek
> > Linux for Education
> > http://www.bluelinux.org/
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Worden, Bill" <wworden@ivytech.edu>
> > To: <seul-edu@seul.org>
> > Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 1:40 PM
> > Subject: RE: [seul-edu] Re: Linux in Education Book?
> > 
> > 
> > > Linux offers a lot to education.  It's derived from a collaborative
> > effort
> > > which is motivated by the joy of learning.  It is the ONLY major OS
> > > completely open for computer education.  It provides a low-cost
> > alternative
> > > to educational institutions both in software and hardware costs.  As for
> > the
> > > book side, you should probably check out Yahoo! Groups : linux-ed or
> > Yahoo!
> > > Groups : linux-ta.  That might help.  I'm interested in hearing any
> > updates
> > > on this.  I'm pursuing getting a Linux cert here and one of the first
> > steps
> > > is convincing the administration :-(
> > >
> > >  -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-seul-edu@seul.org [mailto:owner-seul-edu@seul.org]  On Behalf
> > > Of Bill Kibler
> > > Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2003 3:07 PM
> > > To: seul-edu@seul.org
> > > Subject: [seul-edu] Re: Linux in Education Book?
> > >
> > > Trying to find out if there is any Book that covers
> > > Linux in/for Education???
> > >
> > > Considering writing one - have degree, skill, knowledge.
> > > Taking suggestions, thoughts, concerns before I start.
> > >
> > > Bill.
> > >
> > 
> > 
-- 
Khawar Nehal <khawar@atrc.net.pk>
ATRC