RE: [seul-edu] Forming a coalition to promote free and open tools and content in education

["Jason Mellen" <jmellen@cfl.rr.com>]

Well, it seems that there is a desire to see something like this form. So,
what's the next step? In my opinion one of the first goals will be to define
this group.

Here are some proposed 'tasks' of the team that we can build from:
*Provide software resources for use in education
*Provide tutorials and help information for teachers and administrators
*Involve the community to provide support
*Advocate the use of free software in schools
*Develop courseware to be used by teachers
*Allow each individual initiative (SEUL, OFSET, etc.) to share their
resources
*Provide a single place for teachers/administrators to give input into
development

Please add to the list and expand the ideas with your own.

Of course we also need a catchy name. How about FEC (Free Education
Coalition) or OSEC (Open Source in Education Coalition)? As you can see I'm
not being to creative here.

I'm just trying to spark some ideas. There are some great visions in the
community, we just need to harness them together.

jmellen

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Mellen
Palm Bay High School
Webmaster / TSA / PTV / NHS
Department Assistant - Vocational Education


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-seul-edu@seul.org [mailto:owner-seul-edu@seul.org]On Behalf
> Of michael@haywood.k12.nc.us
> Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 7:47 PM
> To: seul-edu@seul.org
> Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Forming a coalition to promote free and open
> tools and content in education
>
>
> Hello David,
>
> It is exciting to see more and more people get involved and I
> agree that at some
> point we all need to put together some type of "coalition" maybe
> even sponsor our
> own conference.
>
> Michael Williams
> http://www.k12linux.org
> http://www.haywood.k12.nc.us
>
>
>
>
> > I've been following the discussions inspired by the Red Hat response to
> > the MS settlement proposal. Obviously it would be a great shot
> in the arm
> > for all concerned if Red Hat got a respectable hearing. I think we all
> > hope they do. Even if they win some sort of accomodation,
> however, we'll
> > still have to answer many of the questions about "which way
> forward" that
> > have been asked on this and other lists lately. It's both exciting and
> > frustrating to see that each of the open source in education
> discussions we
> > run into is at about the same stage, asking the question
> "What's the best way
> > to convince a school or school system to give it a try?"
> >
> > Seul, open source now, the Texan community ed group and open
> source schools
> > are each struggling to put together the "next step." This situation is
> > duplicated in each application category: course builders,
> > intranet/collaboration apps, desktop Web site builders, mail
> clients (Web and
> > desktop), you name it.
> >
> > I hope we'll find a way to form an international "collaborative" or a
> > "coalition for free and open source in education" that can be
> the work-base
> > for each of these cases; after all, coders can, in many cases
> where the same
> > licenses are used, "capitalize" on each other's code, sort of
> making use of
> > the available best of the gene pool. Why can't those of use
> working to promote
> > free and open source tools and content capitalize on each
> other's efforts?
> > Let's create a sort of commercial/product-neutral "brand" that
> goes on each of
> > our sites as volunteer members of this education-promoting
> collaborative or
> > coalition (lately that word seems over-used, although
> appropriate for us ;-)).
> > Participants would be defacto members of the "committee" that
> vets promotional
> > material that could be used by anyone or any group wishing to
> promote free and
> > open source tools and content.
> >
> > When first designing Open Source Schools we had the discussion
> of how best to
> > get the attention of the "right" people in a school and decided
> that the
> > answer depended on whom you were talking to. So we set up the
> site according
> > to the roles people play in schools: school admins, teachers, community
> > members and then the more typical sys admins and tech coordinators. We
> > essentially want to make the site of use to members of each of
> those groups.
> > So, we'd like to join Seul and other groups in hopes that our site will
> > realize this ambition. We think we've made a good start in two
> months, so we
> > have something to contribute to the "cause".
> >
> > Obviously SEUL and OFSET and other older groups have more to
> contribute. We'd
> > like to formalize this working group so that we can hasten the
> arrival of a
> > consensus on the best way forward.
> >
> > Interested?
> >
> > David Bucknell
> > Editor, OpenSourceSchools.org
> >
> > Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu> said:
> >
> > > On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 10:36:43PM -0500, Jonathan Opp wrote:
> > > > Take a look at http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow for contact info.
> > >
> > > I just took another look at the Reuters article referenced there.
> > >
> > > Balmer apparently noted that "the money can be used to buy any kind of
> > > software, not just Microsoft's." Presumably he's counting on the fact
> > > that all the schools will still "choose" Microsoft.
> > >
> > > Assuming this thing gets accepted tomorrow, is there still
> something we
> > > can do to show the schools that they have a choice (eg build a little
> > > information packet and get one to each of the schools)? Realistically,
> > > the right way to get them convinced is to have an advocate (student or
> > > teacher or admin) inside the school start things off and keep at it.
> > >
> > > Even if we only get a few schools convinced, we can make good public
> > > relations out of them if we phrase things well.
> > >
> > > I realize that Doug has been harping on this subject for a while, but
> > > he's right. I'm afraid I'm being a classic arm-chair project
> leader for
> > > this, since I have no idea what will actually convince school systems.
> > > So I'm going to shut up about this. Hopefully somebody has
> the beginnings
> > > of such a packet and can share it and start us off?
> > >
> > > --Roger
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > David M. Bucknell
> > http://members.iteachnet.org/~david
> > http://www.OpenSourceSchools.org
> > http://members.iteachnet.org/webzine/
> > Fax: (US) 775-244-0803
> >
> >