Christian's Questions...

[Susan Stewart]

Christian Selig wrote:
<snip>

> The questions for a setting up a project would be:
> - At which level? National, International? 

That's a good question, and one that I must admit I'm only 90% sure 
about.  While school systems differ greatly from one country to another, 
I think that it would still be beneficial to make this a worldwide 
effort as the training materials and software we use will be pretty much 
the same for everyone.  My only qualm about that is the extra paperwork 
involved in applying for grants funded by the US if we're an 
international organization.  LOL Oh well, I've been at this grant 
writing thing for almost a decade, I'm about due for a new challenge. ;)

> - Who manages the project (US, Europe)? 

I'd like to see a small group (not more than 6-8 people) doing the 
overall coordination, with at least one person from the US and at least 
one from Europe.  Then we can break it down by country from there.

> - Who can donate resources? 

I'd be looking to businesses, LUGs (Linux Users' Groups), and 
universities for volunteers.  I'm pretty good at rounding up state and 
federal grant money (I've been working with technology in education for 
a decade now), but that only really helps the US schools for the most 
part.  I've put together some ideas for fundraising that can be done at 
the individual school level, and also am trying to think of some things 
that would be more far-reaching.  Something that will prove very 
important to our funding level in the long run is high visibility.  The 
more well-known we are, the more likely we are to recieve corporate 
donations.

> - How would the work of the project look like, specifially? 

I'd like to provide as complete a support base for schools as possible: 
help them figure out what they need, aid in writing grant proposals and 
exploring other avenues of fundraising, hook them up with local 
volunteers to help with system setup, and provide training resources to 
allow teachers and staff to make a smooth transition.  Also, as a little 
icing on the cake, I'd like to create a computer-related extracurricular 
program that individual schools can open thier own chapters of, then 
pool resources for regional conferences/programming competions/etc.  We 
could even help them find guest speakers, etc.

> - Which existing group/s are willing to cooperate? 

I anticipate that GNU/FSF will be more than willing to participate, as 
well as local LUGs.  We might also want to check out other computing 
organizations like USENIX/SAGE.  Richard Smedley mentioned a UK group, 
www.affs.co.uk ,  who may be of some assistance, and schoolforge.net who 
are more US-focused.  To be honest, I haven't checked out either yet as 
I'm in the middle of preparing for my wedding shower tomorrow.  My 
schedule will be somewhat hectic off and on for most of April, but 
things should quickly settle down as May begins.

> please outline your ideas :-)

First, of course, is materials development: a framework for training, a 
start for any kind of extracurricular we want to bring to the schools, 
as well as enough PR-type stuff to start building our visiblity.  As 
much as I hate to admit it, nonprofits rely heavily on thier PR 
abilities, because the greater your level of visibility, the more good 
guy points you have to offer businesses in exchange for donations.

Once we have that done, I'd like to start getting the word out to 
volunteers--both on the techie side of things and the education side-- I 
know how to do that here (teachers' union magazine, school board 
journal, etc.) but I don't know much about how to handle it outside the 
US.  The techie stuff is easier b/c it's fairly international anyhow. 
Then, choose an area where we have a good response level and get one 
school going as quickly and completely as possible.  Once we have an 
example to show for ourselves, the rest will slowly become easier.

> After June, I will even be able to donate Web space and bandwidth. 
> What about including GNU/Linux introducory materials targeted at 
> schools, in multiple languages? I have already written some ... 


Wonderful.

> Bye,
>   Christian





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