Re: New to the group

[Kristian A . Rink]

On Sat, 06 Apr 2002 12:03:19 +0200
Christian Selig <address@hidden> wrote:

 
> The situation is even worse. There is a Microsoft/Intel partner project 
> "Lernen für die Zukunft" (Teaching for the future), which consists of 
> training materials for MS Windows and MS Office and cheap copies. It is 
> even supported by politicians who view Microsoft as an innovative 
> company with great products. With this initiative, Microsoft tries to 
> secure itself a long-lasting monopoly on the school sector.


Hmm, I already heard about this project but I didn't know that things are that
dangerous. From one very special point of view, I even can understand what
Intel and Microsoft are trying, in here, since probably every other company
would do the same thing in this situation - trying to sell their products to
an audience as big and as long-lasting as possible. Anyhow that this is not in
public interest or in the interest of those learning about computers in those
"Lernen für die Zukunft" - related schools is obvious, same as it probably
wouldn't be a benefit for anyone to learn how to drive in a driving school
that doesn't teach you how to drive a car but just how to operate a
<insert-your-less-favorite-car-brand-here>. Even though I don't like it very
much, I do not have a problem in persons consciously deciding to use Microsoft
software for various personal reasons since I guess this also is an expression
of freedom, but I am convinced that people at least should be shown that there
are more different platforms and technologies than just the bloated,
candy-colored GUI of Windows XP, for example. We should both make teachers
aware and pupils demanding to learn some basic *concepts* shared on all
platforms instead of just "where-to-click-to-make-Windows-shut-down".
Everything else IMHO is an incredible break with everything the word
"education" stands for.
 
> We have to warn all officials. We have better arguments than cheap 
> software and no-cost training materials. We have a *vision*. Make that 
> clear to all of the decision makers out there.

Indeed. Anyhow I think that the low-cost aspect at least is having certain
advantages in times where there obviously is a very small budget for schools
in acquiring computer technology and software and probably even less to teach
their computer science teachers in how to do useful c/s classes in school.
Talking to pupils and officials, there still obviously are very few "real" c/s
teachers at schools, instead of that most of those actually doing computer
education are those who, in their hobby or personal interests, already once
dealed with computers. No matter whether this is completely or just partly
true, this is very bad - nobody would leave a "non-professional" teaching,
let's say, biology or chemistry, and it's incredible to see that it is
happening here. :(

> I should note that I'm highly involved with political pro-FS lobbying. I 
> won't get into the details, because I can't reveal my actions on public 
> lists where some Microsoft agents might look at the open archive. Hey, 
> MS guys, I already got some gooooood contacts, hehe >:^>

:] Good to know that. :)

 
> I consider this an offer to help :-)

Yeah, that's what it was meant to be. :) Actually, even reading about how the
situation is, now, I am still enthusiastic and motivated to do something. For
quite some time now already I am a little surprised to see that the activities
of GNU/FSF concerning the use of free software in education are pretty small.
Don't know if I am in the position here to come over with those, and same
don't know how far there probably are already some activities goin' on in
here, but let me kindly bring up a few ideas on edu-eu work:


(1) First of all, I am sure that having edu-eu as a "top level" organisation
for a strategical approach on getting free software into European schools is a
pretty good thing. But, besides that, I think there really is a need for
having, let's call it project groups for the several countries of Europe;
people that know about the school systems in their special countries, people
that are in touch with schools and teachers in their countries and people that
are able to both collect information about the school systems in the special
countries and to implement actions to promote free software for school usage
in their countries. I think it is important, that, in all countries and (best
of all) in all districts of the countries, we are just *present* to get active
and working wherever there is a chance to.

(2) How many folks are there on this list, right now? How many people are
actively working in projects more or less related to edu-eu? Besides that, how
many other projects like this are available out there? I remember at least an
educational mailing list on seul.org (Simple End User Linux) and a KDE-Edu
mailing list, both more concerned about the software aspects of GNU/Linux
educational use but probably helpful, anyhow. We should both try to gather all
those ressources on one point and to do some promotion for ourselves aiming to
gain as much edu-eu activists as somehow possible. This is possibly necessary
for both being present (see above) and for doing the work that has to be done,
besides this.

(3) Don't know how much there already is, about this: We should have some
promotional material (flyers, stickers, posters and whatever) available for
people interested in also visually supporting us and, in second instance, for
running boothes and presentations on meetings like LinuxTag's or LinuxExpo's.
We also might need some written stuff presenting our argumentation about why
to use free software in education facilities. 

(4) We should think about which papers, tutorials, instructions and so on
should be there for people wanting to use free software in schools, and we
should think about how to get this stuff written and translated in all the
languages needed. Searching for some good documentation for right this
purpose, some time ago, I only found quite a lot of current English docs and a
very small collection of (mostly outdated) translations to German. This is a
bad situation since it probably makes things even more difficult for us. I am
myself for those situations trying my best to translate those things but the
amount of needed material probably is way too big to be done by one single
person.

(5) I think besides this it would be helpful to have some companies or
organisations supporting us in each of the countries, for example having
Lehmann'S (www.lob.de) or Open-Office (www.open-office.org) helping to provide
"free software packages" for schools and (probably and possibly?) support for
them at little charge (if not for free, if this is possible). I am still
sometimes confronted with attitudes like "Free software? That's hacker stuff,
we want something more solid, something like Microsoft where there is a huge
company behind all the software." Besides the fact that this attitude is
rather bizarre, obviously it's still not uncommon and probably we should
probably work with it as long as it is there. :)

(6) Very often people tell me things like "All those things are nice but we
need MS Windows to run software that came with the instruction books our
school has bought for math / biology / computer science / whatever." We should
see how much of this software is there, and we should find out about
workarounds to those problems (WinE anyone? ) 

So, end-of-braindump. I'll get some work done now. Please give me some
feedback, have a nice sunday everyone.
Cheers,
Kris

-- 
...gross ist nur, was man nicht erkennen kann,
...und groesser noch, was man nicht begreift.
(Element Of Crime)