[Edu-fr] Re: Taking over the GNU Education activity

[toby cabot]

Adam, Stephen,

Thanks for your interest in helping GNU!  I'll copy this message to
the address@hidden mailing list and you can work with the list
members to figure out the best way to proceed.

Regards,
Toby Cabot (GNU Project Volunteer Coordinator)


On Mon, Feb 03, 2003 at 12:33:37AM -0700, minddog wrote:
> We are interested in a full organization inside schools to control,
> monitor, and defend the students rights of free software in the
> classroom and outside.  This project is currently called "the Free
> Software Academy", but we would like to merge it into the GNU
> Education activity, and in doing so take over that activity (as
> requested on the Help Wanted page).
> 
> A short list of our planned activities:
> 
>  * Many schools force their students to use non-Free Software to
>    support non-free file formats, such as MS PowerPoint.  In fact,
>    this problem was the original inspiration for the FSA project.  We
>    would speak as a third party interest on behalf of students
>    asserting their rights to use Free Software, explaining the
> 
>  * Offer mailing list, Freenode, and Wiki resources to assist teachers
>    in developing courses based on free software.  Good support will
>    bring satisfied schools that won't switch back very fast and that
>    will be positive about free software to other schools.
> 
>  * Post information about the activity in schools, perhaps with help
>    from the Digital Speech Project.  We'll have information sheets for
>    schools and students about why Free Software is good for them, and
>    why they should care.
> 
>    "Did you know if you give your friend a program that is a
>    $.... dollar fine?"
> 
>  * Produce products which are attractive to the schools.  Mainly
>    thinking of prefab packages for specific platforms.  Give the
>    package a simple graphical interface and automate the installation
>    process. Make a lot of these packages then burn them on a cd and
>    give them to whoever you want to convince. Chances are good they
>    will try it and copy the CD (better explicitly say copying is
>    allowed :-) for their collegues, and with a bit of luck they will
>    install the packages on the school network....the CD production bit
>    is of course not immediately feasible.
> 
> Some of the plans we have in order to acheive our goals:
> 
>  * Create *many, many* scenarios describing different obstacles to
>    adoption of Free Software in schools.  This is best illustrated by
>    an example.
> 
>    Institution: Doesn't understand free software, likes PowerPoint and
>    shows all its educational material in it.
> 
>    Student: a GNU/Linux guru/Free Software/Free file formats
>    supporter.  He wants to see some of his in-class presentations at
>    home.  But there are no texinfo, postscript, HTML, or PDF formats.
> 
>    His solution: Nag teacher, teacher ignores him.
> 
>    His solution with FSA/GNU Education backing: Nag teacher, Teacher
>    ignores him, CC the ignored student's with a request to have GNU
>    Education/FSA contact the teacher.
> 
>    Teacher learns that what she/he is doing is causing her material in
>    the classroom to be partly copyrighted by microsoft.....educate!!
> 
>    Teacher downloads software to easily convert her/his file formats
>    to standard ones.  She/he and her students are now very happy!
> 
>  * ...We'll have to invent every scenario and have a large FAQ put
>    together.  Then we can review these and try to invent some type of
>    universal input for everyone so that we can handle all requests.
> 
>  * This is only relevant if we become the GNU Education activity
>    ... we could include fliers with GNU snail-mail (orders, (C)
>    assignments, etc) asking people to post them, as with the recent
>    "Free Software, Free Society" book leaflets.
> 
>  * Bridge between computer groups and Digital Freedom groups.
> 
> Before we can do all this, we need a communications medium.  At this
> time, we feel the best way to do this would be to take over the GNU
> Education activity.  If you are interested, please let us know.
> 
> Adam Ballai <address@hidden>
> Stephen Compall <address@hidden>