Re: [Fsfe-uk] Software in Schools

[Jocelyn Chappell]

Thank you Stuart for your comments, responding to each paragraph in turn:-

1) I have signed most of the other Open Source petitions as I believe 
that where different professions share common interests and passions it 
is good to work together.

You may note as far as I am aware this petition is the first to address 
the issue for schools and the information supplied by the good people at 
the Open Schools Alliance [http://www.openschoolsalliance.org/] strongly 
suggests we suffer significant additional government hindrance in this 
respect.

2) and 3) Good idea. I have been pleasantly surprised by the initial 
numbers on the petition. I can imagine that generations of pupils and 
teachers would appreciate any help to organise more widespread support. 
I would be personally grateful and pleased certainly to acknowledge the 
support of individuals and organisations on my blog 
[http://www.openschoolsalliance.org/]

4) Having no experience in the drafting of petitions I:-
+ prayed for inspiration,
+ reused significant portions of John Pugh MP's Early Day Motion 
Software in School 
[http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=31752&SESSION=885] 
that has already received some success with 129 backbenchers supporting 
the campaign,
+ tied the whole thing into everyday life with a local personal interest 
story demonstrating that open source software does make a difference in 
the real world, and
+ with respect to size I tried (not much) to keep it small so as not to 
stand out from the others

You may care to note that part of the civil service approval process to 
submit e-petitions on the site is designed to weed out duplicates. As 
this e-petition is clearly focussed on use in schools it seems to have 
passed that test. A duplicate however may weaken the support available 
for each petition.

What I suggest is we encourage all to support all open source 
e-petitions. It would not be a significant extra effort for each 
individual (using the search facility on the e-petiion site) and if 
successful would demonstrate nouse solidarity in a common cause.

I hope these comments are helpful and that you might forgive any naivety 
in my approach which may be seen as "good enough" by some.

Regards,

Joc

Stuart Yeates wrote:
> Jocelyn Chappell wrote:
>
>   
> > I have set up an e-petition 
> >     
>
> This is not the only e-petition on open source software running on
> the site and I doubt it will be the last.
>
> Might I suggest that in order for a truly significant number of
> signatures to be garnered, we first need to build a consensus about
> behind the a particular approach and behind a particular form of
> words which the maximum number of people can sign up to? One
> petition on the site has 1,379,129 signatures, but 10,000 would take
> us easily into the top twenty on the site.
>
> There are a number of membership bodies who may be prevailed upon to
> at least raise the petition with their membership if approached
> correctly. I'm thinking of UKUUG, BCS, as well as bodies in teaching
> and the civil service (which I know vanishing little about).
>
> The text of the actual petition is, I believe, very important and
> needs to amount a complete rationale for the petition. I'm aware
> that the rules for the content of the text is somewhat
> unfortunate[1] (no URLs, etc) is there also a concrete limit on the
> length of the "concise statement" and "More details" ?
>
> cheers
> stuart
>
> [1] http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/terms
>
>   


--
Jocelyn E. Chappell
ICT Co-ordinator
Pebble Brook School, Churchill Avenue, Aylesbury, Bucks, HP21 8LZ, UK
[w] +44 (0) 1296  434442 ext 225 
[m] +44 (0) 7770 2043766
[skype] jocelyn.chappell
[school] http://learning.pebblebrook.bucks.sch.uk/ 
[blog] http://specialschoolict.com/
[podcast] to be announced

[church] http://htaylesbury.org/
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[promote free and open source software in schools] 
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/schoolsoftware/

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