Re: Introducing a new project for teenagers in free software (and how you can help!)

[carmenmaris]

Hi Paul

> So are the first few steps here?  Clearly you are reaching out to people 
> which is a good 
>  thing, build a team and a team of contacts.

Posting here was suggested to me. I've been struggling with finding an umbrella 
org for months, and there aren't enough kiwis into this to incorporate without 
asking people overseas. Fortunately, I've found a way to do this without any 
one else if I have to. 

I'm eligible for some grants and a wage subsidy. Now that I can incorporate, my 
next goal is to get those. 

I have a well-planned launch coming. I wasn't actually planning on asking for 
any other help until I had formally launched my project. I'm floored by the 
generous offers of assistance people have made!
> How would this apply to social media, we know that platforms 
> such as Instagram and TikTok are popular with the target age groups,

There are lots of community groups (think scouting, city-level youth 
development charities) that want pro-social things for their members to do and 
are willing to help spread the word about this, including on their own social 
media. There are still youth publications that have significant readership, as 
well. 

 It's more labour-intensive to do it this way, but in the long-term it should 
be more effective. It also gives me the opportunity to build relationships and 
tailor materials to suit. Some of them have really interesting projects that I 
can be involved in later. 

- Carmen

6 Dec 2024, 05:47 by libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org:

> Hi Carmen
>
> So are the first few steps here?  Clearly you are reaching out to people 
> which is a good     thing, build a team and a team of contacts.
>
> How do we market this,
>
> What you said here
>
> "
>
> The idea that free software is
> an ethical imperative is really important to me, and I don't want to encourage
> anyone to use non-free software or give the impression I endorse it.
>
> "
>
> How would this apply to social media, we know that platforms such as 
> Instagram and TikTok are popular with the target age groups,  however do we 
> need to embrace that to reach the audience but mirror content on platforms 
> such as Mastodon, PixelFed and Loops ( https://loops.video/ ) and peertube, 
> for the latter can we make use of the existing fsf peertub account.  or we 
> add 'extra' content on the more freedom respecting platforms.   We need to 
> hook people over I guess.
>
> How do we factor in the sort of platforms young people use, vs the platforms 
> the rest of us use, social media vs forums / mailing lists for example,  or 
> use matrix over irc  as it probably looks more like what young people are 
> used to, matrix is or can be encrypted for example.  It does look nicer, 
> mobile friendly and share a qr code to join a room (so like discord).
>
> Paul
>
> On 05/12/2024 00:17, Carmen Maris via libreplanet-discuss wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi Aaron,
>>
>> Down the road, a project like that could be really interesting once
>>  I'm more established. However,  for the first year or so I need to work
>>  with what I can do with more or less just me and a very small budget.
>> I'm already expecting to do an awful amount.
>>
>>> Although there
>>>
>> are definitely issues with GitHub, privacy, and consuming open source
>> technologies for closed source gain, I was just looking at some of the
>> learning materials on GitHub and I think there may be funding or
>> technical support available from Microsoft to create such a
>> project.Obviously we need to make sure that the objective is learning
>> code, not learning to use GitHub, and promoting open source software,
>> not maximizing profit to the determent of society.
>>
>> I'd be very cautious about this, to be honest. The idea that free software is
>> an ethical imperative is really important to me, and I don't want to 
>> encourage
>> anyone to use non-free software or give the impression I endorse it.
>>
>>> am connected to both the education and engineering departments at
>>>
>> UMass in Massachusetts, USA and will put feelers out for potential
>> collaborators. Do you have a website/other documents with more info on
>> the framework?
>> Thank you!
>>
>> I don't have anything I can give you immediately (what I have contains a lot
>> of sensitive information), but you're very welcome to pass my e-mail address
>>  along. I'm delighted to answer questions.
>>
>> It might help to know I'm taking a really broad approach to who belongs in
>> free software. I don't just want to attract future programmers (although 
>> they're
>>  very important!!). It's also important for me to bring in teens that might 
>> be
>> interested in learning other skills like technical writing or UX design, as 
>> well as
>> young people in general that are just interested in how technology affects 
>> them and
>> society. There are many ways to be interested in technology, and they're all 
>> valuable.
>> I want my community to be a welcoming place for people who love computers in
>> all sorts of unique ways.
>>
>> - Carmen
>>
>>
>>> Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2024 11:23:24 -0500
>>> From: Aaron E-J <the@otherrealm.org>
>>> To: libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
>>> Subject: Re: Introducing a new project for teenagers in free software
>>>  (and how you can help!)
>>> Message-ID: <4aa8dd31-7342-4ac0-b6e4-47c51a4b00ee@otherrealm.org>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>>
>>> I have thought that the idea of working on open source projects as
>>> learning tools would be a great win-win-win opportunity to advance
>>> education.I am coming in the context of the college level, but I think
>>> we need to start students down the path towards free software as early
>>> as possible.The name for the project I was thinking of is called "World
>>> Piece" or "World Pieces" and it is a play on the notion of breaking
>>> learning goals into code tasks.Basically how I was thinking this would
>>> work is, given a topic to be learnt, there is some auto-curation of open
>>> source git repositories with open tasks to be completed.Although there
>>> are definitely issues with GitHub, privacy, and consuming open source
>>> technologies for closed source gain, I was just looking at some of the
>>> learning materials on GitHub and I think there may be funding or
>>> technical support available from Microsoft to create such a
>>> project.Obviously we need to make sure that the objective is learning
>>> code, not learning to use GitHub, and promoting open source software,
>>> not maximizing profit to the determent of society.However, I think the
>>> general concept of integrating open project issues into learning tasks
>>> is a far more efficacious means of teaching than having students work on
>>> meaningless one-off homework that has no larger purpose.There could even
>>> be the chance to get industry funding for students to earn money based
>>> on completion of sponsored tasks, although again, we need to be careful
>>> to not turn this into an exploitative means of getting cheap labor.
>>>
>>> I am connected to both the education and engineering departments at
>>> UMass in Massachusetts, USA and will put feelers out for potential
>>> collaborators.Do you have a website/other documents with more info on
>>> the framework?Do you think my idea and yours can be melded into some
>>> sort of larger plan?
>>>
>>> Aaron E-J
>>> The Other Realm
>>> http://otherrealm.org
>>> http://theotherrealm.org (Blog)
>>>
>>
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