Re: [LibrePlanet-US-MA] Lets start something! Introductions and planning

[Danny Piccirillo]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 17:38, Wesley Hirsch <address@hidden> wrote:
> First off, introduction:
>
> I'm Wesley, known as Shishire on irc.
> I've been an computer guy all my life, and an open source fan as soon as I
> found out such a thing existed.
> I tried a similar tactic with my high school, but was blocked by what for
> lack of a better word would be a M$ fanboy of an IT director.
> Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy as a person, but he also decided that
> what the school needed was to upgrade every computer to Vista the instant it
> was released.  Suffice it to say that didn't go so well.

Thanks for joining us! The tech teacher at my high school was
similarly a MS fanboy and seemed to be under the impression that free
software was like a wiki and anybody could just trash it. Luckily he
wasn't the IT director of the public schools, but the woman who is
takes advice from someone similar. Either way, they can be dealt with,
they just haven't had to deal with anybody more competent yet =]

> Second off, I'm available to help with a project like this.  Something like
> this excites me.
> I'm willing to be an in-person representative, as well as a technical
> contact and support person.  I'm a web developer who does everything from
> programming, to configuration, to system building.  Most of my current
> knowledge is about Ubuntu, but I'm familiar with a number of systems, and am
> willing to learn more as necessary.

Awesome! I should be learning from you-- i've been using Ubuntu for
years but have never taken my skills, if you can call knowing how to
use google "skills", to the next level.

> I've managed to convince a number of people to switch to open source
> systems, but more importantly to open source ideals.  I'd love to see it be
> widely embraced in a system which really can't afford to spend superfluous
> amounts of money on software licenses, like our public schools.  I think the
> first step is to get them interested, and get ourselves known as people who
> can bring about such a change.  Secondly, getting some open-source software
> on their current systems, so that they have a good reference point before
> they switch ( to ubuntu? something else? ).  I'd suggest openoffice,
> firefox, gimp, inkscape, audacity, and vlc, as a start.  Thirdly, if we're
> going to do this a serious venture, we may need to build an actual support
> "company" so that schools/corporations can contract out support to us
> officially (plus, it looks better on paper to the superintendent and such if
> it's a company doing it, not some random people the tech guy knows).
> Lastly, we can go about, probably over a summer, and convert all the
> computers to whichever open source system we're offering them.

Sounds like you say open source although you are concerned with
freedom. It may make sense to say open source to prospective schools,
perhaps until they're broken in, but on here you can say what you
mean, and use the term free software =]

Anyways, i absolutely agree. We should make a list of the tools
schools use (desktop OS, schedule and grade manager, office suite,
photoshop, autoCAD, etc), a list of alternatives, and a list of which
things schools will be most receptive to parting with first (web
browser, if they're not already using firefox or chrome, openoffice,
etc). Also, a list of people who are able to help with the transition
and any additional special skills that might be needed

As for starting a company, the local Ubuntu group i believe has been
discussing that, although i haven't followed closely so i'm not
actually positive. We should discuss this more because i'm not sure
how sustainable a company would be, but if one is being established,
i'm sure they would be willing to back us up.

> We'd want something like this highly publicized.  The more we can spread the
> word about it, the better.  It does us no good to just convert one system
> and leave it at that, we need to have a greater effect.  In 5 years time,
> I'd be thrilled to see 50% of the public school systems in the greater
> boston area using open-source operating systems.  You know the corny saying
> they always use at graduations about the seniors being handed the keys to
> the world, and that they're the ones who will make a difference in it?  In
> some ways, it's true.  If we can get a large number of high school students
> aware of the existence/awesomeness of freedom, it will change the way they
> think about such things in the future.  We currently live in a culture where
> people are starting to get antsy about being locked into systems.  Lets show
> them freedom.

Absolutely. We'll have to start organizing on the wiki and make an
announcement. We should have a team meeting first though, perhaps
publicize an announcement about that. What should we name this
project? Education-conversion task force is a bit of a mouthful

>
> --Wesley
>
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Danny Piccirillo
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 15:06, will kahn-greene <address@hidden>
>> wrote:
>> > On 06/16/2010 10:32 AM, Danny Piccirillo wrote:
>> >>
>> >> An idea raised on irc by John was to do something about this:
>> >>
>> >> http://www.salemnews.com/local/x1910032546/In-Beverly-laptops-all-around-but-parents-have-to-pay
>> >> A massachusetts school disctrict is requiring each student to own a
>> >> macbook, and buy one if they don't have one. We should draft an open
>> >> letter on the wiki and if we have anyone in the area, an in-person
>> >> contact would be even more effective.
>> >>
>> >> As part of the local ubuntu team a while ago, i had the idea of
>> >> starting an education-conversion task force which would go from one
>> >> public school system to another to encourage and assist them in
>> >> adopting free software. There weren't enough people who could dedicate
>> >> the time, but if we can get enough people here who could commit, i
>> >> know my old public school system has been broken in to free software
>> >> quite a bit (has had some ubuntu machines and lots of openoffice). The
>> >> tech director of the public schools has gotten very excited about
>> >> "open source" but she actually isn't very technical and seems to only
>> >> appreciate it as a buzz word. Still, it's a a decent start.
>> >>
>> >> Do we have enough ideas to want to start organizing a team meeting (on
>> >> IRC), or should we wait until we've gathered more members?
>> >
>> > I think this is a great idea.  The constant barrage of Microsoft and
>> > Apple software in school systems is both irritating as well as
>> > debilitating for students.  However it's a really hard mission that will
>> > take years to work through.
>>
>> Within one year, was able to, as just a student who dedicated just a
>> little time to this, was able to have a very significant influence on
>> the tech staff at my high school, and even the people in charge of
>> technology for the entire public school system which overs over 11,500
>> students. In my high school, all of the publicly available computers
>> in the library had openoffice installed, and two computers running
>> Ubuntu were made available. All this took was getting to know a couple
>> of the computer lab people and offering to help out. As for the IT
>> department head for the entire public school system, all it took was
>> one meeting where myself and the leader of the local Ubuntu team
>> showed up. At the time, it felt like no progress was made, but half a
>> year later i'd heard that since the idea had been planted, it had
>> grown enough to start using Moodle in the effort to bring the schools
>> up to date with current technology. Many schools are trying to get up
>> to date with current technology as well, and this is a very good area
>> where we can help. After all, we have the best and most affordable
>> tools!
>>
>> > What existing initiatives are there that are doing this kind of work at
>> > a public school/college level already?  Does any of the OLPC-related
>> > groups do something along these lines?
>>
>> I'm not sure about current initiatives, but it's a very good question.
>> I'm not super familiar with all the work OLPC is doing but i suspect
>> they're not nearly wasteful enough to meet the expectations of local
>> schools. I think to start out, this team would only need a handful of
>> people, and we could pick up where i left off in Newton. Last i
>> checked, without me there, they're leaning very much towards buying
>> more and more Apple products. I can be our gateway to reach out to
>> people in the school, but we'll also need people with expertise on the
>> specifics of what schools need.
>>
>> > It might make sense to start working on a FLOSSManual focusing on the
>> > issues that face school district admin and how those issues are
>> > addressed with Free Software.
>>
>> Yes, i think such a manual would be useful, or rather absolutely
>> necessary, to create on the LibrePlanet wiki so that we (and other
>> teams) can refer to it for talking points, but in-person meetings and
>> getting involved is the only way to make real progress. I also did my
>> senior project on free software, and my paper was titled, "Academia's
>> Obligation to Software Freedom"
>>
>> [http://blog.thesilentnumber.me/2010/04/academias-obligation-to-software.html].
>> It ended up mostly being a primer about free software, but this paper
>> is also available on LP:
>> http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Why_Public_Education_Must_Use_Public_Software
>> and of course Stallman's essay:
>> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html
>>
>> We should compile a list of what we would need and compile a timeline
>> to keep us on track, converting the majority of the newton public
>> school system doesn't seem too farfetched. If we can be at least
>> somewhat successful there, talking to other schools will be much
>> easier, not only because we've done it once before and learned what to
>> watch out for, but also because we can go back and tell them to look
>> at what we've done already.
>>
>>
>> --
>> .danny
>>
>> ☮♥Ⓐ - http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo
>> Every (in)decision matters.
>>
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-- 
.danny

☮♥Ⓐ - http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo
Every (in)decision matters.