Agenda Items for Edubuntu Summit
Edward Holcroft
edward at netday.org.za
Fri Jun 17 13:41:27 UTC 2005
Hi list
This is not the first time I have seen a reference to Skubuntu
(Jonathan and Hilton's presentation mentioned below). Can someone on
the list possibly explain what Skubuntu is and its relationship to
Edubuntu? I have inquired about this before, to no avail and it's
really niggling me.
Since I'll regrettably not be able to attend the summit, I'd also
like to make a suggestion around the package selection agenda item
for Edubuntu. In my view Edubuntu should not be striving to be a
single CD distro like Ubuntu. Perhaps CD1 could be the basic setup
and packages, but there MUST be an option to download full additional
CDs. For me, experience working in the most remote of poor schools
shows that there is no immediate chance of connectivity to download
some of the other cool, yet essential stuff out there. I would like
to see something like a five CD set (or more) from which the install
routine asks which CDs you have available. There should also be a
seamless way for users to add CDs to their system that they acquire
at a some later date after the initial installation.
How about the inclusion of educational content. Funding has just been
acquired to convert the Mindset (Learnthings) content to an open
platform. This material (published under a Creative Commons License)
would be ideally placed for inclusion in "the BIG version" of
Edubuntu. Or perhaps a tool could be included in Edubuntu that would
allow for the seamless integration of this content if for some reason
it cannot be shipped as part of "the BIG version". In Africa free
educational content remains a challenge - some of you may have
witnessed the spat around content on the FOSS list last year - and
it'd be great if Edubuntu could be the first free distro to address
this.
On "LTSP by default" - why have anything at all by default? All you
need is an installation routine that asks the user what kind of
machine they are setting - a la K12LTSP. Same for education admin
tools - don't have a default - ask the installer which one they want
as the default, and allow an option to install the works.
These options of course depend on a slick, intuitive installer. Let's
see Edubuntu please not offer offer the same horrible text-based
installer as Ubuntu. What we want for schools is something like the
GUI installer in Fedora or the beautiful Mandriva installer: one that
makes custom partitioning self-evident and the installation a
pleasure rather than a technical challenge.
cheers
ed
On 17 Jun 2005, at 11:14 AM, Jane Weideman wrote:
> Hi all.
>
> It is time to formalise the Agenda for the Edubuntu Summit which
> starts
> in just 2 weeks time!
>
> I have been accumulating all the agenda suggestions I have received so
> far and have listed them below.
>
> Please review this list, and feel free to offer additional topics, or
> suggestions, as well as any relevant input to the already listed
> topics.
>
> Please also give through to the schedule sequence and discussion
> dependencies, and which topics should be addressed first etc.
>
> We will start with registration and introductions on the Friday, but
> should not schedule any major topics before the Saturday morning
> (IMO).
>
> Available Time and proposed Format:
> * Friday *
> 16:00 - 17:00 - Registration and introductions
> 17:30 - 18:30 - Welcome (Mark Shuttleworth & Jane Weideman)
> 19:00 - Dinner
>
> * Saturday *
> 09:00 - 09:30
>
> _____
>
> Agenda Items for Edubuntu Summit
>
> 1-3 July 2005, London
>
>
> * Skubuntu presentation by Jonathan Carter (and Hilton
> Theunissen)
>
> * Package Selection and Evaluation – how are packages
> selected and
> evaluated ? Should involve input from the educators who are
> targetted to use the packages (Paul Flint).
>
> * We need to start looking at the various packages available and
> evaluating them, as well as classifying them in 3-4 categories
> such as Junior Primary (6-8), Senior Primary (9-11), Junior
> High
> (12-14) and Senior High (15-17) etc.
>
> * This process of evaluation is critical as this is the
> most discussed need for the educational change agent.
> Rather than looking for packages and evaluating
> them, it would be wiser and more effective to build a
> mechanism that
> allows all the educators out there to evaluate
> packages
> and our job
> becomes tabulating and displaying the evaluations.
> This
> is a paramount
> importance to the educational community, basically
> because all they really
> do is to evaluate, it is the stuff of their daily
> lives
> (ever get a bad
> grade? :^). Essentially, no evaluation methodology, no
> Edubuntu.
>
> What we may need is a mechanism similar to what has
> been
> built to evaluate
> installs. I talked some about this and I feel that
> this
> evaluation
> capability should be somewhat user intrusive, but
> should
> allow three
> general goals:
>
> 1. You can tell it to buzz-off and you never see it
> again.
> 2. You can tell it what you think on a casual user
> basis.
> 3. You can get seriously medieval.
>
> The result can be a successful evaluation which is
> communicated in the
> same way as the install evaluations. The same
> mechanism
> is used (actually
> re-used :^), to get this information back to the
> evaluation process which
> in turn updates the evaluation web site (and
> yadda-yadda).
>
> * Edubuntu Logo and Branding – select and agree on logos to be
> used (get more final images and graphic files from Hennie)
>
> * Edubuntu Documentation (speak to Jerome (jsgotangco))
>
> * Added:
> trunk/edubuntu/
> trunk/edubuntu/EdubuntuAbout/
> trunk/edubuntu/EdubuntuReleaseNotes/
> trunk/edubuntu/EdubuntuSetup/
> trunk/edubuntu/EdubuntuUserGuide/
> Log:www.edubuntu.org
> Edubuntu documentation added on svn ()
>
> * Colin Applegate's step-by-step install guide ..?
>
> * Architectural basics – Oliver Grawert (ogra)
>
> * edubuntu can use ltsp, but could be used even without
> this architecture, is a thin client architecture by
> default desirable ?
>
> * which default desktop environment(s) do we want to
> support ?
>
> * how do we want to implement the educational/scientific
> software and which sets do we want to support (see
> http://udu.wiki.ubuntu.com/Edubuntu for a initial
> list) ?
>
> * which default administrational software will we need
> (class management, scheduling etc.) ?
>
> * what do we do about multimedia apps for video/audio
> editing, composing ?
>
> * "Customer" requirements – Jeff Elkner – Paul Flint
>
> * what is our target audience, what are their specific
> needs (i.e. would edubuntu-elementary,
> edubuntu-highschool, edubuntu-lab metapackages be
> desirable)
>
> * are there special technical requirements we need to
> cover additionally to the ones listed at
> http://udu.wiki.ubuntu.com/ThinClientIntegration?
>
> * how much windows compatibility do we need and in which
> areas (for example wine pre-configurations for certain
> software in vocational schools) ?
> * Presentation by representatives of other edu distros:
>
> * SkoleLinux – Petter Reinholdtsen
>
> * Lliurex - Silvia Caballer
>
> * Interactors - Quim Gil
>
> * (K12)LTSP -Eric Harrison
>
> * etc
>
> _______
>
> I will post this up on the wiki shortly too - if you'd prefer to
> provide
> your input there.
>
> www.edubuntu.org
>
> Thanks
> --
> JaneW
> _____________
> Jane Weideman
> mobile: +27 83 779 7800
> Canonical Ltd.
>
>
>
> --
> edubuntu-devel mailing list
> edubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-devel
>
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