[Fwd: Re: Agenda Items for Edubuntu Summit]
Jane Weideman
janew at hbd.com
Mon Jun 20 07:17:02 UTC 2005
Hi Edward,
I am working off-line atm so I am not sure if your message has been
responded to yet...
On Fri, 2005-06-17 at 15:41 +0200, Edward Holcroft wrote:
> 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.
Skubuntu is a version (using the term loosely here) of Edubuntu.
Hilton and Jonathan have been running the tuXlab installations in South
Africa for a few years now. Once Ubuntu was developed and released they
wanted an Ubuntu version suitable for their tuXlabs installations - this
will ultimately be Edubuntu. However their needs were immediate and
pressing and so they devised Skubuntu (School Ubuntu) themselves - which
as far as I know atm is LTSP based. I don't know much more...
They already have skubuntu installed successfully in a number of
schools. I thought their learnings and experience from this exercise
would be valuabe input to our Edubuntu Development.
>
> 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.
Yes I agree, especially in the poorer nations, internet connectivity at
the schools is not a given...
> 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.
>
I will certainly raise these discussions at the event...
> 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.
Hmmm, I have mixed feeling about this. remember that not all (or even
not many) educators have a lot of IT knowledge, so there needs to be a
default installation that will run and produce a working environment
even without the installer knowing what they want or what to choose...
> 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.
Here again since edubuntu will be built of ubuntu I am not sure how much
we can deviate on these things, however a graphical installer is a goal
for ubuntu, and may veen be ready in time for the breezy release, so yes
it will be done, either in edubuntu 1.0 or 2.0 at least...
>
> cheers
> ed
Thanks for your input and suggestions.
Regards
JaneW
> 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
> >
>
>
--
JaneW
_____________
Jane Weideman
mobile: +27 83 779 7800
Canonical Ltd.
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