My Visit to the EBV School

[Simon Ruiz]

Efrain:
 
This is really great to hear! I'm sure you had a wonderful time with the kids, that's really what it's all about. It sounds to me like this Nigel guy really "gets it"; it'll be great to welcome him into the community. I especially like the idea of those kids refurbishing computers to donate to less privileged schools, it gives me vicarious warm fuzzy feelings. I'm definitely available with any support I'm capable of giving, and thanks for the e-mail!
 
I hope you don't mind, I'm copying this to the edubuntu-users and ubuntu-education mailing lists. I have a feeling some of the people there would be interested in hearing about your success!
 
For those of you on the mailing lists: Efrain is a fellow member of the Venezuelan Ubuntu Fraternity, and an English teacher. His letter says the rest.
 
Take care, Efrain. Thanks again for the great news, and I look forward to hearing from Nigel.
 
Simon

 
________________________________

From: Efrain Juvenal Valles Pulgar [mailto:efrain at ubuntu.org.ve]
Sent: Thu 1/25/2007 6:56 AM
To: Simon Ruiz
Subject: My Visit to the EBV School


Simon:

I had the most wonderful time sharing some Edubuntu. it is a very interesting thing to show something new to a human being. the kids were delighted to have something new in the class. I had spoken to you about a teacher I know that works at this school... she knows of my ubuntu enthusiasm and she went ahead and arranged a meeting with the ITGS teacher at her school for me. It was all good. 

The Teacher's name is Nigel Robinson and he is in charge of a special class called the Information Technology in a Global Society. Probably the perfect setting for an Ubuntu presentation :D. we met and he was very open to the ideas I was presenting. he had been a red hat user back in college years so he need very little introduction to basic terminology. the initial talks led to two projects. 1) a talk oriented to students, for them to meet (EDU)buntu... and 2) refurbishing some computers he has so they can be donated to less privileged school (running edubuntu)... 

this is his email from after our meet up....



	Hi Efrain,
	 
	Thank you so much for coming in and talking with me about all the different choices that Ubuntu offers.  I will install it on my Mac this weekend...  Also my ITGS (Information Technology in a Global Society) class will be meeting next week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I have two sections of this class and I would appreciate it if you could talk to both sections.  The seniors (18 year olds) have class from 8:00 - 9:30am, and the juniors (17 year olds) have class from 9:50-11:20am.  I am not sure how long you will need but I was thinking about 30 minutes for each session.  If you need more time please let me know.  So that would be 9:00 - 10:20 on Wednesday if you are free.  Thanks again for your help and enthusiasm in spreading the word of the wonders of Open Source.  Ciao,
	 
	Nigel


More than happy I headed to the school and found an ongoing talk about Advantages and Disadvantages of Educational Games, the Computer as a Tool. Later the teacher showed the students a video of a school that used NO BOOKS. it is a ebook school sponsored by Microsoft and the brainstorming and conversation that followed was really interesting. 

the presentation came about as a really natural conversations between the students and me. it was a "LESS TALK more ACTION" kinda presentation, where the sole  hands-on activity was to use EDUBUNTU. they were really hyped about trying something new. they had used open source before ( openoffice.org , Firefox) but they had never been exposed to a full operative system. they were impressed at the easy of use and the wide variety of programs that came in the operative system. 

I can truly say that to  work with young and brilliant minds is a fascinating and rewarding thing

you will be able to find pictures of my visit at 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87048530@N00/sets/72157594499044259/


I am also fowarding this email to Nigel.. so we can all network :D

thanks for the support

Efrain Valles
effie_jayx