[NH LoCo] Manchester school outreach

[Broderick]

Come home soon Tom!

As far as pitching to schools, there are a couple things that come to mind.
Firstly, colleges I'm all for us talking with any time about any kind of
use.

Public schools with children at them however, have extremely strict
curricula and regulations that they have to deal with. Also, to be on site
doing any kind of work or promotion or project requires by law background
checks, even if we're not there during school hours. These are not hard to
get, I've had them for work before, but it's important to know the setting
you would be dealing with. Ideally, any proposal for the schools using these
computers in the classroom needs to be brought to district level, not school
by school or teacher by teacher. It's possible that one could get some
teachers on board who would aid us in a proposal, but it would need to be
district wide.

Another option however, is to find out if there are any computer science or
programing clubs. We could contact those moderators and see if they were
interested in learning more about incorporating Linux. Even if they didn't
want to make a it regular thing, perhaps they would be happy to allow a
presentation/demonstration for students about how they can start using Linux
at home sometime. I think this is the most appropriate way for a community
group to proceed with any activity at public schools.

If we're talking about bringing Linux into school libraries, computer
classes or offices, I think we need to approach the district office. At most
I think the first contact point would be to contact a school administration
and ask them if they could pass our name onto their computer
department/teacher and tell them we'd be interested in seeing what they
thought about more open source programs or education in the classroom. I
think any pitch after that would fairly easy to put together, however, it
may still be unconvincing given that schools are used to be sold things and
they don't need more problems or anything further complicated, particularly
if they see nothing wrong with their current situation. Just because it
could be better doesn't mean it's worth taking the bother or risk with
something new. However, while they may be skeptical of some random nerds
evangelizing about saving money and feel good ideas about education and
freedom, they may be very open to taking seriously other administrators and
educators. There are lots of public school systems around the country that
use Linux. I'm sure getting letters, testimony, or numbers from other
schools and districts about their success will sell better than any amount
of well crafted rhetoric or insightful presentation we could give. This kind
of change in something like a school system usually needs to come from
inside the school system. If we can find a teacher or administrator who
would already be all for this, then perhaps we can offer support, but other
than that, I think our best best would be to contact people in other school
districts that have had success. Even then though, any seasoned
administrator won't be able to help but ask, "Why do you care? What's in it
for you to pitch this or help with this?" While a passion for technology
education and community service are all well and good one should be prepared
to be greeted by skepticism if the authorities in question are not very tech
savvy.

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Arc Riley <arcriley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a feeling this is going to be more of a two of us sits down with one
> or two of them scenario, not a presentation with projector.
>
> This is less an introduction of what Ubuntu is than a set of things the
> schools could be doing with Ubuntu, ie cloud computing for students, such
> that come Fall students are encouraged to use Ubuntu even if just as a
> remote terminal to their school account via virtualized LTSP.
>
> Given the community network that's being built, a lot of options are
> opening up for high bandwidth services like this.
>
> Material on different ways schools are using Ubuntu now, especially with
> LTSP and cloud computing with Edubuntu, is something I think we're going to
> have to put together ourselves.
>
> BTW - is anyone signed up for the Ubuntu One beta?
> https://ubuntuone.com/
>
>
> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Thomas A. Cantara <tacantara at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I don't know if this will help, but here are some files that came with
>> my Kubuntu 9.04 CD.  If you have access to a projector, the presentation
>> could be helpful.  If not, you could print it and use it as a handout.
>>
>>
>
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