[UbuntuWomen] Another Introduction

[B.A. Lopez]

Hi Meg,
   thanks for stepping up and welcome!  First question you asked -  
you are MORE than skilled enough.  The Community needs all sorts of  
talents and you have many areas of expertise.  Getting involved and  
finding time are two more challenging questions.   Jono Bacon has  
come onboard at Canonical as the new Community Manager and is in the  
process of trying to ease new folks who want to contribute.  It can  
be a bit daunting with all the different groups, mailing lists, IRC  
and forums to find one's niche.  Your focus in HCI and educational  
technology are two of my key interests as well.  (You can find my  
info at http://www.belindalopez.com/cv.html)  Also, Richard Weiderman  
is now over the Ubuntu Education area and he is also putting together  
a more comprehensive plan to focus on all things education and not  
just Edubuntu.  So, be patient, good things are on the way. ;-)

In the interim, perhaps we can start with two items; 1.)  Starting a  
monthly Ubuntu Women's IRC meetup and 2.) Starting an HCI focused  
group.  HCI is an area many in the community are starting to realize  
is vital toward moving Ubuntu to the next level.  I was hoping we  
might work with the Open Usability project, http:// 
www.openusability.org/ but an Ubuntu HCI group would be great.  What  
I've found in becoming involved is to start small and think big.   
Let's focus on a few tasks I know we can accomplish and then move  
forward.  I just reviewed the Desktop Team info https:// 
wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam and maybe that is the place an HCI group  
to help?

There is a Loco Teams meeting right now #ubuntu-meeting so I will ask  
when a good time for an Ubuntu Women's IRC meeting might be.  We can  
invite Jono and others who might be able to answer any questions we  
might have.

cheers,

Belinda
IRC: dinda




On Dec 11, 2006, at 7:14 PM, Meg Kurdziolek wrote:

> Hello to All!
>
> I've been lurking on this list for quite awhile, and I felt that I  
> should finally make my introduction.
>
> My name is Meg and I am currently a graduate student in Computer  
> Science at Virginia Tech. My focus is Human Computer Interaction  
> and I'm a total usability nerd. (I have a webpage at http:// 
> filebox.vt.edu/~mdickey/ if anyone is interested). My research  
> revolves around applications and technology use for educational  
> purposes. (Maybe I should see what I could contribute to Edubuntu?)  
> I'm also a VERY active member in our VT chapter of the Association  
> for Women in Computing.
>
> I've been using Ubuntu for several months now and I really like it.  
> I'm finding it really easy to keep my system up to date and install  
> packages that I need.  I have used Mandrake, Fedora Core, and  
> Gentoo before for brief periods of time,  but Ubuntu is definitely  
> my favorite thus far.
>
> I am very good with C/C++ and Java, and I've also been teaching  
> myself Python when I have some free time. I *wish* I had more  
> experience with things like PHP and mysql. I got an 'A' in the Unix  
> class at school, but besides learning how to write a few simple  
> scripts I don't think I got much out of it.
>
> I am finding three barriers of my own that are preventing me from  
> joining in on an open source project or starting any of my own:
> 1.) I don't know if I'm skilled enough to actually contribute  
> something useful.
> 2.) I don't really know how to approach anyone about helping them  
> out with a project or getting involved.
> 3.) As a grad student I don't have a lot of time, so I'd really  
> only be able to put in a couple hours every week.
>
> So I have a question for those experienced contributors, how did  
> you get started? What was the first contribution you made to the  
> open source community?
>
> Thanks!
> ~Meg
>
> -- 
> ubuntu-women mailing list
> ubuntu-women at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-women

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