[ubuntu-za] Website for FOSS in Schools

[Hilton Gibson]

Hilton Theunissen wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> We registered the domain www.schoolforge.org.za, we are going to setup 
> the wiki next week similar to www.schoolforge.org.uk. We will add  "How 
> to" and "SA Projects" pages
> 
> I am going to make contact with a few organisations that have running 
> open source projects in South Africa to add their projects. Also all the 
> tuXlab schools and other floss schools will need to upload their 
> casestudies.
> 
> This for me would be that one-stop for schools that want to learn how to 
> deploy floss, learn from others experiences, link to ubuntu-za 
> community, k12ltsp.org community, suse community, etc. Link to 
> international projects.
> 
> Once we have enough reading material and projects loaded here, we should 
> then approach Government. I have a link to the Minister but nobody knows 
> what Gov will look like post April.
> 
> Then we should plan two conferences
> 1) Schoolforge SA 2-3 day conference ( uwc, cape town, Sept 2009)
> 2) Schoolforge International 5 day in Jozi(csir venue or Wits, Jan or 
> April 2010) invitee list US, Uk, Finland, Spain, Norway, Malaysia, 
> Uganda, Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria,Senegal, Germany, Brazil, 
> India, Egypt, Austria, Netherlands, China, New Zealand, Australia,- 
> target 50 internationals)Then we need to approach Canonical, Redhat, 
> Novell, Google and Yahoo for sponsorship)
> 
> If you in call me 0729008001

Excellent !

> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hannes Coetzee wrote:
>> Greetings
>>
>> Most of the main issues here has been discussed in more detail. I hear 
>> what everyone else is saying but I don't see any solutions yet so it's 
>> back to more research. While I'm educating myself some more I's like to 
>> say the following:
>>
>> Situation one:
>> Some guy installs Edubuntu for a school. Everything works great until 
>> this guy gets killed in a car accident. Now the school is screwed but 
>> luckily the person who installed the lab told them that there is a site 
>> where they could find new support. He even put a sticker on the box with 
>> the address. Now the school have a few options -
>>
>> 1) Give up and convert everything back to MS.
>> 2) They could go to the site and figure everything out themselves (or 
>> anything else that involves only the school)
>> 3) They can contact the nearest person that's listed on the site and 
>> find out if this person can help them.
>> 4) They could contact their IT company and ask them - "We have this 
>> system. We know that it is not standard but we'd like to keep it if 
>> possible. If you don't know how to fix the problem don't worry, just go 
>> to this site and you will find all the info you could ever need."
>> 5) Everybody sit back and do nothing.
>>
>> Situation two:
>> Somehow a school decides they want to use for example Edubuntu in their 
>> lab. They are told that they should have a look at a website. So they go 
>> to the site and read up on everything until they are convinced that all 
>> their questions have been answered. They decide that they now need to 
>> get this new system into their school. Now they have a few options -
>>
>> 1) They understand enough and everything themselves.
>> 2) They install the system with the help of forums and irc.
>> 3) They contact the nearest person that's listed and ask him for help.
>> 4) They go to their nearest IT company and ask them for their 
>> assistance. (Once again by just pointing the company to the site)
>> 5) They realize that there is no way in hell that they will make head or 
>> tail of whats going on so everyone just sit back and do nothing.
>>
>> These are just two cut-down-to-the-basics examples. The point I'm trying 
>> to make is - Why can we not put something together to help the schools 
>> help themselves? Why can the IT companies not help the schools without 
>> support or why can they not help themselves? Why could we not point 
>> David to one single place where we know he will find everything to set 
>> up a server at his school? Why can we not point interesting parties to a 
>> central location where they can get leaflets, documents to present to 
>> teachers, governing bodies and IT companies that's unaware of FOSS, 
>> manuals and links on how to install a server, info on whatever they need 
>> to know before making a decision to switch over or info on how and where 
>> to get new support. Why can this not be done? How will anyone ever find 
>> a solution to a problem if they always give up?
>>
>> There's an AIDS orphanage close by and it so happened that I saw the 
>> person in charge this afternoon. After a bit of chit-chat we started 
>> talking about their computer lab. A few seconds later - "I really don't 
>> know what we're going to do. We have a lot of break-ins lately and they 
>> seem to go only for the computers. After we've build a more secure place 
>> we'll have to look at something where we only have one valuable computer 
>> like a central server that we could lock up. It would be nice to have 
>> all the kid's  files on the server so nothing can go missing with the 
>> other computers. We'll most likely take the server home during holidays. 
>> Do you think it will be possible?". Edubuntu can do that but the first 
>> question I'm always asked is - "What happens when you 're gone?". So 
>> what should I tell them? They are only the third school this month who 
>> came to me looking for the same solution. I am not prepared to install 
>> something that would be completely useless should I not be able to 
>> support them one day. I've told all three these schools I'll get back to 
>> them with a possible long term solution.  So what now? It is because of 
>> these schools and countless others in the past that I voiced my opinion 
>> in the first place. If none of the currently proposed solutions will 
>> work are we not wasting our time discussing this?
>>
>> So what will it be? Are we going to stop everything or will we continue 
>> until we find a solution? Personally I believe this could work.
>>
>> Regards
>> Hannes
>>
> 

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