<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2008/5/9 Neil Coetzer <<a href="mailto:ncoetzer@halsteds.co.zw">ncoetzer@halsteds.co.zw</a>>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div> Hi guys,<br> <br> Brace yourselves; this is a long one <img src="cid:1210330926.10088.72.camel@nit" alt=":)" align="middle" border="0"> (mainly for the guys who are involved/interested in the OpenICDL project).<br> <br> Looks like we could be making progress on the CBT side of this project, but I'm just wondering about the other areas (as outlined on the project page). For the actual content involved in each module, I think we need to keep a few things in mind:<br> <br> 1. The syllabus changes often - </div></blockquote><div><br>Strongly agree, Open Office 2.4 was just released, 3.0 is coming before end of year, the changes in 3.0 will need to be updated in the modules. Also not that Base is changing with each new releases.<br>  <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div>once this has been initially set up, who is going to maintain/update it and how are we going to make these updates available to schools and others who have adopted OpenICDL? This is also a bit tricky for us, as most of us are not directly involved with ICDL. So, my thought here is that it would probably work best if we could recruit more people who are actively involved in ICDL training i.e. the teachers/trainers themselves.</div> </blockquote><div><br>Lets have an affiliation program in place for schools, trainers, centers.....<br><br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div>It is already part of their jobs to stay up-to-date with the syllabus and keep track of changes, whereas I don't foresee that we would be 100% effective in this area, since we're not actually working with it on a daily basis. Comments? Do any of us have contacts who are teaching ICDL at present who might be interested?</div> </blockquote><div><br>Gateway primary school - Gerad  <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><br> 2. Either way, but particularly if content must be managed by fairly non-technical people (and a lot of ICDL trainers actually aren't very technical at all) then we have to make sure that the facilities are put in place to make it simple and easy for them to do this. (a) it must be easy to update the CBT software with new material (b) it must be easy to update the manuals for those that aren't using the software. Wherever possible, I think the CBT software should be capable of using "default" open DTD's to make the content as portable as possible, without needing to change formats at any point. i.e. the manuals should be in the same format, whether on the web, included in the CBT, or downloaded as an individual document. Has anyone used the docbook format before? I know there is a joomla plugin for it, as well as an openoffice DTD to open/edit it - and it is specifically designed for "documentation" type documents. Is this maybe an option for use in the CBT software as well then? If not docbook, then I would propose something similar though. I am planning to play around with docbook at some point, but I'm not finding the time at the moment so if anyone else knows more about it please feel free to comment.<br> <br> In line with point one above, I have also been thinking of what our main goal should be when embarking on projects of a similar nature. I strongly feel that we should avoid putting ourselves in a position where "we" as a team, are completely responsible for the day-to-day running of long-term projects like this. The problem with this, is that we will end up limiting what we can accomplish on "new" projects, purely because we will be so tied up with keeping something like OpenICDL running. Secondly, if a few of the team members decide to leave the country at some point, it will be too much for the remaining members to handle in the long run, and all the hard work that has been put into it will land flat on its face, and the projects will slowly die. So, my proposal is this:<br> <br> Wherever possible, we should try our hardest to get projects off the ground BUT we must also cultivate others to "run" these projects. Obviously where a project is specifically Ubuntu orientated, we will still run it because that's what we're here for, but using OpenICDL as an example, I think that once we've got it off the ground, we need to work at empowering people to maintain and run it - hence my comments on getting the actual trainers involved. We will still be there to assist and provide advice/guidance/support where needed, but at the end of the day something like this is more about ICDL on open source than it is about Ubuntu. If someone like Richard wants to personally run this as a long term project, then that's fine, but I don't think any of the other members would be in a position to take over if he left or retired as project leader at a later stage. For this reason, it would be better if an independent group of teachers/trainers handled the bulk of the day-to-day stuff, leaving the other Loco Team members to move on to other projects, without being tied down. I think in the long-term we would achieve more as a team that way. <br> <br> Any thoughts or comments? If you're still awake after reading all that <img src="cid:1210330926.10088.72.camel@nit" alt=":)" align="middle" border="0"><br> <br> Cheers,<br> Neil<br> <br> <br> </div> <br>-- <br>This message has been scanned for viruses and <br>dangerous content by <a href="http://www.mailscanner.info/" target="_blank"><b>MailScanner</b></a>, and is <br>believed to be clean. <br>--<br> Ubuntu-zw mailing list<br> <a href="mailto:Ubuntu-zw@lists.ubuntu.com">Ubuntu-zw@lists.ubuntu.com</a><br> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-zw" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-zw</a><br> <br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Ronald Munjoma<br>IT & Business Consultant<br>Act Business Solutions<br><br><a href="mailto:ronaldm@actbusinesssolutions.com">ronaldm@actbusinesssolutions.com</a><br> Cell: +263 11 632 444 <br><br>Adaptive Planning<br>Adaptive Planning Enterprise Edition V 4.0<br>Budgeting, Forecasting & Reporting Made Easy<br><a href="http://www.adaptiveplanning.com">www.adaptiveplanning.com</a><br> <br>Ubuntu<br>linux for human beings<br><a href="http://www.ubuntu-zw.org">www.ubuntu-zw.org</a>