[seul-edu] Re: Linux inservice day

["Douglas S. Blank" <dblank@brynmawr.edu>]

This is a great idea, and one that we should all do!

How about an annual, international day that we celebrate and inform our local
schools about open source in education? But larger than just Linux, an "Open
Source Day".

Maybe there is already such a day? I did a quick google search to see if I
could find one. There have been days called "Open Source Day" but I could only
find one-time deals. Nevertheless, there are some useful resources, for example:

http://www.dclug.org.uk/ossday/ (April 27)
http://www.holtww.com/newholt/hww-news.shtml (November 22)

This would give us some momentum and some exposure. It would certainly
encourage me to target a specific day to finally do some local informing. What
do you think?

-Doug

Scott Brooks <scottbrooks@telusplanet.net> said:

> My father is the assistant superintendent of the local school board, so
> I have started to talk to him to see if at the next teachers convention
> if I could do a Open Source in Schools presentation, or something like
> that.
> 
> Does anyone know of any resources, notes, or any wizdom that would help
> make this presentation better.
> 
> It's an idea that just came into my head today, so I don't have much
> down in terms of a plan, but it would probably be something like the
> following.
> 
> 1) Brief intro to Open source, and it's Philosophies.  Talk a bit about
> how the principles of Open Source are things we would like to see grow
> in the students (sharing, cooperative work, etc)
> 
> 2) Bring in my system from home running LTSP, and have several boot
> disks to quickly convert a lab into a linux lab for them to try on.
> 
> I would run them through Open Office, The Gimp, Mozilla, various
> educational pieces of software, etc.
> 
> 3) Wrap things up with about 15-20 mins of question and answer, hand out
> CD's with the windows ports of Open Office, The Gimp, Mozilla, etc.
> 
> Depending on the crowd I might spend more time on the LTSP part to show
> some of the power of a fully multi user OS.
> 
> Does anyone have any wizdom as to showing something like this to
> teachers, I would love to hear it.  The presentation would not be until
> march, but I would like to get started on things now to have a good
> outline done.
> 
> Thanks
> Scott Brooks
> 

-- 
Douglas S. Blank,       Assistant Professor         
dblank@brynmawr.edu,          (610)526-6501
Bryn Mawr College,  Computer Science Program
101 North Merion Ave,  Park Science Building
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 dangermouse.brynmawr.edu