Re: [LibrePlanet-US-MA] Lets start something! Introductions and planning

[will kahn-greene]

On 06/16/2010 10:32 AM, Danny Piccirillo wrote:
> 
> An idea raised on irc by John was to do something about this:
> http://www.salemnews.com/local/x1910032546/In-Beverly-laptops-all-around-but-parents-have-to-pay
> A massachusetts school disctrict is requiring each student to own a
> macbook, and buy one if they don't have one. We should draft an open
> letter on the wiki and if we have anyone in the area, an in-person
> contact would be even more effective.
> 
> As part of the local ubuntu team a while ago, i had the idea of
> starting an education-conversion task force which would go from one
> public school system to another to encourage and assist them in
> adopting free software. There weren't enough people who could dedicate
> the time, but if we can get enough people here who could commit, i
> know my old public school system has been broken in to free software
> quite a bit (has had some ubuntu machines and lots of openoffice). The
> tech director of the public schools has gotten very excited about
> "open source" but she actually isn't very technical and seems to only
> appreciate it as a buzz word. Still, it's a a decent start.
> 
> Do we have enough ideas to want to start organizing a team meeting (on
> IRC), or should we wait until we've gathered more members?

I think this is a great idea.  The constant barrage of Microsoft and
Apple software in school systems is both irritating as well as
debilitating for students.  However it's a really hard mission that will
take years to work through.

What existing initiatives are there that are doing this kind of work at
a public school/college level already?  Does any of the OLPC-related
groups do something along these lines?

It might make sense to start working on a FLOSSManual focusing on the
issues that face school district admin and how those issues are
addressed with Free Software.

/will