[OS:N:] OSCON and OS Eduction BoF
OpenSourceFan
opensource at whitenitro.com
Fri Jul 23 03:45:03 UTC 2004
Hello All -
I was wondering if anyone was going to the Open Source conference in
Portland OR next week.
I am new to the Open Source community but have 20+ years designing
educational software and I am very interested in learning about success
stories in K-12 using OS solutions.
As a method to learn more, I suggested to the O'Reilly crew running the
conference that they offer a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session on Open
Source and Education. Here is the blurb I submitted:
"With K-12 schools chronically short of funding and Open Source
solutions being largely 'free', why have OS solutions not taken over
the high school environment? Is it lack of understanding or the
traditional worries of support?
How are Open Sources operating systems, tools and applications
currently being used in high schools and colleges beyond the
traditional LAMP server uses? Macintosh and Wintel computers fill most
high school labs but there are success stories for OS solutions. What
are they and how can we get the word out? Come and share your
successes, failures and hopes for the future."
After having submitted this suggestion, and having it accepted and
scheduled, had the horrible, sinking feeling that people might show up
expecting *me* to know something or at least be able to open the
discussion with some basic facts, URLs, etc.
Panic.
So, I am wondering if anyone who actually knows something or has
stories to relate might be going to OSCON or, barring that, can this
group point me to web sites, provide sources for statistics, stories,
etc that I could study over the weekend to get a crash course in what
is happening nationally.
Key questions that would be great to get the collective wisdom of this
group to jump start a discussion next week include:
1) What is an estimate for the percentage of machines in K-12 schools
that are running Open Source solutions?
2) What are the top 3 reasons that OS systems are not more widely
adopted?
3) Would people be interested in contributing chapters to a book if we
could find a publisher interested in releasing a book about the
subject?
Here are some resources already on my list (but please let me know what
I haven't included):
http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow/intro.html
http://www.netc.org/openoptions/
http://edge-op.org/grouch/schools.html
http://www.k12ltsp.org/
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6349
http://baldwinets.tripod.com/linux.html
http://www.schoolforge.net/
http://www.osef.org/
http://www.k12os.org/
http://www.opentextbook.org/
Any and all advice greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any
help. Apologies in advance for cross posting this on k12osn at redhat.com
and open-source-now-list at redhat.com.
Bryant Patten
White Nitro, LLC
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