Hi, I've got an idea I'd like to propose to other ambassadors. I think someone has already brought this idea up in the mailing list while ago and we discussed it quite thoroughly at the EMEA FAD ten days ago.
Educational organizations is an area we should focus on a lot and students and teachers should be one of our main target audiences. I think reasons are pretty obvious: school time is usually when people choose their area of interest in IT. Who of us didn't start with Linux and open source at high school or university? What students interact with and learn at school is what they tend to use in their lives. Students is probably the biggest source of new contributors. Therefore Fedora should be there.
What would be the goal of this initiative: Making Fedora more visible at schools, helping teachers and students and making it easier for them to start using Fedora and leverage all its advantages.
What is this idea not about: It's not about reviving Fedora Education Spin and Education SIG. The goal is not about creating a special version of Fedora for schools. It should be rather about teaching them how to use the stock Fedora (or the Fedora.Next products in the future) for their school tasks.
Because I know projects with big goals die even before they start, I'd like to break it down into several levels we can achieve:
1. creating a list of ambassadors that work/study or just close to universities (I would start with just universities because high or even basic schools are a large target, however I wouldn't explicitly exclude them) and are willing to help students and teachers to start with Fedora, help deploy it. Some kind of campus ambassadors. People then can easily look up if there is any representative of Fedora Project at their university who can help them.
2. Creating and executing agenda for such ambassadors. There are many ways to promote Fedora at schools. Here are some examples from my experience: We go to universities to introduce Fedora to students. For example, one teacher of Brno University of Technology invites us every year to introduce Fedora to his students in Introduction to Programming because he wants them to do their homeworks in C in Linux and many of them don't have an experience with Linux at all and such introduction is very informative for them. It's also a huge opportunity for us to get new users and eventually contributors because the presentation is attended by over 500 students. It would great to build such relationships and do such presentations at more universities.
Last Friday, we organized an open source day for talented high school students (part of a larger project for talented students). We spoke about FLOSS in general, but then we picked Fedora Project as an example and introduced it to them and everyone got a flash drive with F20. A few days later, we received a message from one of the students that he spoke with their school admin and they would deploy Fedora in one of their labs and if it works they would convert the rest of the school. So again a small event, but a big opportunity.
3. Sharing best practises how to promote Fedora at universities, creating documentation about deploying Fedora in such environment and using it in education. We have great projects we can offer to them. I've already spoken with several teachers and they for example like the idea of DevAssistant and it could really help them in their courses.
4. Working with other teams within Fedora Project to make sure that Fedora is suitable for usage in educational environment and maybe reviving Education Spin if we find it useful.
I know it looks like a large project, but we don't have to implement everything I've written in this email. As I said we can start with a small scope. I would just like to know your feedback. If you find such a project interesting and beneficial for us and you might be able to help because nothing gets done by itself.
Jiri
HI Jiri,
From our side we have similar opportunity, and in case of this - we have 3
ambassadors in direct access for schools. Teferenc works as sysadmin inside a school, and rgeri77 has same just with multiple ones. Geleimate works as student council in his university. Indirectly I also can access some of schools in my city.
To move people and measure activity, we always creating for events, for students, for kids a quiz, where playfully try to grab people into conversations, and reach to ask, and want to know to actually be the winner. Similarly as you guys has at Brno RH Openday. If you find that quiz a good idea, I can provide an EN version soon, it's a A4 double-sided sheet. With this quiz we try to reach the critical mass, critical weight, and be known to the people, witch I think would be useful for us in the schools.
The another thing here is can be key is thee media, and swags. I mean here not the usual swags, else clever logical games, similar that Tyler Siprova has shown to us. I have a contact, who can provide such from wood, and cheaper than metal versions - I can ask after xmas for a quote.
IMHO, no need to separate ambassadors, as campus-, kitchen-, kindergarten- etc. ones because that can mean harm, fragmentation between ambassadors from each other.
The DevAssistant is one of the great examples that if someone wants to code, with that app you can start it. If that app actually makes easily accessible ALL languages, and docs around it we can grab the god feet. Otherwise IMHO it would be better to call as ProjectAssistant - and let people decide what would like to create, a single or a series of development - even it's a documentation, or an design team task, PCB design, 3D Printing, Electronics sim, security testing, or translation exercise, or something else.
Zoltan
2013/12/18 Jiri Eischmann eischmann@redhat.com
Hi, I've got an idea I'd like to propose to other ambassadors. I think someone has already brought this idea up in the mailing list while ago and we discussed it quite thoroughly at the EMEA FAD ten days ago.
Educational organizations is an area we should focus on a lot and students and teachers should be one of our main target audiences. I think reasons are pretty obvious: school time is usually when people choose their area of interest in IT. Who of us didn't start with Linux and open source at high school or university? What students interact with and learn at school is what they tend to use in their lives. Students is probably the biggest source of new contributors. Therefore Fedora should be there.
What would be the goal of this initiative: Making Fedora more visible at schools, helping teachers and students and making it easier for them to start using Fedora and leverage all its advantages.
What is this idea not about: It's not about reviving Fedora Education Spin and Education SIG. The goal is not about creating a special version of Fedora for schools. It should be rather about teaching them how to use the stock Fedora (or the Fedora.Next products in the future) for their school tasks.
Because I know projects with big goals die even before they start, I'd like to break it down into several levels we can achieve:
- creating a list of ambassadors that work/study or just close to
universities (I would start with just universities because high or even basic schools are a large target, however I wouldn't explicitly exclude them) and are willing to help students and teachers to start with Fedora, help deploy it. Some kind of campus ambassadors. People then can easily look up if there is any representative of Fedora Project at their university who can help them.
- Creating and executing agenda for such ambassadors. There are many
ways to promote Fedora at schools. Here are some examples from my experience: We go to universities to introduce Fedora to students. For example, one teacher of Brno University of Technology invites us every year to introduce Fedora to his students in Introduction to Programming because he wants them to do their homeworks in C in Linux and many of them don't have an experience with Linux at all and such introduction is very informative for them. It's also a huge opportunity for us to get new users and eventually contributors because the presentation is attended by over 500 students. It would great to build such relationships and do such presentations at more universities.
Last Friday, we organized an open source day for talented high school students (part of a larger project for talented students). We spoke about FLOSS in general, but then we picked Fedora Project as an example and introduced it to them and everyone got a flash drive with F20. A few days later, we received a message from one of the students that he spoke with their school admin and they would deploy Fedora in one of their labs and if it works they would convert the rest of the school. So again a small event, but a big opportunity.
- Sharing best practises how to promote Fedora at universities,
creating documentation about deploying Fedora in such environment and using it in education. We have great projects we can offer to them. I've already spoken with several teachers and they for example like the idea of DevAssistant and it could really help them in their courses.
- Working with other teams within Fedora Project to make sure that
Fedora is suitable for usage in educational environment and maybe reviving Education Spin if we find it useful.
I know it looks like a large project, but we don't have to implement everything I've written in this email. As I said we can start with a small scope. I would just like to know your feedback. If you find such a project interesting and beneficial for us and you might be able to help because nothing gets done by itself.
Jiri
-- ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors
Hello,
I wondered a lot about your idea, even since I became ambassador (this was one of the reasons why I joined this group).
So when we talked about this proposal at the FAD, my reasoning started again.
In data mercoledì 18 dicembre 2013 18:42:04, Jiri Eischmann ha scritto:
[snip]
What is this idea not about: It's not about reviving Fedora Education Spin and Education SIG. The goal is not about creating a special version of Fedora for schools. It should be rather about teaching them how to use the stock Fedora
(or the
Fedora.Next products in the future) for their school tasks.
Because I know projects with big goals die even before they start, I'd like to break it down into several levels we can achieve:
- creating a list of ambassadors that work/study or just close to
universities (I would start with just universities because high or even basic schools are a large target, however I wouldn't explicitly exclude them) and are willing to help students and teachers to start with Fedora, help deploy it. Some kind of campus ambassadors. People
then can
easily look up if there is any representative of Fedora Project at their university who can help them.
[snip]
The problem, here in Italy (I can talk only for my country), is that teachers and the educational governments of the Universites are a sort of élite, almost unapproachable without a real marketing operation. In other words, we should have a recognized structure who could approach the teachers at the highest levels. Leaving this approach to a group of brave ambassadors would not lead to anything. In the basic school probably could be easier but it's very dispersive because many students have studying years ahead.
My point of view is that there is a disconnection between school and work. When people are at school would love get closer to OSS and everything that puts no limits to their freedom, but then they (hopefully) will find a job and only few of them will be so lucky to get a job where Free Software and Open Source are in use.
The ones less lucky will be able to use Fedora at home in their spare time but how long?
I know that companies are RH conquered lands, but I think that both a school-related and a companies-related "task force" should work in parallel.
We have to create requests from employers in order to recruit people who knows OSS (and Fedora, on our side) that we prepared from school.
We can have this kind of request through a marketing group in each country, who takes care of the contacts with companies.
My final thoughts are that for doing what Jiri said, the Project should establish a group where:
1) there is a country marketing group (dependent on the marketing of the Project)
2) there is a country school-related ambassador group (dependent on the EMEA)
3) There is a country companies-related ambassador group (dependent on the EMEA).
The target of the marketing group should be the official contact with University, school and companies in their countries.
The target of the ambassador groups should be going where the marketing keeps contacts.
This is my idea, school without job is half a chance.
Greetings.
Gabri
On 12/18/2013 10:37 PM, Gabriele Trombini (mailga) wrote:
Hello,
I wondered a lot about your idea, even since I became ambassador (this was one of the reasons why I joined this group).
So when we talked about this proposal at the FAD, my reasoning started again.
In data mercoledì 18 dicembre 2013 18:42:04, Jiri Eischmann ha scritto:
[snip]
What is this idea not about: It's not about reviving Fedora Education Spin and Education SIG. The goal is not about creating a special version of Fedora for schools. It should be rather about teaching them how to use the stock Fedora
(or the
Fedora.Next products in the future) for their school tasks.
Because I know projects with big goals die even before they start, I'd like to break it down into several levels we can achieve:
- creating a list of ambassadors that work/study or just close to
universities (I would start with just universities because high or even basic schools are a large target, however I wouldn't explicitly exclude them) and are willing to help students and teachers to start with Fedora, help deploy it. Some kind of campus ambassadors. People
then can
easily look up if there is any representative of Fedora Project at their university who can help them.
[snip]
The problem, here in Italy (I can talk only for my country), is that teachers and the educational governments of the Universites are a sort of élite, almost unapproachable without a real marketing operation. In other words, we should have a recognized structure who could approach the teachers at the highest levels. Leaving this approach to a group of brave ambassadors would not lead to anything.
Gabriele's viewpoint about Italian Universities is an established fact. Maybe we can contact who is already organized to promote Gnu/Linux inside the campuses.
In the basic school probably could be easier but it's very dispersive because many students have studying years ahead.
That's the start point in my opinion. I'll try to contact some junior/senior high school principals and will let you know.
Hello guys, I'm very glad to hear about this project. I had a planning for an university tour in Burkina Faso (2 big universities and some private schools). I stay stunned ! Constantin
2013/12/19 Antonio Trande anto.trande@gmail.com
On 12/18/2013 10:37 PM, Gabriele Trombini (mailga) wrote:
Hello,
I wondered a lot about your idea, even since I became ambassador (this was one of the reasons why I joined this group).
So when we talked about this proposal at the FAD, my reasoning started again.
In data mercoledì 18 dicembre 2013 18:42:04, Jiri Eischmann ha scritto:
[snip]
What is this idea not about: It's not about reviving Fedora Education Spin and Education SIG. The goal is not about creating a special version of Fedora for schools. It should be rather about teaching them how to use the stock Fedora
(or the
Fedora.Next products in the future) for their school tasks.
Because I know projects with big goals die even before they start, I'd like to break it down into several levels we can achieve:
- creating a list of ambassadors that work/study or just close to
universities (I would start with just universities because high or even basic schools are a large target, however I wouldn't explicitly exclude them) and are willing to help students and teachers to start with Fedora, help deploy it. Some kind of campus ambassadors. People
then can
easily look up if there is any representative of Fedora Project at their university who can help them.
[snip]
The problem, here in Italy (I can talk only for my country), is that teachers and the educational governments of the Universites are a sort of élite, almost unapproachable without a real marketing operation. In other words, we should have a recognized structure who could approach the teachers at the highest levels. Leaving this approach to a group of brave ambassadors would not lead to anything.
Gabriele's viewpoint about Italian Universities is an established fact. Maybe we can contact who is already organized to promote Gnu/Linux inside the campuses.
In the basic school probably could be easier but it's very dispersive because many students have studying years ahead.
That's the start point in my opinion. I'll try to contact some junior/senior high school principals and will let you know.
-- Antonio Trande
mailto: sagitterATfedoraproject.org http://www.fedoraos.worpress.com https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Sagitter GPG Key: D400D6C4 -- ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors
On Wed, 2013-12-18 at 18:42 +0100, Jiri Eischmann wrote:
Hi, I've got an idea I'd like to propose to other ambassadors. I think someone has already brought this idea up in the mailing list while ago and we discussed it quite thoroughly at the EMEA FAD ten days ago.
Educational organizations is an area we should focus on a lot and students and teachers should be one of our main target audiences. I think reasons are pretty obvious: school time is usually when people choose their area of interest in IT. Who of us didn't start with Linux and open source at high school or university? What students interact with and learn at school is what they tend to use in their lives. Students is probably the biggest source of new contributors. Therefore Fedora should be there.
What would be the goal of this initiative: Making Fedora more visible at schools, helping teachers and students and making it easier for them to start using Fedora and leverage all its advantages.
<snip>
Great Idea.
I am already on this path except that I started lower (at Kindergarten Level through Secondary School). I also Lecture at the University of Science and Technology Enugu (Nigeria) but I'm an Architect (not a Developer. Also not the Software-Kinda Architect). It hasn't been easy deflating the egos of the Computer Science lecturers in our Institution. They still gravitate heavily towards MS-Windows which I find odd for Software Engineers. Hopefully, one day my request to present Fedora to the department will be granted.
As I said earlier, I am trying to create awareness from ground-up. For lower schools the presentation should center around running Fedora with Sugar DE while, for High schools its about teaching students to see computers as an all-embracing box that can host choice OSes -- and of course, Fedora is one of them. A lot of Children grow up thinking that Windows means computing and by the time they first encounter Linux, they're biased and confused. So, i think this campaign should start at grassroots.
As for High Schools, the 'catch' is to encourage more teachers to diversify in their use of Software tools (in this case, into open-source solutions like Fedora). The more these teachers run Fedora, the more likely they will key into this campaign and essentially finish the ambassadorial work on our behalf. In other words, GET the Teachers and you've GOT the students (that means you've also got the future). There are other nodes to target like organizations who are responsible for creating School curricula. Now that is another controversial area to address
Regards Onyeibo
ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
-
Antonio Trande -
Constantin DRABO -
Gabriele Trombini -
Jiri Eischmann -
Onyeibo Oku -
Zoltan Hoppar