[ubuntu-za] Website for FOSS in Schools

[Hilton Theunissen]

Thank you Simone and to the others that called me.

All systems Go!


simone at saxonwoldprimary.co.za wrote:
> We will do whatever we can to help, host an event, supply case study etc....
> Simone
> 
> Quoting Hilton Theunissen <hilton at inkululeko.co.za>:
> 
>> Hi All
>>
>> We registered the domain www.schoolforge.org.za, we are going to setup 
>> the wiki next week similar to www.schoolforge.org.uk. We will add  "How 
>> to" and "SA Projects" pages
>>
>> I am going to make contact with a few organisations that have running 
>> open source projects in South Africa to add their projects. Also all the 
>> tuXlab schools and other floss schools will need to upload their 
>> casestudies.
>>
>> This for me would be that one-stop for schools that want to learn how to 
>> deploy floss, learn from others experiences, link to ubuntu-za 
>> community, k12ltsp.org community, suse community, etc. Link to 
>> international projects.
>>
>> Once we have enough reading material and projects loaded here, we should 
>> then approach Government. I have a link to the Minister but nobody knows 
>> what Gov will look like post April.
>>
>> Then we should plan two conferences
>> 1) Schoolforge SA 2-3 day conference ( uwc, cape town, Sept 2009)
>> 2) Schoolforge International 5 day in Jozi(csir venue or Wits, Jan or 
>> April 2010) invitee list US, Uk, Finland, Spain, Norway, Malaysia, 
>> Uganda, Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria,Senegal, Germany, Brazil, 
>> India, Egypt, Austria, Netherlands, China, New Zealand, Australia,- 
>> target 50 internationals)Then we need to approach Canonical, Redhat, 
>> Novell, Google and Yahoo for sponsorship)
>>
>> If you in call me 0729008001
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hannes Coetzee wrote:
>>> Greetings
>>>
>>> Most of the main issues here has been discussed in more detail. I hear 
>>> what everyone else is saying but I don't see any solutions yet so it's 
>>> back to more research. While I'm educating myself some more I's like to 
>>> say the following:
>>>
>>> Situation one:
>>> Some guy installs Edubuntu for a school. Everything works great until 
>>> this guy gets killed in a car accident. Now the school is screwed but 
>>> luckily the person who installed the lab told them that there is a site 
>>> where they could find new support. He even put a sticker on the box with 
>>> the address. Now the school have a few options -
>>>
>>> 1) Give up and convert everything back to MS.
>>> 2) They could go to the site and figure everything out themselves (or 
>>> anything else that involves only the school)
>>> 3) They can contact the nearest person that's listed on the site and 
>>> find out if this person can help them.
>>> 4) They could contact their IT company and ask them - "We have this 
>>> system. We know that it is not standard but we'd like to keep it if 
>>> possible. If you don't know how to fix the problem don't worry, just go 
>>> to this site and you will find all the info you could ever need."
>>> 5) Everybody sit back and do nothing.
>>>
>>> Situation two:
>>> Somehow a school decides they want to use for example Edubuntu in their 
>>> lab. They are told that they should have a look at a website. So they go 
>>> to the site and read up on everything until they are convinced that all 
>>> their questions have been answered. They decide that they now need to 
>>> get this new system into their school. Now they have a few options -
>>>
>>> 1) They understand enough and everything themselves.
>>> 2) They install the system with the help of forums and irc.
>>> 3) They contact the nearest person that's listed and ask him for help.
>>> 4) They go to their nearest IT company and ask them for their 
>>> assistance. (Once again by just pointing the company to the site)
>>> 5) They realize that there is no way in hell that they will make head or 
>>> tail of whats going on so everyone just sit back and do nothing.
>>>
>>> These are just two cut-down-to-the-basics examples. The point I'm trying 
>>> to make is - Why can we not put something together to help the schools 
>>> help themselves? Why can the IT companies not help the schools without 
>>> support or why can they not help themselves? Why could we not point 
>>> David to one single place where we know he will find everything to set 
>>> up a server at his school? Why can we not point interesting parties to a 
>>> central location where they can get leaflets, documents to present to 
>>> teachers, governing bodies and IT companies that's unaware of FOSS, 
>>> manuals and links on how to install a server, info on whatever they need 
>>> to know before making a decision to switch over or info on how and where 
>>> to get new support. Why can this not be done? How will anyone ever find 
>>> a solution to a problem if they always give up?
>>>
>>> There's an AIDS orphanage close by and it so happened that I saw the 
>>> person in charge this afternoon. After a bit of chit-chat we started 
>>> talking about their computer lab. A few seconds later - "I really don't 
>>> know what we're going to do. We have a lot of break-ins lately and they 
>>> seem to go only for the computers. After we've build a more secure place 
>>> we'll have to look at something where we only have one valuable computer 
>>> like a central server that we could lock up. It would be nice to have 
>>> all the kid's  files on the server so nothing can go missing with the 
>>> other computers. We'll most likely take the server home during holidays. 
>>> Do you think it will be possible?". Edubuntu can do that but the first 
>>> question I'm always asked is - "What happens when you 're gone?". So 
>>> what should I tell them? They are only the third school this month who 
>>> came to me looking for the same solution. I am not prepared to install 
>>> something that would be completely useless should I not be able to 
>>> support them one day. I've told all three these schools I'll get back to 
>>> them with a possible long term solution.  So what now? It is because of 
>>> these schools and countless others in the past that I voiced my opinion 
>>> in the first place. If none of the currently proposed solutions will 
>>> work are we not wasting our time discussing this?
>>>
>>> So what will it be? Are we going to stop everything or will we continue 
>>> until we find a solution? Personally I believe this could work.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Hannes
>>>
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