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List:       kde-edu
Subject:    a few thoughts... ( was Re: [KDE-EDU]: Introducing / Hello. :) )
From:       Kristian A. Rink <afterimage () gmx ! net>
Date:       2001-07-15 10:11:38
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And "Anne-Marie" <a-m.mahfouf@lineone.net> gave word to the following
thoughts:

>Welcome to this project! We really need everyone willing to help with this

Hmmm.... thanks a lot. :))

>project. You mention FSF-edu: what is its aim?

Well, actually the FSFE-edu is sort of a subtask / mailing list of the
European Free Software Foundation, launched some time ago with the
intention of having a discussion on and coordinating work in the field of
establishing free software in schools, universities and educational
facilities... Personally, I am a little disappointed right now since it
seems that the project is more or less dead, at least there hasn't been
quite a lot of activity, lately... :/ 

>If you are in contact with teachers, maybe you will be able to be a link
>between them and us.

Should be possible, at least I am still having contact to some people
(teachers, administrators) in a few German schools which are open-minded
enough not to demand the latest versions of M$-Windows / M$-Office on their
newest computer equipment... I'll see what I can do. :)


>Everyone will be invite to try to define our goals. So you can start to
put
>your ideas in writing if you already have specific wishes. If you have
>screenshots of what teachers are using at the moment at schools, this
would
>be helpful too.

By now... I can only share a few thoughts on that, since I spent quite some
time lately dealing with how things are about software usage especially in
schools, here in Germany. Factually, in bigger educational institutions
(like, the university I am still studying at), things are pretty clear:
there, most of the campus network is by now running at least GNU/Linux
systems and there are only a few machines left yet equipped with
proprietary software (like, a few Macs for video / sound processing, some
commercial Unices on a few servers and one or two computer rooms running
Windows NT for the economy students which obviously are still the only ones
of our students refusing to work with GNU/Linux...). 
Anyhow, in schools things are quite worse... Most of the systems actually
are pre-installed with Microsoft, and most of the teachers now thrown into
teaching some things about computer science do not at all know what
actually to teach to their pupils, so most of the persons here having
contact with computers in school are actually limited to write letters in
Word or do a calculation in Excel. Mainly, schools and teachers actually
are arguing that, thanks to the fact that those programs are de-facto
standard in the computer world. it should be good to also teach the pupils
how to use them, but, nobody gives a second thought about that probably
less people would want to use this stuff later if they just had something
different to work with during their education... Anyhow, this is more or
less the motivation why I am trying to be active in strengthening the
position of GNU/Linux based systems in schools...
Apart from having education in computer science and speaking about
'edutainment' software / educational software for younger children, I guess
this is something (still) pretty unimportant here, since most schools
actually are just poorly equipped with a few older computers, way too few
compared to how many pupils there are, and, seeing the strictly limited
budget in German education system, things are not likely to change very
soon... :( To get rid of this problem, German government (or governments in
some German federal states) felt pretty happy to have some sort of
foundations initiated by companies like Microsoft or the Deutsche Telekom
to provide schools with computers / internet access, and, guess which
operating system / software they using? So, at this point it is really
*very* difficult to get along with GNU/Linux at schools, since on the other
hand side obviously nobody will understand that GNU/Linux (or whichever
free unix with an appropriate desktop you would prefer) still would be *at
least* less expensive than the cheapest Windows-educational license... :/
At least, it's just making things more difficult, even thus it will not
stop me from working in this field. :))

>The idea would be to design a shared interface for all the applications
(or
>for each age groups applications) and then to code small programs having
all
>the same look and feel (the way to evaluate the child work would be the
same
>in each program for example).

This sounds pretty good, actually... Having powerful software available
would be a real *huge* advantage while trying to put GNU/Linux / *BSD with
KDE on top in schools... Actually, by now I have to admit that I am still
far away from being a good QT- or even KDE- programmer, but I am willing to
get deeper into it and to actually also learn to program and to give some
contributions to the project, this way... but... where to start? Are there
any good HOWTO's or tutorials, like 'KDE programming for beginners' to get
a quick overview about this topic and to probably find a way to get deeper
into it / become a better KDE programmer? Factually, due to my studies I am
more or less familiar with C++ and C, but by now I just wasn't able to get
into KDE programming too much, anyhow... :)

>As soon as the website will be operational, I'll let you know!

Okay. Thanks! :)

Cheers,
Kris

-- 
Kristian Rink
paper: +49 180 5052 5560 8162 -- phone: +49 174 5360871
icq  : 107186898 (Kawazu) -- irc  : #metal on IRCNet (Kawazu)

...cold crawling death, crushing mighty roar,
...deadly touch of fire, merciless invaders...
...created by humanity, against humanity.
(vader -- cold demons)


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