Hi all, I've been lurking on this list for a while now, ..just thought it was about time I introduced myself.. I'm the Technical Director at the educational software provider 'New Media' (http://www.new-media.co.uk/). Any science teachers on this list may be aware of products such as 'Chemistry Set 2000' and 'Multimedia Science School', which are essentially multimedia teaching resources for science. I wont attempt to plug our products here (they are built for windows), you can check out our site for more information.. Anyway, I'm interested in bringing some of our experience of using technology to enhance learning to those using Open Source operating systems. As an OSS user, programmer, and advocate, it's something that I want New Media to become more involved in. Most of the software that we have produced over the years is designed for the classroom itself, to actually enhance the teaching experience. I appreciate that the current goals for people like yourselves are probably more focused on the system infrastructure itself (i.e, Exim/Sendmail/Postfix.., Squid, Samba, OpenLDAP etc), and so I'm also interested in developing software that may help to centralise the administration of those kinds of services. Perhaps over time we can glue together enough existing free software to build a competitive RM style system.. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like us to be a part of this, and would love to hear suggestions for ways in which we could get started.. Currently I'm working on a version of one of our science teaching tools 'Rates Of Reaction' that I aim to make freely available (as in speech), as a kind of experiment to see how many people can make use of such a resource. But perhaps there is something more generically useful that I could be working on.. If anyone has any ideas, then feel free to get in touch. Cheers, On Mon, 2003-04-07 at 23:06, Richard Rothwell wrote:
Hi All,
Please take this as a request for comment rather than my solid opinions. I also hope I have posted this in an appropriate place!
Following the conference on Friday I was left with the distinct feeling that we are standing on the edge of a major breakthrough on the implementation of open source software in schools. The offer of this technology is computing that is: - low cost - sustainable - ubiquitious - customisable We need to make sure that the enthusiasm is focussed now, for though we are all convinced of the inevitability of open source solutions, the time scale is determined by those of us who are implementing it. In particular, if the first wave of schools adopting open source does not do so by September 2003, then we will be set back by a whole year.
Suggestions: that invitations are put out to get involved with the first wave - this should include: * schools - the early implementers * schools interested but not ready to implement yet * providers and developers * any other interested parties * we share information and thoughts through a Wiki thus allowing any one to get involved * the AFFS is invited to be the front organisation for this group (www.affs.org.uk) * contact is made with organisations in other countries working on similar lines * we look for a major publicity drive in September by when a number of UK schools should be runnning large scale open source solutions.
===== rgds, Richard Rothwell -------------------------------------------------------------------- "You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the US of arrogance, and Germany doesn't want to go to war."
__________________________________________________ Yahoo! Plus For a better Internet experience http://www.yahoo.co.uk/btoffer
-- James Hurst mailto:james.hurst@new-media.co.uk