Fellowship flag

There are tons of images. I just had the chance to go through one or two albums. Here is what I found so far worth sharing:

Potentielle Terroristin

Find the flag:

Find the flag

Fellows at FSA09

at the memorial

Fellows in the back

Again, find the flag:

Find the flag

Fellows at work:

Fellows at work

No Fellows here, but I liked it so much:

Built to resist

If you found more pictures with Fellows, just drop a comment!

Collecting, and just collecting will not produce any results. Thus, I declare this introductory phase as over and will review what I have so far.

One interesting page I found was Eurodice, which is supposed to provide some “detailed descriptions of how European education systems are organised and how they function and comparative studies covering various aspects of education systems”, which sounds very promising to me.

I  read a study there named “Key Data on Information and Communication Technology in Schools in Europe” from 2004. The data it is based on is even older, but I thought it is worth looking at anyhow.

And indeed, it contains a few points that are still valid, I suppose. Here are some:

Although it’s obvious, I think it’s a useful finding to remember:

In the initial stage, computer facilities are intended mainly for administrative and teaching staff. After that, they are made available to pupils.

This staff might need to be convinced first!

Families generally make it easy for children aged 9 or 10 to access the home computer. This applies to all countries surveyed, irrespective of the level of home computerisation. The great majority of children in this age-group use computers (excluding consoles and portable equipment) to play games. The percentage of those who say they search for information and write is high however in several countries (Greece, France, Italy, Cyprus and the United Kingdom).

I would like to know why this is so different in these countries. It seems to me that they do something right that others don’t.

… although infrequent use is also reported by countries with a high level of computerisation (French Community of Belgium, Germany and France), in which the majority of 15-year-old pupils say they never or almost never use computers at school.

I would like to know why they don’t use the computer as much as in other countries, even though the resources are available. I don’t think that this is a bad sign, because I don’t think the computer is the best device to teach. But if it’s being used, it should be used with Free Software.

If you have any hints that could lead to answers to my questions, please drop me a note or leave a comment!

In diesem Jahr können wir den Verantwortlichen erneut zeigen, dass mehr und mehr Menschen bereit sind dafür auf die Straße zu gehen. Denn um eine ePetition zu unterzeichnen, bedarf es ja nur eines Klicks, wie Frau von der Leyen (aka Zenzursula) glaubt, und ist somit “bedeutungslos”… Die Petenten haben wohl allesamt versehentlich “geklickt” und es gar nicht wirklich so gemeint.

Nun, ich werde dort sein. Vielleicht eine gute Gelegenheit für eine Key-signing-party für Fellows?

Es gibt auch wieder einen Trailer um die Demo zu bewerben (youtube version), der mir persönlich etwas zu nerdig ist. Das Thema geht alle an. Trotzdem nett gemacht.

Is anybody aware of similar projects/bureaus that assist government agencies with their migration process in other European countries? I would think, the obstacles they encounter will be similar.

If you know anything about the matter, please leave a comment or ,if you are a Fellow, update the public admin page in our wiki!

Update: another article, same subject (German)

Some news don’t really fit in there, so I intend to post them here in the future.  If you hear or read anything about Free Software in education, please let me know!

Here is what I collected last month:

Germany:
Skolelinux announced at CLT that it will be tested on 11 pilot schools. When I read about it, I even found evidence that the FSFE was indeed present with a booth!

An article on linux-community.de (German) stating that GNU/Linux is rarely used in schools caused a little uproar.

Italy:
Skolelinux.it has been launched.

Norway:
Skolelinux developer meeting in Bergen

Russia:
Another fellow, Stargrave, blogged about the situation at the Moscow Aviation Institute where he studies.

Software:
New version of Open Administration for Schools 3.75 is now available.

A new version of the XO-LiveCD (iso-image, documentation, sugar on usb-stick) was released.

If I missed something that should have been mentioned, please leave a comment!

For the authors of this article, the Affero GPL does not fix the problem, because “GPL developers won’t use it”. Well, if so, why should they switch to any other licence that addresses the problem?

And the accusation of unfairness goes in the same direction. They blame the FSF to aggressively sue software developers who don’t provide the source code in their distribution, but don’t sue google for benefiting from Free Software without showing their sources.

I don’t really see what they want to tell me beside that the FSF is just a bunch of “extremists” who “deny the value of intellectual property rights.”

I am contemplating to write them, but it’s probably not worth it. What do you think?

“Free Software offers great opportunities for a knowledge based society through variety, sustainability and security. The system of “open code” and “open standards” allows fair competition, precludes monopolies and ensures innovation.”

The downer: the proposal uses the term Free Software only once (in the quoted sentence) and then uses “open source” perpetually.

Well, but that’s maybe just my typical German side: never content and always complaining

I learned that a similar project has been going on since September in Switzerland.

(the links are in German)