Powered by modified Twitter Tools. After last year’s edu-team report, here is a brief summary of what the Edu-Team did in 2012. I’ve tried to keep it as short as possible at the risk that some things might not be clear. Please point me to these cases that I can explain them sufficiently. Talks and similar activitiesThe edu-team members conducted the following talks or workshops during the last year:
The folowing blogposts were published:in English:
in German:
publications in print media (both German)
Wolf-Dieter is busy working on his website netzwerkbildung.netThis website got a new CMS during 2012 and is also now available in English. Wolf-Dieter is currently collecting and testing LIVE-Systems for USB-Sticks. If you have any input on that, please drop him a note! UK curriculum input to consultationThe edu-team worked hard to get its input ready for the UK ICT curriculum consultation. We submitted our official position on the UK Department of Education proposal to “Unlocking education, for growth without limits” (launched late 2011) continued vigorously in the first few months of 2012, but as two key players had to cut down their time for it, this campaign somewhat stalled due to lack of dutch (speaking) activists. Feel free to pick up the ball or tell Germany Internet Enquete-KommissionWe worked together to provide Matthias some input to the educational part in the Enquete commission of the German parliarment (German). For further info (also in German), read election touch stones GermanyThe edu-team provided some related input to the election touchstones in Germany, namely: FreedroidzThere was another Freedroidz workshop in Murrhardt. I traveled to this nice little town in the south of Germany to attend the first workshop with youths, not only adults like my first one 😉 Unfortunately, this is the only workshop I got aware of. Quite a few had to be canceled for various reasons. But there is more good news to report: The Freedroidz project is also working on becoming a German “Verein” (Club – charity) to become independet of the generous sponsor so far, the tarent company. LiechtensteinPeter made some progress in Liechtenstein. He sent a letter to the editor of vaterland.li Edu LeafletsThe edu leaflet is now also available in Danish thanks to our fellow Kenneth. (List of all available leaflets) work on FSFE edu pagesWe started thinking about renewing the edu pages on fsfe.org. It would be great if you could tell us what information you would like to find there.  RMS and copyleft (cc-by-nc-sa/2.0/br) edu materialAs a response to the last yearly summary, we learned about a short video explaining FS to kids. We also learned that there used to be subtitles for various languages available, but t hey seem to be lost. (I found only one(Youtube flash)) If you have any idea where they might be found, please let us know! We are in general always interested in any material that explains FS to a younger audience to offer it teachers as material they can use in class. If you see something, please let us know as well! Other stuffOf course, there were many other things we did throughout the year. Like
Here is what we plan for 2013
And as always, there were many things like inquiries for workshops or talks, meetings and actions that, at the end, didn’t work out. They don’t appear here in the posting, but such things took time and resources as well. Thus, a lot of things had to be left undone for 2013! If you want to help us with them, please join us! Or if you just want to discuss our work with us, the next chance to meet me in person is probably FOSDEM. Just drop me a note!
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Powered by modified Twitter Tools. When I first heard about FSCONS, I was thrilled by the concept of this event as it seemed to bring Free Software developers and society together. Year after year, people told me how awsome FSCONS was this time, but there was always something else that kept me from going there until 2011. After hearing all the praise, my expectations were high and I couldn’t believe that it was even better than I thought. I just had to go this year, too.  FSCONS Manifesto draft with sticky note suggestions I woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning to get my flight, hoping to make it just in time for the first workshop: It’s a child’s game I was really looking forward to it as it was more or less the only education topic this year, but I didn’t make it on time. I got the last 45 minutes, which wasn’t enough to particpate, but I had very interesting conversations. To shorten this posting: the whole three days were filled with pleasant conversations with nice people, so I won’t mention them any more. It’s a natural thing at FSCONS, like breathing air 🙂 After Lunch, I spend four hours in the FYA workshop without managing to root my phone, which supposedly works with Replicant (that’s why I bought it) despite all the help I got from Erik, who held the workshop, and other participants. I spend the morning at the feminism track, as I already knew what Matthias and Erik would be talking about 🙂 There was a introductional session tha aimed to continue the discussions from last year. As I did not manage to attend last years feminism track, I can’t tell how this relates to it. For me it felt like an interresting brainstorming session about the topic with no actual “results”. In the meantime, the organizers set up a mailing list for people who want to continue the discussion throughout the year until next FSCONS. And then, there was of course Otto Kekäläinen, the winner of the 2012 Nordic Free Software Award, who held two talks about the amazing stuff the Finnish team has been working on. So, FSCONS was once again a great experience. Not as great as in 2011, I must say, but this might be just a sujective impression by me who wasn’t on the speaker’s list this time 😉
Last FrOSCon, Kurt Gramlich, leader of the German part of the Skolelinux project, gave a brief overview on the Skolelinux pilot in Rhineland Palatinate. What happened after the first euphoria and listed reasons why the pilot may be considered a failure. It was a very entertaining and informative talk. I learned quite a bit and absorbed a tiny fraction of Kurt’s experience. I tried to condense what I got out of it in just a few bullet points from the “lessons learned” part to share with FSFE’s edu-team and now also with you!
Kurt’s conclusion: a bottom-up approach is much easier and more likely to succeed than a top-down approach where people are told what to do. Seems like it has something to do with freedom after all. Speaking of which: He also mentioned a less surprising, but remarkable finding about the different ways to “sell” the Free Software solution (“no license costs” vs. “freedom”):
Well, that’s already it. I’d love to link to the recording for those who understand German, but it is not available yet. Some talks of last FrOSCon have been online for a while, but unfortunately, Kurt’s is none of them. Depending on when you read this, you may want to check again if this has changed. I am back home after two months of traveling. I knew that I wouldn’t have much internet access during that time and I prepared myself: I packed a bunch of books and a ukulele. I started learning the ukulele when my daughter got one as a gift. I practiced with her instrument for the last few months before we went off, but I didn’t want to take it along on the journey. Since we started in Cebu, a place famous for ukuleles, I planned to buy a cheap one there and take it along for the rest of the journey. Thus I could be sure that I wouldn’t break my dauthers “toy” and gain a “backup” when we are back home 🙂
I know, that are three things, but these three weren’t the thing I didn’t think about. I kind of expected that I had to tune the uke each time I pick it up. What I forgot was that I will be without internet connectivity most of the time. Luckily, I was traveling with a laptop running Free Software, so a much quicker research than the one for audio files led me to the following commands: Update (2016-05-22): The command “play” is part of the “sox” package which is not part of recent distributions anymore but can be installed afterwards without affecting ALSA or pulseaudio. If you know a way how to do the same with aplay, please let me know!
Wikipedia was kind enough to tell me the frequencies 🙂 In case you are not aware what’s possible with this highly underestimated instrument, here are a few starters to put you in ‘awe mode’: What began in August 2010 with an idea ends today with a winner. I have no time to write much more than the bare result: Spain vs. Norway 4:3 I decided for Spain firstly for the same reason Norway won in the semi final, more data in the wiki, and secondly for the same reason Spain won the quarter final, they actually accomplished a lot already. This tournament didn’t turn out to be what I had envisioned back in 2010, but it was a lot of fun for me and I learned a lot about the situation of Free Software adoption in the European countries. |