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It’s too late for my current location, but it’s still Valentines Day in some parts of the world.
Inspired by the #ilovefs campaign of FSFE, I want to say thank you to David F. Skoll who maintains remind so gallantly. His patience and friendliness on the mailing list to any newbie is exemplary as well as his way to react on feature requests or any other requests. His accommodating attitude finds its limits when someone asks for tweaks to get remind working with proprietary software. It’s Free Software, so everybody is free to use it on any system, but don’t ask him to devote some of his precious time for adopting remind to it. This manner is also something I really like 🙂
David, keep on your excellent work! Remind rocks and helps me a lot in my daily life!
Here’s a little summary again of what I found noteworthy in the field of Free Software in education in the last few months of this year in no particular order:
France
- There has been an UNESCO ICT-Competency Framework for teachers workshop in Paris.A little suspicious is, that Microsoft is engaged in the process. I couldn’t find anything bad in the documents so far, but I didn’t have the chance to review all the material in detail. Anybody else?
Germany
- FSuB e.V. announced that they will meet to discuss their future activities on 22 Jan, 2011 in Essen. Everybody interested in the subject is invited to come.
Norway
- FRISK in Norway hat their annual meeting. From what I could derive from an automated translation, they decided to work on a broader front and not just Skolelinux..Among other things, it was proposed to tackle all platforms with a DVD for Windows and Mac that will include Free Software as well as information about FRISK. They will also have a booth at GoOpen 2011 in March.
Spain
That’s already it; even for such a long time span. As always, I am 100 percent certain that I missed important news about Free Software in education. Please help me making the edu-postings more complete and let me know if you get aware of something!
Update: I just stumbled on this nice posting about the LinuxDay in Dornbirn, Austria.
Here’s a little summary again of what I found noteworthy in the field of Free Software in education in the last two months and the beginning of December in no particular order:
France
- There has been an UNESCO ICT-Competency Framework for teachers workshop in Paris.A little suspicious is, that Microsoft is engaged in the process. I couldn’t find anything bad in the documents so far, but I didn’t have the chance to review all the material in detail. Anybody else?
Norway
- FRISK in Norway hat their annual meeting. From what I could derive from an automated translation, they decided to work on a broader front and not just Skolelinux..Among other things, it was proposed to tackle all platforms with an DVD for Windows and Mac that will include Free Software as well as information about FRISK. They will also have a booth at GoOpen 2011 in March.
Germany
FSuB e.V. announced that they will meet to discuss its future activities on 22 Jan, 2011 in Essen. Everybody interested in the subject is invited to come.
The wiki pages for our little tournament have just been updated according to the latest results. Sorry for the delay, oher things pushed this task further down in my ToDo list, but now it’s done.
 Saint Basil's Cathedral, Moscow (cc by-sa 2.0) Since we have to wait until March 25, 2011 for any further updates, here are the current group leaders:
| Group A |
Belgium |
| Group B |
Russia |
| Group C |
Italy |
| Group D |
France |
| Group E |
Netherlands |
| Group F |
Israel |
| Group G |
Switzerland |
| Group H |
Iceland |
| Group I |
Spain |
So, these countries would be in the finals for sure if they manage to stay on top in their group. Theoretically, every country is still able to make it, but it became pretty unlikely for Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cyprus, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Lithuania. These teams have not been able to gain one point yet. It’s remarkable that most of them are eastern European counties. Maybe news from these countries just don’t find their way to us or maybe there are more urgent issues to tackle so that Free Software adoption is not on the agenda yet.
Eastern European countries are especially noteworthy since we haven’t had a look at Poland and the Ukraine, because they are automatically qualified as hosts of the tournament. As of now, they don’t look too promising.
The biggest Eastern country though, is leading group B and by the way: Russa is the first government I see mentioning “independency” as the main reason for a planned migration to Free Software! Most others only look for ways to save money, which is sad.
Ich suche ja schon eine Weile nach Freien Kinderbüchern und Liedern und hatte angekündigt meine Funde hier zu posten. Heute lese ich, dass die Musikpiraten ein Liederbuch zur Adventszeit herausgebracht haben. Nette Idee. Und sie verweisen auch brav auf die Freie Software LilyPond aus dem GNU Projekt. 🙂
Postings dieser Art tragen den Tag “freie inhalte“.
Not too long ago, I mentioned a workshop with FreeDroidz in this blog. I heard about these robots before, saw them at fairs and haven’t known much about our host, except that they are the sponsor of the Fellowship grant. Matthias asked me if I was interested in leading such a work shop at schools in the future.
 Our work place by Matthias Kirschner I thought that might be a good opportunity to get a foot in the door to talk with kids and teachers about Free Software in education while teaching them that programming is not magic and can be a lot of fun!
On Saturday, Nov 27, 2010 a few FSFE members, including members of the edu-team and other interested people met for a workshop at the offices of tarent in Bonn, Germany. We enjoyed the same presentation the kids got at Murrhard and Berlin at their workshops. We tried to give some feedback to it and the attending teachers could give some valuable input from the didactical point of view.
Tarent created a really nice and easy to use environment on a live-system-usb-stick with many examples and documentation. With a set of these sticks at hand, it’s certain that everybody in class is on the same sheet of music. As I said, we followed the slide show that was presented to the kids. Trained as adults, we managed to refrain from playing abd fiddling and focused mostly on the presentation. By doing so, we saw something what the kids have never seen and probably never will see: the end of the presentation:
Joscha and Steffi made the experience, that as soon the kids grasp the possibilities and power at their hands, they are so eager to try and experiment, that it’s nearly impossible to stop them. And I think that’s incredibly good. That’s how learning works. Just look up the word “grasp” in the dictionary of your choice. Wiktionary shows two meanings:
- To grip; to take hold, particularly with the hand.
- To understand.
 building a forklift by Matthias Kirschner
It’s no coincidence, that these two meanings are represented by the same expression.
The kids get taught the very basics that are required in order to program the robots and then get off the leash! And it’s really amazing what their imagination can built.
Even though we tried to act as grownups and didn’t play as much as we wanted to, we had a lot of fun. The friendly and informal atmosphere at tarent was one key to that. The mixture of people was the other. A big Thank You to tarent and their team for organizing and funding this workshop and not to forget: for food and drinks!
I got the impression that all participants really enjoyed the workshop and left it eager for more. If you got interested, check out the FreeDroids wiki or project page. Everybody is invited to free more robots!
 hands on keyboards by Matthias Kirschner
 Croatia fan truck by by Alison Ratcliffe (cc-by-2.0) The last two qualification matches of this year took place today:
Finland vs. San Marino 2:0 (well, in soccer they won 8:0!)
This was easy since we have no entries for San Marino in our wiki.
Croatia vs. Malta 2:1
But this was a tough decision again which I won’t call final until next Sunday. So, please let me know if you want to have the result tweaked somehow.
Croatia has a firm “policy” that mandates to present the pupils Free Software equally to proprietary software whereas Malta asks all their agencies to prefer Free Software in all future purchases and started consultations to increase use of FS.
Unfortunately, both links that back the statement about the policy in Croatia are broken (at least in the moment while I’m writing this), but I found a pretty promising survey about Sofware policies in the world as a substitution. I will go through this document and update other countries until the next games start on March 25, 2011.
As always, I ask you to comment here, at identi.ca or mail and help collecting data for the wiki pages for public administration and education!
In two weeks, there will be a Jabber meeting about the activities of FSFE’s Edu-Team. We will ask for opinions on Free Software and education and the future of the edu team. Got any ideas?
Well, I thought it might help if I post some of my thoughts beforehand to discuss, even if you don’t participate at the jabber meeting 😉
Over the last few years; I met so many people interested in the subject, that I find it odd that the mailing list for edu activities in Europe is so low traffic. There are probably a million reasons for this, but maybe one of them is, that there is so much to do; that it’s hard to find a point to start with. Today, I want to tackle this.
I think we might get more people involved by defining and providing specific tasks. A HowTo in helping the edu-team so to speak. I can also imagine something like the recent pdfreaders campaign where anybody can do “something” within 2 minutes of her/his time.
 Orientation needed? compass rose (public domain) To get a better overview of what could be done, I categorized the whole matter by stakeholders, inspired by Anne Østergaard’s presentation:
- pupils / students
- parents
- teachers / professors
- administration
- polititians
- developer / technicians / maintainers
- advocats / allies / helpers
I am planing to fill the wiki pages little by little, but I am certainly happy for any contribution you can make! My goal is to make it easier for volunteers to help. The first 6 category pages have the following structure:
- Organisations or individuals that might help in this group. The goal is to join forces, not to launch another inactive organisation
- already existing projects
- communication platforms, media for this group. Volunteers can join there, monitor forums, follow discussions and jump in when it comes to software
- argumentation and possible group specific concerns/pejudices that need to be tackled. A help for volunteers how to prepare for discussions
- how can a member of this group help us. This section is mostly overlapping with the “advocates howto”
- advocacy material for this group, like presentations, flyers, audio, video
- everything else that might fit
So, if you have anything to add, please plunge right in!
It’s clear that the edu-team doesn’t have the resources to cover everything. My goal is to find organisations that are already active in the various fields and connect them if applicable.
For me, our (FSFE edu-team) target stakeholders are activists and polititians.
Activists should find in us a competent resource to find what’s currently going on and what projects exist, so they can chose where to help without wasting their time researching for the options.
In order to become such a resource, we need to get the information first. Please post anything in regards to FS in education to the edu-eu mailing list or the OFSET group at identi.ca!
Nach dem 150. Spam-Kommentar habe ich mal wieder einen richtigen & nützlichen im Dashboard gefunden: Andreas K Foerster wieß mich darauf hin, dass ich in meinem letzten Posting sämtliche Werke vergessen habe, deren Urherberrecht bereits ausgelaufen ist.
Für solche Werke gibt es
 Aus "The Moon and the Cap" von Pratham Books unter creative Commons Aber ich habe auch tatsächlich neuere Werke gefunden, die “mit Absicht” unter einer Freien Lizenz stehen: Der indische Verlag Pratham Books hat einige Bücher bei Scribd hochgeladen: Ein Verzeichnis unter CC und eins unter PD.
Außerdem werde ich mal die Liste im cc wiki durgehen , beim groben Überfliegen macht sie jedoch wenig Hoffung auf Kleinkinderbücher.
Das alles wird uns einige Zeit beschäftigen können, aber nicht lange. Wenn es also noch weitere unentdeckte Schätze gibt: nur her damit!
Über diesen Bericht wie die Gema Kindergärten zu ihren Abgaben bringt, regen sich gerade eine Menge Leute auf. Ich finde es eigentlich gut, da so hoffentlich mehr Kinderlieder und Bücher unter Freien Lizenzen gestellt werden. Auf dem Gebiet gibt es nämlich sehr wenig, wie meine oberflächlichen Recherchen ergaben.
 - cat and dog by Terry Hart (cc-by-nc-sa 2.0) (modified by me)
Kennt von Euch jemand gute Bilderbücher und Kinderlieder unter Freien Lizenzen?
Na, hier ist jedenfalls meine dürftige Ausbeute:
Einige Texte in English, die durch nc-nd leider nicht übersetzt werden dürfen 🙁 gibt es auf kidsworld.net, da ich allerdings nach Bilderbüchern für meine zweijährige Tochter suche, habe ich mir die Texte nicht weiter angesehen.
Weit entfernt, von dem, was ich suche ist ccchildren.org, aber immerhin. Beim Namen hatte ich schon Hoffnung gehabt, dass es sich um eine Seite handelt, auf der man Inhalte hochladen kann oder zumindes verlinken usw, damit das Wissen darüber gesammelt wird. Aber die Seite enthält nur ein paar Dinge vom Domainbesitzer in dürftiger Qualität, wie ich finde, und wieder nur nc-nd 🙁
Aber dann gibt es noch “The pig and the box” (cc-by-sa). Auf der FSFE Mailingliste hat jemand davon erzählt. Sonst hätte ich es nicht gefunden.
Nun hoffe ich, dass ich einfach nicht gut genug recherchiert habe. Gibt es die Freien Inhalte für Kinder wirklich nicht? Als Vater würde ich meiner Tochter gerne mehr davon vorlesen.
Auf der Suche fand ich allerdings einige hilfreiche Seiten zu Freien Inhalten allgemein, wenn auch nicht so nützlich bei meiner konkreten Suche:
Jetzt wäre ich froh, wenn der geneigte Leser mich auf bestehende Angebote verweisen kann! Ich habe mir jedenfalls vorgenommen meine künftigen Funde hier zu posten und auf meiner Wikiseite zu sammeln.
Update: Siehe dazu auch Folgeposting
Here are todays results of our EURO 2012 in Free Software and open standards. This time, I found the match Belgium vs. Austria the most challenging.
 Moules Frites (cc by-sa 2.0)  Sachertorte (cc by-sa 3.0) It looks easy considering only the public administration page where we have the following:
In Vienna, they started to migrate to OpenOffice.org and GNU/Linux in 2005. And in 2010, Linz is being called region for Free Software (German).
So much for the Austrian part, the Belgian government chose the OpenDocument Format in 2006, the Ministry of Justice reported Half of all desktop PCs migrated to GNU/Linux and in 2009, the city of Schoten sets the example how to be a good player in the Free Software community.
But as I wrote at the beginning of this tournament, we also consider what’s been done on the education sector:
The entries for Austria from the wiki:
Articles
Schools
Case studies
where Belgium has almost nothing. Still, I let Belgium win, because I have the feeling again that the government, the institution we are judging here, really unterstood the issue. Austria got it too, somehow, but not to the same extend. I’d really love to hear more opinions on this and I will be happy to change the scoring.
Enough words said, let’s have a look at the numbers:
| Date |
Group |
Country I |
Country II |
Score I |
Score II |
| 12.10.10 |
A |
Azerbaijan |
Turkey |
0 |
2 |
| 12.10.10 |
A |
Belgium |
Austria |
4 |
3 |
| 12.10.10 |
A |
Kazakhstan |
Germany |
0 |
4 |
| 12.10.10 |
B |
Armenia |
Andorra |
0 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
B |
Macedonia |
Russia |
1 |
2 |
| 12.10.10 |
B |
Slovakia |
Republic of Ireland |
1 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
C |
Estonia |
Slovenia |
3 |
0 |
| 12.10.10 |
C |
Italy |
Serbia |
3 |
0 |
| 12.10.10 |
C |
Faroe Islands |
Nothern Ireland |
0 |
0 |
| 12.10.10 |
D |
Belarus |
Albania |
0 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
D |
France |
Luxembourg |
5 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
E |
Finland |
Hungary |
1 |
3 |
| 12.10.10 |
E |
Netherlands |
Sweden |
4 |
2 |
| 12.10.10 |
E |
San Marino |
Moldova |
0 |
0 |
| 12.10.10 |
F |
Croatia |
Malta |
2 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
F |
Greece |
Israel |
0 |
3 |
| 12.10.10 |
F |
Latvia |
Georgia |
2 |
0 |
| 12.10.10 |
G |
England |
Montenegro |
1 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
G |
Switzerland |
Wales |
2 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
H |
Denmark |
Cyprus |
3 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
H |
Iceland |
Portugal |
3 |
2 |
| 12.10.10 |
I |
Liechtenstein |
Czech republic |
0 |
1 |
| 12.10.10 |
I |
Scotland |
Spain |
1 |
4 |
The next matches are due on November 17, 2010. I hope you all help us to collect more data in the meantime and – more importantly – convince more governments to use Free Software and Open Standards!
Here is the current standing:
| Group A |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| Belgium |
4 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
16 |
7 |
9 |
12 |
| Germany |
4 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
14 |
6 |
8 |
9 |
| Austria |
3 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
11 |
4 |
7 |
6 |
| Turkey |
4 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
6 |
8 |
-2 |
6 |
| Azerbaijan |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
9 |
-9 |
0 |
| Kazakhstan |
4 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
13 |
-13 |
0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Group B |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| Russia |
4 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
9 |
3 |
6 |
12 |
| Macedonia |
4 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
7 |
4 |
3 |
9 |
| Republic of Ireland |
4 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
4 |
-1 |
5 |
| Slovakia |
4 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
4 |
6 |
-2 |
4 |
| Andorra |
4 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
| Armenia |
4 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
-3 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Group C |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| Italy |
4 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
13 |
3 |
10 |
12 |
| Estonia |
4 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
12 |
0 |
12 |
9 |
| Serbia |
4 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
6 |
-5 |
4 |
| Slovenia |
4 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
-3 |
3 |
| Nothern Ireland |
3 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
-3 |
2 |
| Faroe Islands |
5 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
0 |
7 |
-7 |
2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Group D |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| France |
4 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
16 |
4 |
12 |
12 |
| Albania |
4 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
2 |
3 |
7 |
| Romania |
3 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
5 |
6 |
-1 |
6 |
| Luxembourg |
4 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
4 |
8 |
-4 |
4 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina |
3 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
5 |
-2 |
2 |
| Belarus |
4 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
6 |
-6 |
0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Group E |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| Netherlands |
4 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
17 |
3 |
14 |
12 |
| Hungary |
4 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
11 |
2 |
9 |
12 |
| Sweden |
3 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
7 |
6 |
1 |
3 |
| Finland |
3 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
5 |
6 |
-1 |
3 |
| Moldova |
4 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
11 |
-11 |
1 |
| San Marino |
4 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
12 |
-12 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Group F |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| Israel |
4 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
11 |
1 |
10 |
12 |
| Croatia |
4 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
9 |
5 |
4 |
9 |
| Latvia |
4 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
6 |
6 |
0 |
6 |
| Malta |
4 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
4 |
6 |
-2 |
6 |
| Greece |
4 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
8 |
-6 |
3 |
| Georgia |
4 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
6 |
-6 |
0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Group G |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| Switzerland |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
7 |
3 |
4 |
9 |
| England |
3 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
5 |
0 |
4 |
| Wales |
3 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
4 |
| Bulgaria |
3 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
4 |
-1 |
4 |
| Montenegro |
4 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
5 |
-3 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Group H |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| Iceland |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
7 |
4 |
3 |
9 |
| Denmark |
3 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
7 |
5 |
2 |
6 |
| Norway |
3 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
7 |
5 |
2 |
6 |
| Portugal |
3 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
9 |
10 |
-1 |
3 |
| Cyprus |
2 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
3 |
6 |
-3 |
0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Group I |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Team |
Pld |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
Pts |
| Spain |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
11 |
2 |
9 |
9 |
| Czech republic |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
9 |
| Scotland |
4 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
5 |
-3 |
4 |
| Liechtenstein |
3 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
-3 |
1 |
| Lithuania |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
6 |
-6 |
0 |
|
|
Mehr Kinderbücher unter Freien Lizenzen!
Nach dem 150. Spam-Kommentar habe ich mal wieder einen richtigen & nützlichen im Dashboard gefunden: Andreas K Foerster wieß mich darauf hin, dass ich in meinem letzten Posting sämtliche Werke vergessen habe, deren Urherberrecht bereits ausgelaufen ist.
Für solche Werke gibt es
Aus "The Moon and the Cap" von Pratham Books unter creative Commons
Aber ich habe auch tatsächlich neuere Werke gefunden, die “mit Absicht” unter einer Freien Lizenz stehen: Der indische Verlag Pratham Books hat einige Bücher bei Scribd hochgeladen: Ein Verzeichnis unter CC und eins unter PD.
Außerdem werde ich mal die Liste im cc wiki durgehen , beim groben Überfliegen macht sie jedoch wenig Hoffung auf Kleinkinderbücher.
Das alles wird uns einige Zeit beschäftigen können, aber nicht lange. Wenn es also noch weitere unentdeckte Schätze gibt: nur her damit!