[K12OSN] Re: K12OSN Digest, Vol 26, Issue 14

[Bryant Patten <opensource whitenitro com>]

On Apr 11, 2006, at 9:29 AM, k12osn-request redhat com wrote:

> > But the open source in education community in the US, badly, badly
> > needs a national conference.  Nobody really knows what's going on on
> > the national scale.  What in God's name is going on in Indiana?  Has
> > anyone actually talked to Mike Huffman?  There's a tremendous mix of
> > grass-roots, corporate and larger state and district backed projects
> > going on, but very little coordination or information moving around.
> > Or if it is taking place, it is somewhere I don't know about.  Most of
> > the key players haven't met.  Many of them are using free software
> > because they don't have much money, which means they also don't have
> > much money or time to travel to conferences, either.  Not to mention
> > networking with people from Spain, Brazil, etc., where they're plowing
> > ahead of us in using free software in schools.  So we're long overdue
> > for a "Free Software in Schools Summit."  We need to have one next
> > year.
>
> Is there general consensus about this?  And what would be the goal --
> information sharing, primarily?

Parts of this discussion parallel another one about an International 
FOSS/Education conference that grew out of the Open Source and 
Education mini-conference in New Zealand last January

In that discussion, we came to understand we were talking about two 
different gatherings and I think that could also be the case with a US 
national conference.  The first conference, which we referred as the 
Open Source and Education Summit (great minds think alike Tom) was 
described as follows: [excerpt from the FOSSEd discussion group at 
http://fossed.org/pipermail/discussion_fossed.org/]

"However, the 20-50 people Open Source and Education Summit would be
different.  It's purpose and focus is NOT primarily getting people
introduced and charged up about FOSS and Education.  Rather, it would
be to gather the people *already* doing some amazing things together
with the purpose of having a working gathering that answers the
question "If we explicitly plan to cooperate, what truly amazing,
things could we do?".    The invitees would know about
distros, and OpenOffice and Linux.  This would not necessarily be a
gathering of FOSS Rock Stars  (no offense maddog) but people doing
amazing things in their local community.  It would also serve the other
purpose that we discussed of honoring these people.

I would invite the people who spoke at the EduMiniConf (Edward, Shaun,
Donna, Kathryn, Pia).  I would invite David Trask and Matt Olmquist
from NELS, I would invite Scott from HOSEF.  I would find a person from
Extremadura (sp?) in Spain, from the Brazilian government, from
Edubuntu, SkoleLinux, and sourceforge.uk.  We should track down someone
from Japan and China.  Try to reach into the FOSSEd trenches all over 
the globe
the way the MacArthur grant people do for their fellows.  Then invite
all those people.  Send them a nice packet of information before the
summit that gives a description of all the cool things their fellow
attendees are doing so they come to the Summit thinking 'Wow - I am
going to meet some really cool people!'  Then, perhaps we entice some
FOSS rock stars to come and speak to (and praise) them.  Meeting these
FOSS stars (maddog, Mark Shuttlesworth, Linus himself, RMS, etc.)
would be very cool for this group - and here again they are different
from a group new to FOSS."

The FOSSEd group quoted above was discussing an International summit 
but the same logic I think applies to a US national conference.

This working summit might address some national questions ( Could 
Indiana be a national model? Does Vista represent a huge opportunity 
for FOSS at the national level, can we create cross-state frameworks 
for FOSS and required curriculum matching, etc).  One outcome of such a 
gathering might be the planning for a National Open Source and 
Education Conference that is along the NELS model for teachers and 
administrators.  Or it might be a plan for helping other regions create 
their own 'NELS like' conferences.  Or some funded push for the 
creation of other parts of the FOSS Education ecosystem -> marketing 
materials, curriculum, etc.

I think the Open Source community would benefit immensely from having 
both of these gatherings.  But I also think they are targeted at 
different audiences, have different goals and have different indicators 
of success.

Having said that, I am volunteering to help organize either of these 
events if people believe we should move forward with them.  My 
experience with organizing the Open Source and Education conference in 
New Zealand was just around getting the speakers since the lodging, 
food and travel issues were already taken care of by the main 
conference organizers.  At the very least, I would be happy to supply 
the beer for a late night planning session at either of the NELS 
conferences.

Bryant Patten
White Nitro, LLC