[K12OSN] NELS & FOSS-Education Association

[Ben Nickell]

I'm interested in this a well, please add me to the list if it turns out 
to be a nationwide group.

Also, I'd like to host a conference in the Intermountain West if there 
is enough interest.  I'm in SE Idaho and we have world class hunting and 
fishing, skiing, rafting, backpacking, and mountain biking out here...

Ben Nickell

>>
>> On Wed, 2006-06-21 at 15:58 -0400, Bryant Patten wrote:
>>> Once again, David and Matt put on an awesome NELS gathering in Bethel, 
>>> Maine.  Thanks guys!
>>>
>>> Much fun, lots of swapping of stories and expertise, and as others 
>>> mentioned, more teachers - which is really exciting.  The food was 
>>> again fabulous - tough to complain about roast beef, shrimp and 
>>> chocolate cake (to give an example of one excellent meal).  I just 
>>> don't understand why David doesn't ever mention the food  :)
>>>
>>> We also discussed the idea of starting an association 
>>> (group/co-op/guild/organization) of Open Source and Education 
>>> consultants.  Not surprisingly we ran smack into a definition of who 
>>> should be in this group but as a start we said the target is people 
>>> whose primary focus of their for-profit business is helping schools use 
>>> open source.  There were several of us at the conference (David Trask - 
>>> CopperDog, Matt Oquist - Majen, Chris Johnson - Dirigo, Bill Sconce- In 
>>> Spec, Inc., Bryant Patten - White Nitro) who met and tried to answer 
>>> some of the following questions:
>>>
>>> 	1) How many FOSS and education consultants are out there in the US?  
>>> (5? 50? 500? 5000?)
>>> 	2) Would such an organization help? (make school admin people feel 
>>> FOSS is legit, share resources, sponsor conferences)
>>> 	3) Should it be free or charge dues? (Dues could fund NELS-like 
>>> conferences in other parts of the)
>>> 	4) Who should join? (consultants, schools, product companies...)
>>> 	4) Does something like this already exists?
>>>
>>> I have discussed this idea with some other consultants and plan to 
>>> bring it up with people at NECC as well.  I volunteered to push this 
>>> forward for a bit and see what happens so please let me know (on list 
>>> or off) any thoughts, resources or suggestions.
>>>
>>> Bryant Patten
>>> White Nitro, LLC
>>> opensource at whitenitro.com
> 
> 
> Jim Kronebusch
> Cotter Tech Department
> 507-453-5188
> 
>