Last night Miguel Guhlin and I interviewed Dr. David Thornburg on the
use of Free and Open Source Software in schools. This was the first of
a series of webcast interviews we will be conducting on this topic, to
be broadcast live each Thursday night at 5:00pm Pacific Time and then
made available in recorded form.
Next week, tune in for our interview with Jim McQuillan, the
co-founder and project lead of the Linux Terminal Server Project
(LTSP), and Daniel Howard, who has been instrumental in working with
the Atlanta Public Schools on a broad deployment plan for Linux thin
client. You can leave questions for them in advance at
http://www.k12opensource.com/interviews, where you can also find
instructions on joining the webcast.
To hear or download our interview with Dr. Thornburg, visit
http://educationbridges.net/k12opensource, which also has the RSS
feeds for the interview series. (Many thanks to Dave Cormier, Jeff
Lebow, and Worldbridges for all the support!)
--
Steve Hargadon
steve(a)hargadon.com
916-899-1400 direct
www.SteveHargadon.com - (Blog on Educational Technology)
www.K12Computers.com - (Refurbished Dell Optiplexes for Schools)
www.TechnologyRescue.com - (Linux Thin Client Solutions)
www.LiveKiosk.com - (Web Access and Content Delivery Solutions)
www.PublicWebStations.com - (Disaster & Shelter WebStation Software)
www.K12OpenSource.com (Public Wiki)
www.SupportBlogging.com (Public Wiki)
This Thursday evening, July 27th, at 5:00pm PDT (8:00pm EDT), Miguel
Guhlin and I will be inaugurating our new series of webcasts on Open
Source Software in K-12 schools. Our guest on our first show will be
David Thornburg, who has just published a new book entitled "When the
Best Is Free: an educator's perspective on open source software." Dr.
Thornburg is an extremely popular speaker, and drew a
standing-room-only crowd at our NECC Open Source Pavilion when he
spoke.
Information on this webcast, and future ones, is available on the
www.K12OpenSource.com wiki in the "Interviews" section. Our goal is
to collect a series of recorded audio interviews that will give new
users of Open Source software a quick introduction to the technologies
that interest them. Please request or recommend future speakers or
topics in the "suggestions" part of that section, which can also be
located by clicking here:
http://k12opensource.wikispaces.com/Interviews
The webcast intervew with Dr. Thornburg will be 55 minutes long, of
which the last 15 minutes will be open for question and answer. To
listen to the webcast real-time, or to participate in the Q & A
portion, you will need to download and configure Skype
(www.skype.com) and then click on the Skypecast link when you are
ready to join in:
https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=198…
To leave Dr. Thornburg a question before the interview, go to the
www.K12OpenSource.com wiki, click on "Interviews" from the menu to the
left, and then click on Dr. Thornburg's name under July 27th; or click
here:
http://k12opensource.wikispaces.com/Thornburg+Podcast
Here's hoping this series will be helpful!
Steve
--
Steve Hargadon
steve(a)hargadon.com
916-899-1400 direct
www.SteveHargadon.com - (Blog on Educational Technology)
www.K12Computers.com - (Refurbished Dell Optiplexes for Schools)
www.TechnologyRescue.com - (Linux Thin Client Solutions)
www.LiveKiosk.com - (Web Access and Content Delivery Solutions)
www.PublicWebStations.com - (Disaster & Shelter WebStation Software)
www.K12OpenSource.com (Public Wiki)
www.SupportBlogging.com (Public Wiki)
On 7/10/06, Justin Riddiough <jriddiough(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve -
>
> How did the Open Source labs and sessions go at NECC? Was anyone else
> from this discuss list able to attend? It sounds like it would have
> been a very informative event covering many interesting subjects, wish
> I could have attended.
It was great. If you go to flickr.com, search for "necc2006
opensourcelab" and you'll see the photos we took. Just search
"necc2006" or "necc" and you will see other photos as well. Except
for one or two sessions, our lab area was almost always packed. At
one point our email garden tables had lines two or three people
back--I think they were actually trying to see over the shoulders of
those on the computers, who were following along with the lab talks.
Our first speaker (David Thornburg) probably drew about 200 people (in
a lab setting of 25 computers). Even our last session was
overfowing--which says a lot late Friday at a conference (it was our
third session on moodle).
There was a lot of buzz about Open Source at the show, and it helped
that we were right next to the "One Laptop per Child" booth, although
they didn't draw as many as we expected. However, Negroponte's
keynote gave a significant boost to Open Source.
We do have a "wrapup" page at our http://necc2006.pbwiki.com wiki
site, so if you were at the show and have feedback for us, please
contribute. The show organizers have said they want to put us in a
bigger space next year--let's hope they keep feeling that way! All in
all, a wonderful experience, I think.
Steve
--
Steve Hargadon
steve(a)hargadon.com
916-899-1400 direct
www.SteveHargadon.com - (Blog on Educational Technology)
www.K12Computers.com - (Refurbished Dell Optiplexes for Schools)
www.TechnologyRescue.com - (Linux Thin Client Solutions)
www.LiveKiosk.com - (Web Access and Content Delivery Solutions)
www.PublicWebStations.com - (Disaster & Shelter WebStation Software)
www.K12OpenSource.com (Public Wiki)
www.SupportBlogging.com (Public Wiki)
There will be 15,000 school folks at NECC, and nobody knows how many
will come to the Open Source lab and booths... but it's going to be A
LOT. We will have about 70 computers set up, and we are in a prime
area--the first night welcoming reception is in the same location.
In addition, there is a buzz going on about Open Source and Web 2.0
that is very exciting.
The K12OpenSource.com wiki could use some collaborative building.
We've printed 5,000 nice glossy 4-color brochures that talk about what
Open Source software is, and point people, in addition to many of the
traditional OSS sites, to K12OpenSource.com. K12OpenSource also has
an email list for beginners, and we expect to direct beginners to
those two sites to start their journey with Open Source Software.
If you have some time, and are willing, we could really use some more
content on the site. Links, stories, resources, anything. The show
starts Tuesday night (July 4th, if you can believe it) and runs
through Friday.
Thanks,
Steve
--
Steve Hargadon
steve(a)hargadon.com
916-899-1400 direct
www.SteveHargadon.com - (Blog on Educational Technology)
On 7/1/06, Doug Loss <drloss(a)suscom.net> wrote:
> This is evidently his second article about Open Source and schools. I missed the first one and am not inclined to find it and read it, but if anyone would like to contact him and clue him in on any educational topics, feel free. :)
>
> http://www.networkworld.com/weblogs/smb/2006/012897.html
>
>
Actually, the second article was more in-depth than the first (which
is at http://www.networkworld.com/weblogs/smb/2006/012877.html)
The author does ask: "Do you have a success story helping schools or
non-profit organizations save money with Open Source software? If so,
let us know." OK, now is a good chance to get some good publicity.
(Daniel, you have recently written a ton that could just be forwarded
to him, as have many others.)
His email is readers(a)gaskin.com.
Steve
--
Steve Hargadon
steve(a)hargadon.com
916-899-1400 direct
www.SteveHargadon.com - (Blog on Educational Technology)
www.K12Computers.com - (Refurbished Dell Optiplexes for Schools)
www.TechnologyRescue.com - (Linux Thin Client Solutions)
www.LiveKiosk.com - (Web Access and Content Delivery Solutions)
www.PublicWebStations.com - (Disaster & Shelter WebStation Software)
www.K12OpenSource.com (Public Wiki)
www.SupportBlogging.com (Public Wiki)