Re: [Marketing] Promoting open source in education
Hi all, Ian Lynch wrote: > On Sat, 2007-03-03 at 16:41 +, John McCreesh wrote: >> On Sat, 2007-03-03 at 11:21 +, Ian Lynch wrote: >> [snip] >>> What would be useful is versions of the documentation targeted on >>> younger age groups. If at some point a version of OOo that had a user >>> interface designed for young children - fewer and larger icons, default >>> font that was large and the type script kids use to learn to read there >>> would be a massive market since many of these use specialist tools other >>> than MS Office for this in any case. >> None of this sounds particularly difficult to do: >> >> Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->View->Scaling >> Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->View->Icon >> View->Toolbars->Customise >> >> And then prepare some simple documentation with screenshots from this >> 'KidzOOo' >> >> Sounds like a good schools project to me? > > Indeed. I'll ask around and see if I can get some of the Gold INGOT kids > to do it as a project. > >> John >> (totally ignorant of the education market) > > Some things that seem simple can be more difficult. In essence we could > certainly get part of the way to KidzOOo by the approach above but we > could hit unforeseen snags that only a specialist in teaching little > kids would spot (I'm more 11-18 age group). But its worth trying and if > I can get some of the INGOT students doing it, at worst it raises their > awareness that OOo exists. I just heard unofficially that the INGOT > certificates are going to be approved for school use from April which > means that schools will be a lot more willing to do Gold INGOT projects > in mainstream time as the certificates will count towards a school's > position in the national school league tables. We need older more able > kids to do these sort of projects and while we have had a good take up > of the Bronze and Silver they are not designed to support community > projects just to build capability in getting to that point. Eventually > we will do a Platinum INGOT suitable for university entrance and these > projects will then realistically tackle coding and give more flexibility > but that is probably a couple of years off. One thing I can suggest > students do is contribute to learning materials for OOo, eg devise a > Moodle course for using OOo Writer. Moodle has around 1 million teacher > users who are not by any means all users of OOo so Moodle would be a > good vector for OOo marketing since it at least has got the idea of Open > Source to a lot of people. So contributing to the Moodle community and > the OOo community is good for both. I've already work on such a version (I call it for myself KidOOo ;-), primary on playing with OOo registry and .xcu files. There is a lot you can achieve in customization once you've figured how it works. I'm still going on writing some documentations on it (in French atm). So if I can help, just tell me. Kind regards Sophie - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Marketing] Promoting open source in education
On Sat, 2007-03-03 at 16:41 +, John McCreesh wrote: > On Sat, 2007-03-03 at 11:21 +, Ian Lynch wrote: > [snip] > > What would be useful is versions of the documentation targeted on > > younger age groups. If at some point a version of OOo that had a user > > interface designed for young children - fewer and larger icons, default > > font that was large and the type script kids use to learn to read there > > would be a massive market since many of these use specialist tools other > > than MS Office for this in any case. > > None of this sounds particularly difficult to do: > > Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->View->Scaling > Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->View->Icon > View->Toolbars->Customise > > And then prepare some simple documentation with screenshots from this > 'KidzOOo' > > Sounds like a good schools project to me? Indeed. I'll ask around and see if I can get some of the Gold INGOT kids to do it as a project. > John > (totally ignorant of the education market) Some things that seem simple can be more difficult. In essence we could certainly get part of the way to KidzOOo by the approach above but we could hit unforeseen snags that only a specialist in teaching little kids would spot (I'm more 11-18 age group). But its worth trying and if I can get some of the INGOT students doing it, at worst it raises their awareness that OOo exists. I just heard unofficially that the INGOT certificates are going to be approved for school use from April which means that schools will be a lot more willing to do Gold INGOT projects in mainstream time as the certificates will count towards a school's position in the national school league tables. We need older more able kids to do these sort of projects and while we have had a good take up of the Bronze and Silver they are not designed to support community projects just to build capability in getting to that point. Eventually we will do a Platinum INGOT suitable for university entrance and these projects will then realistically tackle coding and give more flexibility but that is probably a couple of years off. One thing I can suggest students do is contribute to learning materials for OOo, eg devise a Moodle course for using OOo Writer. Moodle has around 1 million teacher users who are not by any means all users of OOo so Moodle would be a good vector for OOo marketing since it at least has got the idea of Open Source to a lot of people. So contributing to the Moodle community and the OOo community is good for both. Ian -- www.theINGOTS.org www.schoolforge.org.uk www.opendocumentfellowship.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Marketing] Promoting open source in education
On Sat, 2007-03-03 at 11:21 +, Ian Lynch wrote: [snip] > What would be useful is versions of the documentation targeted on > younger age groups. If at some point a version of OOo that had a user > interface designed for young children - fewer and larger icons, default > font that was large and the type script kids use to learn to read there > would be a massive market since many of these use specialist tools other > than MS Office for this in any case. None of this sounds particularly difficult to do: Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->View->Scaling Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->View->Icon View->Toolbars->Customise And then prepare some simple documentation with screenshots from this 'KidzOOo' Sounds like a good schools project to me? John (totally ignorant of the education market) - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Marketing] Promoting open source in education
On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 14:21 -0500, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote: > Hi > On 2007-03-02, at 11:39 , Ian Lynch wrote: > > > > > > For info. > > > > While not specifically an OOo project, (Most of the partners are > > new to > > OOo) a preparatory meeting was held for a Comenius project involving > > myself, Manfred Reiter and delegates from Romania, Portugal and the > > UK. > > Its early days yet but there is also a proposal for a Minerva project > > (which is potentially more money) and these both have potential to > > create curriculum resources in a number of languages helpful to > > OpenOffice.org. Details are yet to be finalised especially for Minerva > > but there are also partners in Turkey. > > > > > > Ian > > I'm familiar with some Minervas [0], [1], but what do you mean by a > Minerva Project? This Minerva is part of the EU grant system for joint projects across member states. Usually the partners are universities and schools and companies with an interest in education. The focus is Developing open and distance learning and ICT So while this is not directly focused on OOo, OOo could benefit, for example, by developing learning materials in OD format or by assessment of ICT designed to operate across Europe or learning targeted on OOo itself. Minerva funds up to 75% of eligible costs, on average 100,000 Euro a year. Its competitive so there is no certainty that a project would be accepted so there is some risk involved but having partners experienced in making applications helps. Also need maybe 6-8 partners in education establishments in different EU countries. (we have these and already had a meeting recently in Romania) > It sounds quite interesting. Along these lines, I've > also been working with Sakai [3], which has a lot of people here in > Toronto. Things are still early. But let's work together. I'm mostly > interested in getting things going and making sure that people know > of it. At this stage its just information exchange. The Comenius project is small and not so relevant to OOo except in so far as Manfred and myself are showing partners the benefits of using OOo in their schools :-) Also its focused on INGOT assessment and that can easily have OOo flavours. Minerva is a blank sheet. Joaquim our Portuguese partner knows the application process and each partner will have to have a work page they are happy to support, as a minimum we should be able to develop some curriculum modules involving OOo in different languages. Its likely that anything developed will be Creative Commons and so shareable. > Gerry S. (of documentation) also pinged me (we live in the same city) > and suggested the contribution of the Doc project, which I > enthusiastically welcome. What would be useful is versions of the documentation targeted on younger age groups. If at some point a version of OOo that had a user interface designed for young children - fewer and larger icons, default font that was large and the type script kids use to learn to read there would be a massive market since many of these use specialist tools other than MS Office for this in any case. Ian -- www.theINGOTS.org www.schoolforge.org.uk www.opendocumentfellowship.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Marketing] Current "Why OOo" site
When I enlarge the fonts on these pages big enough for me to read, the words to the right of the big "Great Software" graphic overwrite the row of little pictures below it. And is the large "Why OpenOffice.org" at the top supposed to be so pale that it's almost invisible? (Also the words "home of the world's leading open-source office suite".) The concept here is good; pity about the visual problems, which are considerable. (The punctuation errors aren't too good for our image, either.) I realise you "don't want to divert any efforts that we could use on the final 'why' site development", but this current site is really bad -- in contrast to the other "why" pages, which were great. A quick look at the "tryout" pages shows that they at least doesn't suffer from the over-writing problem, though on several pages the dark blue colour of the links in the left-hand column make them almost invisible against the dark blue background until I mouse over them. --Jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
