Small reminder: ALUG meet at UEA on Sunday. See www.alug.org.uk
Now a message that MK LUG asked us to pass on: Note that "services need to be clearly relevant to education."
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Open Source in Schools Event From: David Willington david.willington@ntlworld.com
Dear All
I've been asked by Hemel Hempstead School to help organise a conference putting together schools with an interest in Open Source software with businesses and individuals that can offer support and advice. I'm based in Sheffield where I've just organised one for schools up here. I called the event OSCARS (Open Source Choices and Resources for Schools) and it came about as a result of this year's FLOSSIE (Free, Libre and Open Source Software in Education) conference in Bolton where the view was that everyone there already know about FLOSS and what was needed was a conference to inform people who don't know about FLOSS. The reason for Hemel Hempstead is that I know the new Head there and she said that Sheffield was too far to come.
This is the second OSCARS. I learned a few lessons from the first one. Firstly I'm going to try to keep a clear focus on education - the school's getting the schools together, and I'm approaching the Linux community. I'm keen to avoid a room full of Open Source converts, which is what happened at FLOSSIE. I'm planning to get about 10 businesses offering a range of solutions that are directly relevant to education and which are open source based, and ask the school to guarantee at least 25 schools. One of the companies that came to the first one was (as far as I can tell) offering Open Source on the back of a proprietary package. There's nothing wrong with this, but I'm eager to point out to schools that Open Source can come without ties. In other words, an exclusively Open Source event, although companies and businesses working with proprietary software are welcome along so long as they're demonstrating their open source options. From the businesses' point of view, experience in schools is good, but I don't think it's essential. However services need to be clearly relevant to education.
If anyone would be interested in being involved I'd be delighted to hear from you. The proposed date is Fri 27 Jan 2006 and the venue is Hemel Hempstead School, Heath Lane, Hemel Hempstead.
Thanks
David Willington