Fedora Education Initiative Launch
by Warren Togami
I met David Trask and Matt Oquist at LinuxWorld Boston last week and we
had a great discussion with a few other Red Hat folks about the current
successes of K12LTSP and ways to improve the software and community
around it. This is significant because this is the first time we got
other Red Hat people aware of and excited about the K12LTSP project,
which today exposes Fedora to hundreds of schools and countless
thousands of students worldwide.
We came up with some objectives and action items from this meeting to
further the goals of both K12LTSP and the Fedora Project. I believe
that we have a huge opportunity here to work closer together and better
the software for the education community.
Goals for us on this list are mainly development and administration of
Fedora related education initiatives. I envision keeping k12osn as
mostly educator end-user support for now, and we can later reorganize
the community infrastructure around K12LTSP when we have a clearer
picture of what it becomes.
Strawman Objectives for the next six months include:
====================================================
- Development discussion related to merging K12LTSP to become an
official supported part of the Fedora Project. This means that more
contributors will help K12LTSP development goals.
- Perhaps K12LTSP can be a "mode" to enable in the standard Fedora.
- Eventually convert K12LTSP to use the Muekow framework. Muekow
potentially aligns with the basic building block goals of the Fedora
Stateless project, so hopefully we can combine resources from multiple
Fedora projects and achieve this by FC6 in a clean and Fedora supported way.
- Collaborate on Samba and LDAP related integration possibly with Fedora
Directory Server in order to achieve out-of-the-box centralized
authentication between mixed platform school networks (Linux, Mac, Windows).
- Plan Fedora's involvement in Open Source in Education conferences
coming up, like the ones in ME and NH during June and July.
- Reorganize the community to better support educators in the use of
K12LTSP.
- Design messaging for the promotion of the K12LTSP model.
- Write more documentation to promote the K12LTSP model, and make it
easier to setup a K12LTSP lab.
- Professional production of an educational documentary video
demonstrating the success of the K12LTSP model. A well made video would
make it easier for LUG's worldwide to convince schools to try K12LTSP.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-education-list
Please share your ideas, comments, or questions here on
fedora-education-list.
http://k12ltsp.org/contents.html
K12LTSP Home Page
Warren Togami
wtogami(a)redhat.com
17 years, 10 months
Testing Needed: squidGuard
by Warren Togami
Hey folks,
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=165689
We need your help in testing the squidGuard package candidate that is
heading into Fedora Extras. We need to be sure that it is a smooth
upgrade from the K12LTSP version, it retains K12LTSP settings and the
blacklist, and everything works as expected.
You would need to download the newest .src.rpm linked from this report
and rpmbuild it in order to test it. Please leave any comments about
this package working or not working when upgrading from your existing
K12LTSP squidGuard in the report itself.
Thanks,
Warren Togami
wtogami(a)redhat.com
17 years, 11 months
Northeast Linux Symposium - A Great Opportunity to Learn!
by David Trask
NELS 2006 at Gould Academy is only a month away!
Summer is fast approaching and with it is the opportunity to begin
refreshing your mind and body and also your technology knowledge! While
the users are on vacation (either the long school vacation or shorter
vacations taken by organization or company employees) the IT folks (who
never seem to get a vacation :-) ) take the opportunity to refresh the
infrastructure and upgrade their skills. That's why I'm writing today.
Classroom teachers, Technology Directors/Coordinators, Technicians, and
others are all entitled to professional development (contrary to popular
belief). All too often many folks think of the technology director,
coordinator, teacher, IT guy/gal....etc...as the go to person when
things go wrong or whatever. They are also expected to stand guard as if
something will go wrong during school closing, grading, upgrades, etc.
Unfortunately, this is a reactive way of thinking rather than a
proactive way of thinking. This thinking also makes it difficult for IT
folks to upgrade their own skills by attending professional development
workshops and conferences.
So!....I encourage you to break free and set a new tone with your staff
and administration. Learn new ideas, learn about new technologies, and
network with colleagues from other schools and organizations to increase
your own skills that will eventually benefit everyone in your school,
company or organization.
So where is this all going? Once again we are offering an excellent
opportunity for IT teachers, directors, coordinators, technicians...etc.
to gather and learn more about some fantastic ways to better deliver
services to your users. The Northeast Linux Symposium in now in it's
fourth year! Now the name is a little misleading as it's not just about
Linux, but about Free and Open Source software and ideas for nearly all
platforms. Mixed networks are pretty much the norm in todays schools and
in many companies as well. Many of the sessions we offer show you how to
tie it all together with things like single sign-on, common data storage,
web based technologies, and much more! Classroom teachers can learn all
about some really great programs and techniques that will help them in the
classroom without affecting their already slim budget. Remember...you
too....need the opportunity for quality professional development!
This year we're offering two great opportunities for learning and
professional growth. NELS at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine on June 17th
- 20th and NELS at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New
Hampshire on July 16th 19th. Each has a unique focus and each will
offer you a great opportunity to learn in a hands-on environment among
friends and colleagues.
I am VERY EXCITED about some great new things that will be happening this
year at NELS. First, is the new users track designed for end users and
more specifically, classroom teachers, who use technology with their
students. I, too, am a classroom teacher and I'm excited to be presenting
with some really great folks who have years of experience with technology
and kids. We'll be exploring a lot of the great software that is in the
OSV FOSS catalog [
http://www.cybersource.com.au/about/education_FOSS_catalog.pdf ]([
http://www.cybersource.com.au/about/education_FOSS_catalog.pdf
]http://www.cybersource.com.au/about/education_FOSS_catalog.pdf)
[ http://www.cybersource.com.au/about/education_FOSS_catalog.pdf ]
Download the catalog and take a look at all the great free programs
(Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux) that will go great in your school or
classroom!
Another thing I'm excited about is we have a company that will be
attending NELS and using that time as a opportunity to discuss with
several of our presenters and attendees about how to Open Source their
product! We'll get to see first hand the process by which a software
product goes Open Source! This is especially cool since many of you may
actually be using this product (my school does!).
At the UNH NELS we'll also get to see Open Source in action! The folks
from the SchoolTool project will be holding a development sprint at NELS.
What does this mean? They're coming from all corners of the globe to meet
at UNH....talk to all of the attendees about what you'd like to see as a
part of the SchoolTool Student Information System (on day one of the
conference) and then they'll take your ideas....and put them into action
to show all of us the result on Day Three! Open Source program
development in action right before your eyes! That's pretty cool!
So...we really hope you come and join us! It's going to be the best NELS
ever and I want you to be a part of it! Visit [ http://www.nelinux.net/
]http://www.nelinux.net for more information on sessions and registration.
Register today as the first NELS is only a month away! Also remember if
you are in Maine and you're an ACTEM member (http://www.actem.org)....you
can apply for up to $400 in reimbursement of professional development
funds! So whaddya' waiting for! :-) Hope to see you all this summer!
David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Director
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask(a)vcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100
17 years, 11 months
Development Focus
by Warren Togami
Since opening this list I was surprised by the enthusiasm especially for
educational conferences. However I strongly believe that both my and
Red Hat's efforts, time, and resources going toward K12LTSP at this
point should be focused mainly on developmental priorities at first.
1) Development work to get K12LTSP merged as an official part of the
Fedora distribution.
- Submit all K12LTSP packages to the Extras review process
- Adapt to the MueKow framework in order to eliminate lots of the
redundant OS building.
- Make K12LTSP into a "mode" you can enable and configure from a GUI
interface after you install Fedora.
- Write improved tools like selection of interfaces and it tells you
what it will happen. That way you aren't surprised when a DHCP server
pops up on an existing network, causing all kinds of fun conflicts. =)
2) Development work of marketing, promotional and educational materials
in order to allow the message to scale to greater audiences with less
effort and low marginal cost.
- Educational videos
- Pamphlets
- Books
I *will* participate in the New England Linux education conferences
because I am relatively nearby. If we have a hack-a-thon I will
probably want to participate in that too.
Maybe we could set aside some private time for K12LTSP integration or
MueKow integration design discussion sessions at one or both of the
NELinux conferences?
Warren Togami
wtogami(a)redhat.com
17 years, 11 months
Subject:,Re: Development Focus
by John Baillie
I agree Jim, scalability is a major factor.
We are running 3 K12 servers to push K12 out to the school.
It works good for me but I eased my way into it over the past four years.
I would rather have some sort of load balancing in place but the chooser
screen has worked well for us this year.
John
> Subject:
> Re: Development Focus
> From:
> "Jim Kronebusch" <jim(a)winonacotter.org>
> Date:
> Tue, 2 May 2006 08:39:53 -0500
> To:
> Fedora Education Initiative <fedora-education-list(a)redhat.com>
>
> To:
> Fedora Education Initiative <fedora-education-list(a)redhat.com>
>
>
> <---- snip ---->
>
> I really think that scalability is huge to make Fedora/LTSP catch on in
>larger school districts.
>
17 years, 11 months
