Onsdag 10. februar 2010, skrev Andreas Tille: > I wonder whether you missed the fact that my initial question was > intended to be rhetorical.
You obviously didn't miss my rhetorical answer, did you? ;) I have to emphasise that the making of the press statement went well. Everything was fixed for the best. This is not a personal attack on Alexander or you Andreas. But since you and I are bringing this debate forward Andreas, you'll get a proper reply. You claim that "Alexander not speaking as a Debian developer but as a person who is not involved into Skolelinux and knows press related work." By that, you're not addressing my worry, when Alexander cut out the news section of the press statement cause it was formatted as bullets. He also argued for removing new features as the desktop icons to pedagogic applications and the improved sound support. Alexander rewrote and proposed statement, making a extended "About Skolelinux" section. What was kept, was a story a bit like a Debian release statements[1]. This might interest Linux fans. This might how Debian does things. But regarding news interesting for teachers and decision makers, several important was left out. That was my worry. I put that part back. 1. http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214 You argue that I don't know our target audience Andreas. I know Debian development to much, you wrote. Then you disregard that I have helped teachers and school authorities to introduce and run Skolelinux for years, listening to their experiences, worries, successes and failures. I also applied for 250.000 Euro grant from The Norwegian Ministry of Education. They paid for a comprehensive report on introduction, installation and use of free software in schools. Later PhD Lars Risan investigated teachers experiences with Skolelinux, and wrote an excellent article on it. This experiences has been presented on many conferences, including Debconf, Grand Canaria Desktop Summit and K12 Open Minds. Using this experiences in a press release is a good thing, even if Alexander argues for omitting this things as being of no interest for him to add in a press statement. With those experiences in mind, learned from our target audience which is teachers, school CTO's and school decision makers. I thought a Debian centric press approach[1] is off target, because a right thing for Debian is used in a wrong context for Skolelinux main target: teachers, educators, school CTO's and decision makers in schools. It's just explaining what what might be right with one audience, might not be the right thing with an other audience. Debian press practices might be perfect for Linux professionals and enthusiasts. Those practices might not work as good for Skolelinux users and adopters. To exemplify this further, let me refer to what Veder Ceder addressed at the K12 Open Minds conference in 2008: Vern Ceder told an interesting story about getting help from Linux User Group (LUG) enthusiasts when introducing Linux to teachers. Vern works as a Director of Technology at Canterbury School at Fort Wayne. After a year of lobbying, he was finally able to persuade teachers in trying out Linux in the classroom. He had prepared the Linux desktop for their computes. Icons was placed on the desktop to make applications relevant for educational really easy to notice. All the media codecs and browser plug- ins was installed. To make a good introduction, he invited a local LUG enthusiast to show the beauty of Linux. Vern invited the teachers to the Linux desktop kick of. The Linux enthusiast immediately started the command shell, starting Apache, showing how that could serve web pages in a browser. He omitted all the application relevant for teaching. After just two minutes, the teachers were lost. The teachers were presented a Linux desktop from 1996. Thy stated then and there. This Linux thing will not be used in our classrooms. Vern had to halt the presentation. He had to restart the whole presentation. Showing what Linux could be used in the classroom. By walking through the end-user friendly application OpenOffice, a free software video player and Firefox web browser with fully working Flash and Java, he was able to get the presentation on track. When adding a short walk through with the KDE Edu applications and GCompris, and demonstrating that USB works flawlessly. Even if Vern was able to prevent a disaster, the Linux deployment was delayed by 6 months. Vern had to put in place all his negotiating skills for months, to get back to ground zero. Where the head master would agree to introduce Linux in the classrooms. After this experience, Vern said he would newer ever let a Linux enthusiast present Linux for teachers. He though that was really unfortunate, because he had got such great help from several Linux enthusiasts setting up the schools network and services. They did things in minutes he had to use hours or days to fix. Vern wondered how Linux enthusiasts and schools CTO's could continue working good together. Not letting the best practices in one context, being destructive in an other. This experiences at Canterbury School is of course not directly related to the press statements made in a Debian context. But It's relevant for explaining what might be best practices in on context, might not work at all in an other. In this case, best press practices in Debian, should not be used as an obstacle when reaching out to the Skolelinux main audience, which is educators, schools CTO's and decision makers. This was, and still are my worry. I had hoped you saw this other context Andreas. The schools CTO's and teachers worries and need for help when introducing Linux. A Debian approach might be good at that. Or it might not work at all. A Debian approach could be counter productive. Doing the right thing, in the wrong context. Best regards Knut Yrvin -- Skolelinux mob: + 47 934 79 561 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
