Warm Greetings To The FOSS Community, The first meeting of the "Indian Libre User Group" was held on March 22 2009.
Following is a brief snapshot of the meeting. Date: 22-03-2009 Time: 2:15pm - 6.00pm Venue: Internet Club, IInd Floor, AMI Trust Building, Broadway Enclave, Broadway, Ernakulam Attendance : 29 The turnout at the meeting was pretty impressive and just like last time, there were people from different walks of life. The attendees were enjoying a new video of RMS as everyone was arriving. The Meeting started of with the customary self introduction. Introduction to Free Software, Open source software and Licenses ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As always the meeting kicked off with the usual discussion on Free Software and the significance of Freedoms. The difference of Free Software and Open Source software was highlighted. The need for software Licenses and the GNU GPL were discussed. The concept of copyleft was briefly explained. The discussion was more lively compared to previous meetings. Agenda : Community based curriculum ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The agenda which was planned as part of our ongoing initiative to bring teachers closer to the Free Software Community. We had 5 teachers attending the meeting this time. The discussion started off by discussing the important skills which are the basis for IT Education. Some important skills that were suggested by the attendees were the following: - Typing skills - Internet Searching/ Browsing skills - General computer knowledge. - Application usage skills - Programming skills - Some people pointed out the fact that the existing curriculum was based on the above skillsets, but the teachers were not sufficiently trained to do justice with the specific subjects. - The syllabus was also outdated or rather inefficient in bringing out the core skills in students, for these there needs to be a revamp of the syllabus not a complete makeover. - There was mixed response among the audience to the fact that a community based curriculum would never appeal the decision makers. - Community based textbook was the need of the hour and a textbook created by the community would definitely be accepted by the decision makers said a few. - But the fact that the initiative was primarily aimed to shape a better future for students and the community did not have any expectations from any section of society, as is the community remains always said the moderator. - The teachers explained that the basic technical issues faced in schools, were the major hurdle that was preventing the teachers from gaining confidence to use Free Software. - The teachers also emphasized the lack of proper knowledge among the top level trainers. The direct impact was that the knowledge was almost nil when it finally reached the students. - The Book sprint initiative by the Free Software Foundation to create a community based text book (that would go into production) based on the GNU GPL, was announced during the discussion. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/book-sprint http://en.flossmanuals.net/gnulinux - A brief presentation on the aim of the initiative, the process of collaboration and how the community can contribute was shown. - The moderator emphasized the importance of such an initiative among the Free Software Community in Kerala to create textbooks for students. Since the agenda discussion just was a tip of the iceberg, it was planned to continue the same in the next meeting. Few action items for a better discussion in the next meeting were suggested as follows: - Attendees should try to study the existing textbooks and try to determine the shortcomings, if they feel any and think of improvements - Also they should think of important ideas of how Free Software can be effectively taught at schools. This brought an end to the agenda discussion. After the Agenda the attendees assembled in front of the AMI trust building for a pose with the new group banner. Thereafter they moved to have tea and snacks. Technical Presentation : An introduction to Python programming ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sameer gave an introduction to Programming in General explaining High Level and Machine Level languages. Sreenadh explained the basics of Python Programming with a few basic programs. Sameer then explained basics of Visual Python through a simple program to bounce a ball against two walls. Conclusion ~~~~~~~~~~ The meeting concluded by thanking the people who helped conduct the meeting and all the attendees. The meeting concluded at 6.00pm. We thank all the attendees for coming and urge them to put their feedback on the mailing list so we can improve future meetings. And hope the next meeting on 26/04/2009 is bigger and better. Photos and Details of the meeting will be available on the web site soon. Attendees Manu Ram Harikrishnan T R Sanjai Sreenadh Hari K T Hari Raj K Manoj Kumar Devaraj K P Santhoshlal V J Dr. Tharun Krishna Shaji Joseph Jayadevan C S Devarajan G Sivashankar Cilda Lawrance Sanal Kumar M R V K Nizar K S Ravi Sujiv Kevin Sha Bilal M K G Venkata Subrahmanian Sameer Jay Jacob Akbar Ali Binny V A Kurian Mathew Thayil Vishnu Website : www.ilug-cochin.org IRC : #ilugkochi on irc.freenode.net ML : mailinglist at ilug-cochin.org _______________________________________________ Mailinglist mailing list [email protected] http://ilug-cochin.org/mailman/listinfo/mailinglist_ilug-cochin.org
