2011/8/16 Guru गुरु <[email protected]> > ** > Friends > for those who have been considering migrating to public software, two > workshops next week... > > "FOSS in education" workshop in Mumbai... by CDAC on Aug 26/27. See > details in mail below for registration form/process. >
They are priced at Rs 750, and involve a fairly tedious journey out to Kharghar for the day each. Does anyone on the list have experience of CDAC workshops of this nature? Is it fruitful? I am particularly thinking of the workshop on accessibility on the 26th, even though it seems confined to discussions of FOSS on the desktop (which seems to me a little antediluvian). Neither workshop announcement has any genuine details (speakers, subject of presentations, proposed workshop techniques). Feedback much appreciated, thanks. > Similarly, NATIONAL WORKSHOP ON FOSS ADOPTION IN EDUCATION, on August 27, > 2011 is intended to explore the benefits, role, and developments of > technology, specifically FOSS, in education. FOSS provides softwares that > are free of cost, easily maintainable, community support, customization > freedom, etc. Various FOSS tools in education will be demonstrated in the > workshop. The participants will also get to experience the work of C-DAC > Mumbai in promoting technology/ FOSS in education. The workshop will provide > an opportunity to interact with participants from different organizations > and industry practitioners. > While the work CDAC is putting in is in the right direction, somehow it doesn't seem to be very fruitful from the public accessibility point of view. There are oft-expressed concerns about the unavailability of BOSS downloads, for instance. GN had mentioned something about trying to provide a mirror site, and CAMP (for one) was attempting to do this unilaterally, at least for the current version. It seems to me to be very tedious to have to continuously monitor for updates and have to rehost them each time, all without a process in place. This jars a bit, when one looks at the workshop objectives, one of which is "Understand role of repositories (content, softwares) in technology adoption in education." The workshop itself is probably not the best place to even raise such an issue, but with so many keen FOSSers in CDAC it might be a good time to announce a more healthy policy. > > NATIONAL WORKSHOP ON FOSS DESKTOP ACCESSIBILITY on August 26, 2011 will > focus on exploring the current trends in the field of > accessibility particularly with regard to FOSS. As you may be aware a large > section of the society comprising people with different kinds of > disabilities finds it difficult to use ICT in the same way as normal > people do for fulfilling different purposes. It is very much required to > provide such people with assistive technologies that make theirinteraction > with computers more user-friendly and accessible. This workshop intends to > serve as a platform to encourage the use of FOSS tools and techniques in > creating assistive technologies that are free-of- cost, available to all, > easily maintainable etc. for such a > large portion of population in a country like India. The workshop will also > like to leverage the experiences of all stakeholders to identify and address > the issues in those areas of accessibility that are still untouched. > > The workshop will involve keynote and invited lectures by distinguished > researchers and/or professionals. We take this opportunity to extend you an > invitation for participation in these workshops. Looking forward to see you > or your representative at the event. Please find attached registration form > and workshop brochures. > This also sounds interesting. > > Kindly use the following URLs to access more details about the workshops: > > -- Vickram Fool On The Hill <http://communicall.wordpress.com>
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