[edu-eu] summary of the jabber meeting

[Thomas Jensch]

Hi,

a little bit later than expected i have published a summary on the 
meeting. The text you can read below, for a full version (with links) 
please have a look at the url: http://blogs.fsfe.org/riepernet/?p=128
=======
review: edu-team Jabber meeting
Already a year has passed since the last edu-team jabber meeting and 
therefore we took the opportunity to get in touch with the fellows 
again. Although the jabber channel was not as crowed as last year, it 
was nevertheless an interesting and inspiring meeting.


Guido introduced his work in the wiki and explained the stakeholder 
framework. That approach is a categorization introduced by Anne 
Østergaard (pdf) and very appealing to the edu-team, since it allows us 
to structure the many bits and pieces of information. As Guido also 
pointed out in that blog post, we face an interesting paradox. Many are 
interested, but still the fsfe-edu mailing-list is quite a low traffic 
one. The stakeholder framework with its seven categories reduces the 
complexity of our cause and hopefully enables people to easily make a 
difference on the ground.

Maëlle, another edu-team member and currently intern of FSFE presented 
the revised leaflets. One is targeted at students and the other one at 
school administration. After the public test at the BLIT (Brandenburger 
Linux-Infotag) it was decided to split and specialize the leaflets even 
more. This allows us to better adjust the arguments towards schools or 
universities and make use of specific vocabulary and example scenarios. 
Download your copies today and start the discussion in your 
neighborhood!

The comments made during the discussion show that we are on the right 
track, when segmenting the topic into small portions. As several 
participants noted, the reasons for Free Software based education are 
very convincing but only aim at rational considerations. A sucessful 
strategy therefore should also include emotional aspects to challenge 
the well known FUD and worries related to change (a subtle, but nice 
example).

By now there is still a lot of white space - at the wiki, on the mailing 
list - but that changes. The edu-team works on it. However, by leaving 
the work solely to the team, our common cause wont progress as fast as 
needed (and expected) by the interested public. With you contributing, 
the work will be much easier and less for all of us ;) Specificly your 
help with the wiki is much appreciated: share information, case studies, 
contact and background information you have about the different 
stakeholders so that others can benefit from your experience. Subscribe 
to the fsfe-edu mailing-list and start a discussion about facts on the 
ground or ideas what to do and meet like-minded people from all over 
Europe. In any case you might also want to contact the edu team, be it 
to upload content to the wiki or help with $something.

One immediate result of the jabber consultation is the idea for a 
monthly edu-team jabber meeting to improve and broaden communication 
within the team. Since this has a focus on details and work in progress, 
we wont publicly announce it, but surely will keep you updated via blog 
posts. Also it seems like a good idea to continue with the public jabber 
meetings (the system-hackers already have enabled access for non-
fellows).

On a personal note, i was impressed about how much we benefit from the 
diversity of the different european cultures. A french participant 
highlighted the importance of the administration to make the change 
while a german proposed to focus on the parents. I guess each will 
contribute in the area of their expertise and at the end of the day can 
benefit from the combined work. Being an european (non-governmental) 
organisation is really much fun and produces an amazingly manifold 
picture.
=======

kind regards

Thomas Jensch
edu-team coordinator

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