Session Start: Fri Oct 22 21:24:21 1999 Okay. However, while we wait, tell me who is on, please! :-) you mean, introduce ourselves? Yes, please. okay my name is Pete St. Onge, and I've been involved with seul for about a year and a half now, mostly doing admin & web stuff, helping out here and there. Roman Kirsanow - I mailed you some months ago about Linux For Kids - which started the idea for this interview. Great! Kind of nice to find out who is on bit by bit anyway :-). Douglas Loss. I've been using Linux as my home operating system for the last three years. I'm the Data Network Coordinator at Bloomsburg University in PA. And how are you involved with SEUL ... I've been interested in educational applications for Linux for as long as I've been running Linux, since I have a (now) 7-yr-old son. Since I couldn't find anything for him on Linux, I started posting messages in various places about the need for educational software of all types for Linux. I got the most response from the people at SEUL. The volume of messages on the general SEUL mailing lists got great enough last November that Roger set up seul-edu as a separate list and announced it to the world. He made the mistake of asking me to be the leader of the list, so here I am. my name is Roger Dingledine. I'm the leader of the SEUL project, one of the leaders of linuxunited (linuxunited.org) if it ever gets off the ground. i'm a fifth-year master's student at MIT.. general linux advocate, project manager, etc etc. First, the goal of the talk . My understanding is that we'd like to put together a piece that looks at what has been happening with Linux in the education area over the past year. And, of course, hope to bring forward needs in this area to interest developers :-) That sounds about right. Any other goals that people want to state? I think one of the main goals is that education is being, to a large extent ignored by developers. I'd like to mention a company I'm working for if that's possible. Go ahead There's a company called Topologika in England who publish edsoft and they had some communication with seul-edu. (i) Topologika is looking at Linux; (ii) That you've been working on a port of The Playground on our behalf just to get a feel for what's involved; (iii) That it's already available for Acorn, Mac and Windows; (iv) That the Linux version may be made available for free download from our web site - no decision taken yet on this; (v) That we're actively seeking opinions from Linux users about what their needs are. We're stuck in a chicken and egg situation. that's done then. :) www.topologika.co.uk Interesting. What is The Playground? Has anyone worked with it? I've done work off and on with this company for about 8 years now. I've been advocating linux ports to companies I work for as a freelance edsoft writer. So The Playground is a commercial software product for kids? yes We need to get Linux into the schools, to get the hearts and minds of the kids attuned to "software that doesn't suck." Once they're used to that, today's software (no names) will be a harder sell. And to some extent trying to find ways they can give to the open source movement as well. I've also tried to advocate ports of commercial educational software. To that end I wrote (and Roman and I are working on revising) a Commercial Port Advocacy mini-HOWTO. http://www.seul.org/pub/howto/cpah.html Are the four of you familiar with the Red Escolar project in Mexico? I know they're putting linux boxes into their schools. Is that Arturo's ScholarNet project? Yes, Scholarnet == SchoolNet == Red Escolar (from his talk at LinuxWorld in August) Arturo's a subscriber to seul-edu. There seems to be three areas that I can think of that touch upon Linux and education. Getting Linux into the schools, software for kids, software for teachers/administrators. Arturo's goals seem to be to get Linux into the schools first, then develop software for the kids and teachers, based upon feedback. In areas where the schools already have computers, applications are needed up front in order to give people a reason to change. Agreed? Yup. yes. This is the chicken and egg situation mentioned above. Okay. I'm talking enough :-). Let's get a progress report; Doug, what has gone on with SEUL/edu over the past year? We're working on a few subprojects that should build some of the infrastructure needed to get Linux into schools. One of the ones I'm most hopeful for is EduML, an XML DTD for data for educational applications... When you get a chance, define DTD for me, just what it expands to. DTD is Document Type Definition. It's a standard SGML term. Bruno Vernier is writing it (he's a teacher in British Columbia). Once it's done, anyone should be able to write an app using EduML as a data format and exchange data with any other EduML-compliant app. That would mean that the writer of a gradebook program wouldn't have to worry about the data format of the quizzing programs generating the raw grades. Sounds good. What is the current status? Does he have a beta? It's at version 0.91, I think. That's good! What other subprojects does seul-edu have going? We have a page of them at . The most finished are K12Admin, an administrative system, and Dr Geo (now becoming Dr Genius through a merger with the Genius project) a math exploration program. We also are getting increasing interest and effort on the educational HOWTOs, documents meant to help educators install, configure, and use Linux in schools. there's also a lot of technical discussion going on about using older hardware. Yes, the ability to use older hardware was a key issue for Red Escolar, as I remember. Where would I find the current versions of those? Our email archives have all the discussions; Ian Bicking is working on collating all the various threads into topic pages for our website. Do you have any projects that are far enough along to be actually used in a school? K12Admin is being used in schools. It's also part of the OpenClassroom distro. You mention OpenClassroom and call it a distribution. I list it on my distribution list, but the description on the webpage calls it more of a set of tools rather than a distribution. What do you think? Distribution or toolset? I haven't seen it in total yet. We talked about a seul-edu distro at one point, but decided that when we got to that point we should go with a toolset instead. I know Jose and Brendon want to have a comprehensive package for educators, so I suspect it will be a distro. They're talking about recruiting local tutors from the Linux community to help with installs and such. Okay. Any other particular milestones for seul this year? Meaning seul-edu? Yes, my apologies. Ian and I have been looking at logo although we haven't done much with it yet. We'd like to do a web survey to find out more about how people are using linux in education at home and school and what they need. I'm not sure if you'd call them milestones, but we have been talking with a few commercial companies about Linux versions for education. MetaCard is interested in making a version of its HyperCard-like program available to K12 schools at no cost... Roman, we originally talked about Linux for Kids. Do you consider that project to have been merged into seul-edu? Or does it still have a separate existence? it turns out that seul-edu is doing much the same thing so I just involve myself here now. I should mention that recently someone else started a linux for kids project which has nothing to do with me. Joy oh Joy :-). Yes, it's associated with the Kids Games project. Kids Games aims at developing "edutainment" software aimed principally at the home user. As such it's complementary to seul-edu. It is hard to keep people well-informed enough that they don't feel a need to reinvent the wheel. It seems that porting educational software is critical, at least in the short term. I've been very occupied looking at porting commercial edsoft to linux recently. Java technology seems one way forward. It's going to be hard for linux to get onto the desktop in schools. Arturo's project will be using gnome, abisoft and gnumeric for the basic toolset. but these aren't suitable for primary level. Very true. I know the british market very well - I'm not sure about the US. The british market is interesting with regards linux since they're used to "obscure" OS, being mostly RiscOS based for many years. Okay, so seul-edu this year has: active subprojects, with useable software; developing documentation for supporting the move to Linux; active efforts to recruit commercial ports to Linux. Does that sum it up fairly well? Almost. We're also encouraging people to get involved at the local level with helping Linux installs in schools. If people look at Topologika's website and see things they like then they could mail them and things could happen. The commercial ports part is succeeding to some extent already. Can you give me specific companies and/or software packages? I can't at this stage unfortunately - just topologika. Having one is a good start ... thanks. If we can encourage people to go to their site, where should they send feedback about what they want to have on Linux? There's a forum at www.topologika.co.uk they can post there or to sales@topologika.com Sticking to education-related topics, Roger, what else did you think should be covered? Every once in a while i notice a project and point them towards seul-edu and they tend to die out in favor of joining seul-edu. unfortunately, i haven't had time lately to do more than just keep the machines going. As near as i can tell it, seul-edu is the primary linux-in-education discussion group out there. there are other projects which aren't discussion-based. I'd like to talk about local Linux in education advocacy. I'm working on putting Linux on Mac Quadra 650s in a local parochial school. I find that parochial schools are generally more open to the suggestion of Linux because they tend to have lower budgets and less of a bureaucracy running them. Just as the Red Escolar project. Once you get some demo Linux systems or labs in some private schools, you have something to point to when you approach school boards in the public schools. And often, parochial schools have disparate systems that were donated by businesses that don't play well together with anything other than Linux. Interoperability is a good point. Not having hardware donations is a counter-point. Overall, that emphasizes the need in the US, to work from the bottom up, as opposed to the centralized system in Mexico. some authorities in England are using linux as e-mail and www servers - but not desktop. well, I'm not ready to recommend the Linux desktop to everyone yet myself. Some things need to be overcome, specifically applications, as you have mentioned. it's part of their NGFL program. NGFL? National Grid for Learning - very heavily funded government project to have schools all linked to the www. It's happening fast and in a big way - not all are using linux though - a guy is doing a report of the gov about it though. You've seen the projects in Canada to do installfests for computers for donation to schools or non-profit businesses? Are you talking Evan Leibovitch's Learnux? Evan's a subscriber on seul-edu too. Problem is, put a linux box in a school, then what - these are generally not IT experts - it will end up in the cupboard. we (seul) support the computerbank project (http://www.computerbank.org.au/), a similar project in australia. We're looking for authoring tools that will allow educators to develop their own content--something like HyperStudio or HyperCard. MetaCard is a good commercial candidate, especially if we redesign the user interface. Squeak is a version of SmallTalk that is being pitched by its development team as a very good environment for developing content by non programmers. Their UI, Morphic, is supposed to be expandable from being appropriate for young children to powerful enough for experienced coders. We're looking into it and are contacting the Squeak people, but since that meeting is in the future I can't say just where this will all go. Sounds good. I've followed some squeak development for LWN, but not used it personally. I think that we could do better to help home users - that should be something we can concentrate a little more on in coming months. It sounds like one of the major problems is too many areas to support: young children, teenagers, teachers, home users ... I'm on the Kids Games mailing list too. I think we should support their efforts for home users rather than try to expand the focus of seul-edu. what's the url for that doug? jeffery asked me to archive their list: http://www.seul.org/archives/kidsgames/ Bruno Vernier, who I mentioned before, has also written a school library management system. Okay. Perhaps I can get contact information for him. vernier@vc.bc.ca we need more developers and user input. Okay, let's talk developers. First, a mini-soapbox :-) The developers that I see doing well are those that are working on software they use themselves. Perhaps the problem in educational software is that the users themselves are not developers. yes Oh, but some are. And for them, you are writing documentation and tools, right? Yes, we're trying to make it easier for them to use Linux for what they want to do. And squeak is for helping build developers, so to speak. I think a problem is that edsoft is not just a case of being able to program. Continue? Artwork, sound recording, video, animation, research material and data, educational expertise. Ergo why it has been dominated by commercial vendors ... Yes - especially when it comes to licensing data. You couldn't do a free sesame street for example, or a history database - you'd have to pay royalties for the video footage etc. But it is exactly where we'd like to see free. Once free, easier exchanged, improved, etc. Although we haven't discussed it before (even on the mailing list), what might the Encyclopedia Brittanica's recent move do for us? They just made their entire content available on the web. I'd like to promote Bill Ries-Knight's Linux Educational Needs Posting Pages. (The URL is on our links page).... It's a place where schools and Linux users can list their skills and needs and try to match up. Let's figure out what else we want to cover. We need to get the developers and the educators together - so if we can persuade the address book writer to help write a database for kids for example instead. And the writers of spread sheets to develop gradebooks. That is a good idea. yes. I think that a lot of developers would be willing to tackle edsoft but are stuck for ideas. I'd like to focus on what the LWN can do, immediately and long-term, to help. One problem has been that it is easy initially to get media attention but hard to keep people thinking about it. After this particular article is written, I'd like to see if we can't set up a channel for regular news from seul-edu, to keep people interested, aware and intrigued. I'm hoping that synergistically this will help get you more developers. What do you think? That'd be great. It would also force us to generate news for general consumption rather than continue to talk to ourselves. if we have program designs, can we make a call for developers now and again? Yeah, we certainly come up with more ideas than we can implement. Absolutely. What I"d like, though, is to develop a weekly report from you guys, like the KDE and Gnome folks do. We're not nearly that big, you know. But gnome got big because people like liz gave them coverage. Thank you very much liz. :) I get reports from Midgard, YAMS and some projects that are actually much smaller and certainly less complicated than seul-edu :-). The problem is, it takes effort and time on your end and I know you are already heavily committed. If you can do it, though, I'll make it a regular feature. People like getting their names in print. If you send in regular reports, people will start sending *you* corrections and additions for future reports. How do you think LWN got started? :-) The issue is to have a regular deadline and send me some amount of information each time. Give me a project URL to highlight for the week, give me information on betas that are starting to work, give me feedback on problems people are seeing. I'll pass it all on. Doug, what about the alternatives list you wanted to compile? I tried to get people on the seul-edu list to send me lists of what software of any type they used in their schools so we could figure out just what sort of applications we needed for Linux for schools, and what sort of alternatives we already have. I only got 3 responses. If we could put that sort of request on LWN, we might be able to get enough of a response to geve us a clear picture of what areas we need to concentrate on. Again, a one-time request for education in general is too large for some people to take hold of. We want to keep their eye on the project over time. We can also mention Linux programs we've become aware of that have educational uses, and request people to send others to us as they find them. Great idea about the list of programs! Perhaps ... ignore that perhaps :-) and continue. Would you like to see a weekly or a bi-weekly report? Weekly is great, but it really depends on you. I find I like weekly, because the burden each week is smaller. Even a single paragraph will keep you in the news. Bi-weekly, you may feel obliged to work harder at it :-). In turn it really depends on our subscribers and coders, since they generate everything we have to talk about. Absolutely. but if they haven't gotten back to you, you still have to send me what you have. Shame them by their absence :-). People hate not to get credit if they are working hard ... It will give us the incentive to get more regular reports out of our subproject leaders too. Absolutely! I'd like to see people from the more technical projects such as gnome, enlightenment etc. asking us what they think their projects could do to help education, especially with regards usability issues, theming etc for window managers. Agreed. Roman and I have been talking about using WindowMaker as a UI for kids since it is easily configurable and has nice big icons on the Dock. it would be nice if these projects had at least one person to join the list. Well, rather than beat them about the head with it, let's make them more aware of you and see if we can't tempt them to join. Also, conferences are a good time for arm-twisting and making such contacts :-). Conferences are hard when you live far away from what's going on. Fair enough. I get there by speaking, so that they have to pay my way. And guys, well organized, this topic should be a good one to submit to conferences. Arturo got from Mexico to California that way. Getting the educators through LWN is harder. I know some of our readers are teachers, but only a tiny fraction of the number of teachers out there. As educators have tools to use, though, they'll want to talk to other people using those tools. We'd also like to see seul-edu become a nice place for educators to discuss topics of interest to them over and above just the technical aspects of using Linux. We can set up separate mailing lists for various tracks (technical, administrative, pedagogical, etc.). We need to get some visibility in the Linux community first, I think. Then we can reach out to the wider educational world. Don't split the mailing list too soon. Roger is gone, so he can't beat on me :-), but in the early days, SEUL had a very active list, got split into too many subtopics and overall interaction went down. Cross-pollination is good. No, we're not thinking of splitting the list tomorrow. Sounds good. Anything else? Roger wants me to know about seul hosting. Remind me of the URL and I'll look that up. SEUL is happy to host or help with development of education or end-user-oriented projects/applications: http://www.seul.org/pub/hosting.html SEUL was one of the many groups Bruce Perens quit in a huff. That gives us *some* cachet. :-). That's a cachet he's shared with many other groups ... He's a sharing kind of guy. Alright. Let's finish up with email addresses for everyone that was here today. Next I'll get a draft done and send it out. malonowa@seul.org Doug Loss Pete St. Onge I think. Roger Dingledine I'll probably be under a deadline when I do it, so whoever responds most quickly will have the greatest probability of being heard. And I plan on stating that you'll have regular reports from now on :-). Quickest trigger finger, eh? Trust me, I can always find something to blather on about.