2005年英国OssInEducation会议议程（英文）

FLOSSIE 2005 Report
From Schoolforge-UK
The following is taken from scrawled notes, please feel free to add or correct where necessary. Especially useful links & slides.
Table of contents [showhide]
1 Day 1
1.1 Welcome
1.2 Simon Phipps
1.3 Karoshi Project
1.4 Moodle - educational tools at their best
1.5 Schoolforge-UK AGM
2 Day 2
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Keynote speech
2.3 Strategies to get from zero to Linux
2.4 Open Source Assistive Technology Software
2.5 Why Linux?
2.6 Parrs Wood School – A pioneer of FLOSS
2.7 Panel debate
3 Exhibitors
4 Thanks
[edit]Day 1
About 50 participants assembled by 12:30pm on Thursday 14th July in the exhibition area at Bolton Technical Innovation Centre (http://www.uktic.org/). The TIC is a brand new building next to a large school surrounded by fields, and from the upper floor you can see nothing but trees and distant hills, with little sign that Bolton is only a mile or so away.
The TIC provided us with an excellent buffet lunch, after which we moved to large well-equipped (and thankfully air-conditioned) conference room to start the afternoon‘s proceedings.
[edit]Welcome
Paul Abbott, Director of Bolton Bolton Technical Innovation Centre, welcomed delegates and explained the role of the TIC to provide equipment and expertise beond the reach of normal schools, such as a rapid prototyping machine and 3D printers. These could be seen already installed and in the main hall on the ground floor. The Centre also has a Linux network, with on room full of thin client workstations available for delegates to collect mail, etc. Paul also explained that the Centre is outside the reach of standard educational funding models, and relies on support provided by businesses and local organisations.
[edit]Simon Phipps
Simon gave a lively and entertaining talk about his role as Open Source Evangelist for Sun Microsystems. He explained how, thanks to the Internet, in the space of little more than 10 years the world has been transformed into a connected society, giving many different examples of how this has affected our lives. As a consequence the distinction between production and consumption of software is being removed: we all are becoming participants.
Simon defined open source as "Commons Based Peer Production". Any software team working on a proprietary project can now be faced with serious competition from a larger number of often better qualified FLOSS resources available outside the company. Open source is also a service mark, as defined by the OSI‘s Open Source Definition. He stressed that the core body of software code must remain freely available in order for the various open source business models to be viable.
Governance is the key to success of open source projects, and Simon compared three different forms of open source licence: BSD, GPL and MPL.
(??Link to Simon‘s slides??)
Quote of the day: "There is no such thing as a free lunch, but substantial savings by going a la carte".
[edit]Karoshi Project
Jo Harris & Paul Sharrad presented Karoshi (http://www.karoshi.org.uk/), which they developed from their experiences of installing Linux servers in several schools. Karoshi installs a linked group of servers specifically designed to meet the needs of schools with a growing number of Windows workstations.
The services provided can be run on a minimum of one machine (but recommends four), and the system is designed to easily scale up to cope with thousands of pupils. The network diagram (http://linuxgfx.co.uk/wiki/tiki-ind...d643e5b16e46a85) includes six servers:
Xen: Primary Domain Controller
Orac & Joshua: Student File Servers
Hal: Internet Proxy and Multimedia Server
Skynet: Printer Server
Sal: Backup Server
Colossus: E-mail, Home Access, Online Classroom & Web Server
Karoshi was developed on Mandriva, but work is underway to make the scripts both language and distribution independent. Eight schools are now running Karoshi, and it is hoped that the growing interest will provide resources to improve the documentation.
Paul and Jo also provided a demonstration of Karoshi in the exhibition area, which was always surrounded by delegates.
In subsequent discussions, it was hoped that Karoshi can contribute to the next stage of developing Edubuntu (http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/index...r_heart_out%21), which will be aimed at providing services for the whole school.
(??Link to slides??)
[edit]Moodle - educational tools at their best
Drew Buddie gave a highly entertaining talk about Moodle (http://www.moodle.org), based on his experiences of developing Merapolis (http://www.merapolis.co.uk/moodle/) at the Royal Masonic School (http://www.royalmasonic.herts.sch.uk/). In fact it was so entertaining that I made few notes, and you should view the slides! (It was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike any other presentation I have seen; excellent - SteveLee)
Most groups of pupils divide into three: those who participate a lot, those who participate sometimes, and those who don‘t participate at all. Moodle is a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and the most striking result of using it is that more pupils express things they would never express in class. In a class using Moodle, the level of participation is much more evenly distributed across the whole group.
Moodle also meets pupils‘ need to work at Twitchspeed (http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/...ch%20Speed.html) - author Marc Prensky‘s term for the generation that is growing up with game machines and computers.
Moodle is rapidly gaining favour over more expensive proprietary VLEs. Becta is actively investigating Moodle for the DfES e-Strategy (http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy/). The next version will incorporate the open source Learning Activity Management System (http://www.lamsinternational.com/) (LAMS) and be capable of handling SCORM (http://www.rhassociates.com/scorm.htm) objects.
(??Link to Drew‘s slides??)
[edit]Schoolforge-UK AGM
Members of Schoolforge-UK who stayed after the close took part in the association‘s first Annual General Meeting - see Minutes.
This was followed by an excellent curry dinner for all those staying in Bolton.
[edit]Day 2
[edit]Introduction
Dr Brian Iddon MP is Chair of the Board of Bolton Technical Innovation Centre Limited, as well as the Member of Parliament for Bolton South East and a member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee. Dr Iddon spoke enthusiastically about the work of the Select Committee, and invited delegates to write to him or the Committee Chairman, Phil Willis MP for Harrogate, with suggestions for technology and innovation policy issues that the Committee should consider. (Software patents, anyone?)
[edit]Keynote speech
IBM is a sponsor of Bolton TIC, and the company generously sponsored this FLOSSIE conference.
Liz Grant is manager of IBM‘s Global Services with a special involvement in UK education. Liz pointed out that, like any organisatin, three entities need to have a balanced involvement in order for a school to successfully develop the use of ICT: Users, Processes and (??).
The state of ICT in schools is reflected in a recent survey that found that most pupils associate "computer" with their Home PC/Gameboy/X-Box/Mobile phone, etc. while very few associate it with school. Unfortunately, decisions about the use of ICT in schools are not made by the people who teach, nor are they made by people who understand ICT.
Liz described the progress being made by Kemnal Technology College in Bromley, Kent, where IBM is providing a managed service under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.
(??Link to Liz Grant slides??)
In a question following Liz Grant‘s talk, Lesley Fletcher of Parrs Wood Technology College emphasised the necessity of acting now to find ways of bringing FLOSS into the BSF programme.
[edit]Strategies to get from zero to Linux
Ian Lynch decribed the International Grades in Office Technology (http://www.irlcomputers.com/ingots/content.php) (INGOTs) certificates that he has developed as a way to refocus IT teaching in schools and other learning institutions. There are several levels of INGOTs certificates that pupils can achieve: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The certificates can be studied by pupils under ten, and there is no upper age limit, making them suitable for a wide range ofstudents and institutions.
INGOTs certificates complement the National Curriculum, and provide a way for teachers to motivate students studying ICT. At the same time, providing INGOTs training and certification can offer a viable small business income.
A key feature of the certificates is the element of practical work that must make a contribution to the FLOSS community, such as documenting a feature of a FLOSS package. In this way, INGOTs students are introduced to the underlying principles of FLOSS, as well as gaining practical skills in the use of ICT.
Daniel Carrera then described the OpenOffice.org Authors Project (http://www.oooauthors.org/) which he manages. The goal of the project is to provide comprehensive User Guides and documentation for the OpenOffice.org components. Daniel described how the work of volunteers in developing, reviewing and finalising documentation is managed through the OOo Auther Project website.
[edit]Open Source Assistive Technology Software
Steve Lee and Simon Judge described their work on OATS. Steve is a MIS programmer at Exeter Further Education College, while Simon works on Assistive Technology for the NHS.
The OATS project
Together, they explained why useful Assistive Technology (AT) is much more likely to be developed within a FLOSS environment, although for obvious reasons most AT software is currently developed for Windows.
The OATS project brings FLOSS and AT together by enabling users, clinicians, academics and developers to collaborate.
To illustrate their talk, they demonstrated three Assistive Technology products:
Dasher (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher), which helps people with restricted movements to type
PowerTalk (http://fullmeasure.co.uk/PowerTalk), which translates text into speech
Examples (Priory Woods (http://www.priorywoods.middlesbrough.sch.uk/) & Meldreth Manor (http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/meldreth/) ) of almost-FLOSS resources developed by special schools as motivational aids to develop cause and effect.
Slides can be found from here (http://www.oatsoft.org/News/FLOSSIE2005) - note the full OATS site is not yet live.
[edit]Why Linux?
Richard Voaden is IBM‘s Linux Team Manager with responsibility for the North-East Region, which includes Russia, the Nordic countries, UK and Ireland.
Richard described the reasons why IBM decided to adopt Linux in the late 1990‘s, and how the company is supporting Linux and Open Source development. IBM is a sponsor of the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), which employs Linus Torvalds, and contributes significant resources to developing the Linux kernel. 10% of IBM‘s workforce now use Linux desktops.
In addition, IBM has released the Eclipse IDE (Integrated Development Environment) as an independent open source foundation, and the Cloudscape database software under an open source licence. The company is also reviewing its whole patent strategy, and earlier this year donated 500 software patents to the open source community.
At the same time, IBM believes in the continuing role of proprietary software. For example, when a customer requires guarantees on the perfomance of database software, IBM would recommend its DB2 product line.
Richard explained how the use of Linux is expanding. Linux now runs 30% of the world‘s servers, and this is expected to rise to 40% in three years‘ time. In the public sector, 8% of Local Authority desktops currently do not run Windows, and in the next few years large numbers of public sector users will be migrating from NT4. 70% of Local Authorities are now considering adoption of Linux at some point in the future.
(??Link to Richard‘s slides??)
[edit]Parrs Wood School – A pioneer of FLOSS
Lesley Fletcher is a governor at Parrs Wood Technology College (http://www.parrswood.manchester.sch.uk/), and he gave the first part of this talk covering the history of the college‘s ICT infrastructure, the present status and future plans.
Parrs Wood was a "failing school" on the south side of Manchester when the LEA negotiated with a contractor to rebuild the school. Lesley has been a governor from the outset of the rebuilding programme, and described how a new network infrastructure was developed based on Citrix thin clients running on open source servers. The thin clients were obtained from recycled desktop machines, donations from local businesses, and home-built systems.
Today the network supports over 1000 workstations, including both thin and "thick" clients as well as full Windows workstations, managed by eight IT staff. Every room has at least one computer, and there are several complete ICT suites. All students can login from home, and ICT is used in every area of the curriculum. Many students who couldn‘t afford a home PC have been given a PC by the school. The former library has been converted into an ICT suite - the Independent Learning Centre - where students can get on with their own work during free lesson periods.
Plans for the next five years include moving to Linux thin clients and developing a new form of pedagogy in which lessons are built around the use of ICT. Social inclusion and personalisation of learning are also important goals.
A very important part of their ethos is to spend the money saved by using FLOSS on developing internal technical expertise. They are contrbuting back into the local community by sharing this expertise and supporting local schools.
(??Link to Lesley‘s slides??)
Jo MacKinnon is a head teacher at Parrs Wood, and she next described the impact of the IT programme upon teaching and management.
At Parrs Wood, the Leadership Group determined how the ICT infrastructure should develop, rather than the ICT staff, and this had broadened the management‘s thinking about the way the school works. Jo also stressed the importance of proper remuneration for ICT support staff, who at Parrs Wood are treated the same way as teaching staff.
The use of Moodle Course Management System is transforming the way teaching staff use ICT, and like the previous day‘s talk by Drew Buddie, Jo heaped praise on this open source product.
Parrs Wood is also providing ICT technical support for other local schools seeking to develop their ICT.
((??Link to Jo‘s slides??)
[edit]Panel debate
(I have few notes here, please add!)
There was strong support for a proposal to hold one-day meetings, which would be aimed at ICT support staff from all schools within a local area, e.g. the Humberside/Manchester corridor, South-East England, etc. These meetings could be used to promote OpenOffice.org and other free software for Windows.
It was suggested that OpenOffice.org would make an excellent magazine cover disc (how to fund this?)
[edit]Exhibitors
Edubuntu (http://www.edubuntu.org/) - An Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntulinux.org) distribution for schools due for release in October 2005
Karoshi Project (http://www.karoshi.org.uk)
MaiaWeb (http://www.maiaweb.org.uk) site@school
The Learning Machine (http://www.thelearningmachine.co.uk)
IBM (http://www.ibm.co.uk/)
Moorgate Limited (http://www.moorgate.co.uk/)
[edit]Thanks
Thanks to everyone at Bolton TIC, who organised the rooms, refreshments and administration, and to IBM, who sponsored the event, for a highly stimulating and informative conference.
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