Some artists working with textiles have discovered FreeSoftware. There should be really good opportunities in this area to make useful contacts and spread the word.Here is one starting point:

"Sintel" is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation suite Blender. With initial funding provided by 1000s of donations via the internet community, it has again proven to be a viable development model for both open 3D technology as for independent animation film. This 15 minute film has been realized in the studio of the Amsterdam Blender Institute, by an international team of artists and developers. In addition to that, several crucial technical and creative targets have been realized online, by developers and artists and teams all over the world.

Slide show supporting bilingual education for Aus indigenous children.

This book provides a clear and convincing statement for bilingual education for indigenous ausies.  Makes sense. Surely you need to read and write in your first language to ensure success in the second?

Stop moaning about saving libraries and use that creative energy to embrass the new and better ways and find cheaper and more effective ways to do what librarians do. Brilliant.

Apple has partnered with a Native American tribe to develop Cherokee language software for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, in an effort to ensure the language is not forgotten. This should also be done for other groups, maybe the Pitjantjatjara of Aus central desert for example

Students are using a dual-boot machine with UbuntuLinux and Windows XP. I love this account of how he got the change going at a Technology magnet school...note the focus is on bringing innovative experiences to students rather than making it easier for District Technology Department staff to do their job, which unfortunately, is what keeps GNU/Linux out of many school districts: The Rudd laptop scheme damaged the use of linux in schools in Aus. Maybe this will help.

A kid talking about books.

This has amazing implications for education and training. Layar is a free application on your mobile phone which shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality through the camera of your mobile phone. Layar is available for the T-Mobile G1, HTC Magic and other Android phones in Android Market for the Netherlands. Other countries will be added later. Planned roll-out dates for other countries are not known yet.

Scratch Day is a worldwide network of gatherings, where people will come together to meet other Scratchers, share projects and experiences, and learn more about Scratch. Scratch is designed for middle school students to learn computer programming and enjoy creativity.

The following presentation was originally delivered on August 18, 2006 as part of the Strengthening Your District Through Technology workshops. Useful to have SAMR model on display as a discussion point amongst teachers.

Review of Scratch, Alice and Shoes as programming environments for kids

I would like to encourage all schools to give some thought to the software that they have the students use from the perspective of access and equity. Is the software you are using freely available so that students can continue with their learning beyond the school, unencumbered. I would also like to encourage interested schools to consider hosting a "Software Freedom Day" event, a global event that supports local communities to celebrate and educate how Free Open Source Software can benefit people in their area. This year it is on September 20th.

FOSS fits well with the ideal 'Free and Open Education' by being able to give the learning tools to students so that they can use, share and build upon them. Collaboration and sharing fits well with this ideal and FOSS.

Go to the "Software Freedom Day" site to get more information about the event and register your team.
http://softwarefreedomday.org/

Hi Mitchell
Have a think about getting something together over your way for 2009. Check out Linux Users Groups for support in this - there are some very influential people in the Sydney region who might be able to help. If you would like a hand with putting on an event for your community please let me know and I'll put you in touch with some people that may be able to give you a hand.

Cheers

Peter

Mitchell Woellner wrote:
> Peter
>
> This is a great point i totally agree, to many students are leaving school with the assumption that they will be constantly using Microsoft Word forever. Such things as open office are being over looked and what will be discovered is that not all students have the financial capabilities of supporting enterprise level software.
>
> Cheers
>
> Mitchell

We've been waiting nearly half a century for computer-based information technologies to revolutionize education. While some in authority (including vendors) may supply glowing eports on the progress we've made, visionaries and pioneers like Doug Engelbart and Alan Kay insist we're not only "not there yet," but that we haven't yet fully grasped what "there" might mean.