Skolelinux for Schools in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
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The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
Skolelinux for Schools in Rhineland-Palatinate press@debian.org
March 15th, 2009 http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090315
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Skolelinux for Schools in Rhineland-Palatinate
The Debian Project is pleased to announce that Skolelinux[1], the
Distribution of the official subproject Debian-Edu[2], will get used in
the Rhineland-Palatinate as a basis for schools throughout the land.
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 federal states (German:
Bundesländer) of Germany, has 4 million inhabitants and about 1700
schools (about 900 elementary schools).
1: http://www.skolelinux.de/
2: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu
The community of Skolelinux and Debian welcome the decision of the
federal state Rhineland-Palatinate. Following Hamburg this is the second
state which chose Skolelinux as Operating System for its schools. Kurt
Gramlich, spokesperson of the German Skolelinux project explains: "Wishes
and suggestions from teachers of Rhineland-Palatinate will be included in
the further development and adaptation of the software. I am looking
forward to continued cooperating with the 11 pilot schools. Skolelinux
will be enriched by the educational material that those schools is set
out to produce."
Mister Burkhard Schaefer, head of division in the Ministry for
Education, Science, Youth and Culture said, that the adopted Skolelinux
for Rhineland-Palatinate has been tested in a first phase at eleven pilot
schools in a 10-agenda: "Competency in medias make school" (an
untranslatable German play on words). This program is a cooperation
between the Ministry for Education, Science, Youth and Culture and center
for IT and multimedia of the Ministry of the Interior and Sports. It
offers Schools die possibility Open Source Software usage concepts for the
class and the development of media competency. At the same time schools
profit from Free Software networks available and build new networks.
Burkhard Schaefer illustrates: "Skolelinux was chosen because through the
pedagogical network solution available through the Debian community a
large-scale sustainability for development of software competency and a
sustainable development of modern and up to date educational concepts.
Through the support by external service provider teachers may
concentrate on their core duties and don't have to fight against the
technic."
The University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern has appointed Prof. Dr.
Bettina Reuter and certified engineer Klaus Knopper as project leaders.
Both are lecturers of the business economics faculty at the University of
Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern. They are in charge of the adaptation of
Skolelinux for Rhineland-Palatinate and the reintegration into the
international project.
The newly founded "Society for the advancement of Free Software at
schools in Rhineland-Palatinate" lead by Thomas Rohde has made it their
business, to forward the wishes and suggestions of the teachers and
school representatives to the to the project leaders. "The possibility
for schools to design their education based on free software has been
long over due in Rhineland-Palatinate" said Rohde: "Here everyone can
actively contribute to the future of information technology and have fun
at the same time." Pupils can take the software they use at school with
them and also use it at home without any problems.
The federal state Rhineland-Palatinate has now announced a further
round in the "Competency in medias make school". Schools may apply
until the 3rd of April, to be get the Software platform including an
associated hardware platform. More Information about that is available
on the web servers of the Federal state Rhineland-Palatinate.
3: http://medienkompetenz.rlp.de/index.php?id=11745
About Skolelinux
----------------
Skolelinux stands for Free Software from the server down to the desktop
in schools and at home. The aim of the project is to fulfill the
requirements of schools an other educational institutions. The project
was founded 2001 in Norway and is based upon the GNU/Linux distribution
Debian. Skolelinux is a Custom Debian Distribution, created by the
Debian-Edu project.
About Debian
------------
Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system, developed by more than a
thousand volunteers from all over the world who collaborate via the
Internet. Debian's dedication to Free Software, its non-profit nature,
and its open development model make it unique among GNU/Linux
distributions.
The Debian project's key strengths are its volunteer base, its
dedication to the Debian Social Contract, and its commitment to provide
the best operating system possible. Debian 5.0 is another important step
in that direction.
Contact Information
-------------------
For further information about Skolelinux please visit the homepage at
<http://www.skolelinux.org/> or send email to
<kurt.gramlich@skolelinux.de>.
For further information, please send email to the Debian Press Team
<press@debian.org> or visit the Debian homepage at
<http://www.debian.org/>.
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