Re: Please translate press statement
Onsdag 10. februar 2010, skrev Andreas Tille:
> I wonder whether you missed the fact that my initial question was
> intended to be rhetorical.
You obviously didn't miss my rhetorical answer, did you? ;)
I have to emphasise that the making of the press statement went well.
Everything was fixed for the best. This is not a personal attack on
Alexander or you Andreas. But since you and I are bringing this debate
forward Andreas, you'll get a proper reply.
You claim that "Alexander not speaking as a Debian developer but as a
person who is not involved into Skolelinux and knows press related work."
By that, you're not addressing my worry, when Alexander cut out the news
section of the press statement cause it was formatted as bullets. He also
argued for removing new features as the desktop icons to pedagogic
applications and the improved sound support.
Alexander rewrote and proposed statement, making a extended "About
Skolelinux" section. What was kept, was a story a bit like a Debian
release statements[1]. This might interest Linux fans. This might how
Debian does things. But regarding news interesting for teachers and
decision makers, several important was left out. That was my worry. I put
that part back.
1. http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214
You argue that I don't know our target audience Andreas. I know Debian
development to much, you wrote. Then you disregard that I have helped
teachers and school authorities to introduce and run Skolelinux for years,
listening to their experiences, worries, successes and failures.
I also applied for 250.000 Euro grant from The Norwegian Ministry of
Education. They paid for a comprehensive report on introduction,
installation and use of free software in schools. Later PhD Lars Risan
investigated teachers experiences with Skolelinux, and wrote an excellent
article on it. This experiences has been presented on many conferences,
including Debconf, Grand Canaria Desktop Summit and K12 Open Minds. Using
this experiences in a press release is a good thing, even if Alexander
argues for omitting this things as being of no interest for him to add in
a press statement.
With those experiences in mind, learned from our target audience which is
teachers, school CTO's and school decision makers. I thought a Debian
centric press approach[1] is off target, because a right thing for Debian
is used in a wrong context for Skolelinux main target: teachers,
educators, school CTO's and decision makers in schools.
It's just explaining what what might be right with one audience, might not
be the right thing with an other audience. Debian press practices might be
perfect for Linux professionals and enthusiasts. Those practices might not
work as good for Skolelinux users and adopters. To exemplify this further,
let me refer to what Veder Ceder addressed at the K12 Open Minds
conference in 2008:
Vern Ceder told an interesting story about getting help from Linux User
Group (LUG) enthusiasts when introducing Linux to teachers. Vern works as
a Director of Technology at Canterbury School at Fort Wayne. After a year
of lobbying, he was finally able to persuade teachers in trying out Linux
in the classroom. He had prepared the Linux desktop for their computes.
Icons was placed on the desktop to make applications relevant for
educational really easy to notice. All the media codecs and browser plug-
ins was installed. To make a good introduction, he invited a local LUG
enthusiast to show the beauty of Linux.
Vern invited the teachers to the Linux desktop kick of. The Linux
enthusiast immediately started the command shell, starting Apache, showing
how that could serve web pages in a browser. He omitted all the
application relevant for teaching. After just two minutes, the teachers
were lost. The teachers were presented a Linux desktop from 1996. Thy
stated then and there. This Linux thing will not be used in our
classrooms.
Vern had to halt the presentation. He had to restart the whole
presentation. Showing what Linux could be used in the classroom. By
walking through the end-user friendly application OpenOffice, a free
software video player and Firefox web browser with fully working Flash and
Java, he was able to get the presentation on track. When adding a short
walk through with the KDE Edu applications and GCompris, and demonstrating
that USB works flawlessly. Even if Vern was able to prevent a disaster,
the Linux deployment was delayed by 6 months. Vern had to put in place all
his negotiating skills for months, to get back to ground zero. Where the
head master would agree to introduce Linux in the classrooms.
After this experience, Vern said he would newer ever let a Linux
enthusiast present Linux for teachers. He though that was really
unfortunate, because he had got such great help from several Linux
enthusiasts setting up the schools network and services. They did things
in minutes he had to use hours or days to fix. Vern wondered how Linux
enthusiasts and schools CTO's could continue working good together. Not
letting the best practices in one context, being destructive in an other.
This experiences at Canterbury School is of course not directly related to
the press statements made in a Debian context. But It's relevant for
explaining what might be best practices in on context, might not work at
all in an other. In this case, best press practices in Debian, should not
be used as an obstacle when reaching out to the Skolelinux main audience,
which is educators, schools CTO's and decision makers.
This was, and still are my worry. I had hoped you saw this other context
Andreas. The schools CTO's and teachers worries and need for help when
introducing Linux. A Debian approach might be good at that. Or it might
not work at all. A Debian approach could be counter productive. Doing the
right thing, in the wrong context.
Best regards
Knut Yrvin
--
Skolelinux
mob: + 47 934 79 561
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