Development Proposals
From Schoolforge-UK
This page is for developing the outline of a major project to be managed by Schoolforge-UK
Background
Professor David Hargreaves wrote an article in the Independent on 26th June 2003 entitled "Teachers must become networking wizards". These ideas are expanded on in his pamphlet Thinking Laterally available from Demos.
After some brief dialogue with Prof. Hargreaves who is Chairman of Becta, we have the opportunity to get some influence with Becta developing FLOSS in schools. Its very early days yet but there is some possibility of funding. We need a strategy that will appeal to a wide range of influential people that we could submit for such funding.
The projects we are currently pursuing that fall under this remit are listed below. We have prepared a brief outline of such a strategy for general discussion. Some care has been taken to match the key points with Government thinking and the known interests of Prof. Hargreaves.
- Ian Lynch, John Ingleby, Richard Rothwell
The Projects
- Forming the Becta Liaison Group to act as the single point of contact between Becta and the open source community
- Sponsorship proposal to the Specialist Schools Trust from the Open Source community
- The commissioning of the OpenOffice.org Database Extension
- The construction of a set of Software Certifications for eductional software - possible for Linux, Wine and File Formats
- The formation of a consortium which along with Schoolforge-UK commits to a shared standard for Hardware Certification for provision of a FLOSS managed service to school.
General Principles
- Projects will use the tried and tested methods of OSS projects to generate web based structured teaching materials that are free in the sense that GPL software is free. This will involve funding schools, possibly in conjunction with the specialist schools programme, to develop the QCA SOW in each subject using entirely copyleft resources. Support will be provided by E-mail lists, Wikis and conferences as has been demonstrated to be successful with large FLOSS projects such as OpenOffice.org.
- We will encourage *all* members of school communities to take part, students will learn how to learn in the latest development context that is sweeping world software development. The success is by natural selection of what is produced, not who produces it so if the community agrees that its useful, that is the acid test.
- All materials must be capable of running on free software systems and will not be tied to proprietary constraints. This is important for social inclusion and bridging the technological divide. This does not mean that they will not be able to run on proprietary systems, just that the first priority is that they are available for those using open systems. It is likely that the vast majority will conform to W3C standards and therefore run on most web browsers. Content developed in OpenOffice.org can be exported to MS Office and so on.
- All materials will comply with the UK government's 'e-Government Interoperability Framework' (see http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/egif.asp), which mandates a move to open DATA formats and protocols across the public sector.
- In tandem with developing the learning resources, we will develop the software infrustructure for supporting the process of authoring, publishing, editing and assimilating these materials. We will leverage existing OSS collaboration systems, and enhance them as needed by an OSS community proccess.
- In ORDER to improve equity to these resources, we will support projects to recycle older computers. These will run free software and provide access to the developed resources to disdvantaged pupils. Business and Enterprise and Maths and Computing specialist schools will be encouraged to set up recycling projects in collaboration with local industry to make this work with the students themselves providing the support service as out of hours activities similar to Young Enterprise. This could be financed by asking the schools to put aside some of their specialist schools recurrent grant for the purpose and match funding this with additional grant to pay for training, spare parts and transport. A spin off would be a reduction in the number of machines being thrown INTO landfill sites and therefore supports Government environment targets. Pupils would also gain practical experience in technology support and maintenance.
- Schoolforge UK has personnel drawn FROM teaching, industry and commerce and has the expertise and experience to make this project work. In collaboration with Becta, the DfES and the Specialist Schools Trust, we can make a significant impact on the use of open standards in schools ICT and at the same time improve the technological understanding of whole school communities. We can SHOW that UK education can provide leadership to the rest of the world in strategies for government projects based on open standards and collaborative working based on the best concepts of citizenship and social inclusion.
- We will provide training plans for school, CLC and other non-technical staff to assist their participation in the projects.
