[plug] Is anybody fearful?

[Jacqueline McNally]

At 02:07 PM 06/16/2002, Brian wrote:

> From Primary School level or before, the Ed Dept should *not* be teaching
>students how to use "MS Word".  They should be teaching them how to "Word
>Process" and use a variety of programs to demonstrate generic conepts and
>the various ways they are implemented.  Likewise for "Spreadsheet",
>"Small/Simple Database", Graphics Manipulation", "Presentation" and other
>main business software categories.
>
>I believe these principles should be extended through the learning spectrum
>of High School, University and beyond.

Over the last two days, I attended the "Making Connections" ACE Conference 
and had the opportunity to talk to many participants about Open Source. 
This is not why I attended, but it is a topic that we seemed to get onto 
fairly quickly. The reason being, is that I was asked "what do I use" [on 
the computer], so I said, "... open source/free software ...". I slipped 
Linux in a few times, but this was lost on everyone I spoke to, as they do 
not know how their computer works.

I have not yet had time to organise and collate my thoughts wrt the 
conference, except that the overwhelming feeling that I had from the 
participants and conference organisers is that they are an enthusiastic 
group of people and are passionate about adult community education.

You don't know what you don't know ...

All of the people that I spoke to (and promised to send information) were 
very interested in the GPL and GFDL. They do not want to create resources 
if they are already available and in a format that is accessible and can be 
re-used - they want to collaborate and share information.

As a result of the many conversations at this conference, I feel that 
people who are not involved in information communications technology, i.e. 
they simply use ICT as a tool (as they should), are not aware of the goodo, 
great, neat stuff that many on this list do :)

Awareness, Advocacy, Action ...

I am not fearful, but I am concerned that there is a generation of 
educators in the community that are unaware of open source/free software, 
GFDL, Open Content etc. who in turn will narrow the choices for those that 
access their services for learning. In this case, the growing ACE sector.

I will send the requested information to these 20+ people, but next time I 
think I will request that I do a presentation so that I can get to eat 
instead of talk between the conference presentations :) I encourage all 
PLUGgers to create awareness in their community, advocate the use of open 
source, and you may be asked to spring into action.

All the best
Jacqueline McNally
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/users/zenryaku/

Community Contact, Australia/New Zealand
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
(www.openoffice.org)

Are you a computer angel? (www.ca.asn.au)