In den letzten Monaten gab es leider keine Treffen der Fellowship-Gruppe Stuttgart. Das wollen wir im Jahr 2010 wieder ändern! Daher möchte wir euch am Donnerstag, den 11. Februar zum Fellowship-Treffen in Stuttgart einladen. Wir werden uns in Sophies Brauhaus ab 20 Uhr treffen.

View Larger Map

An diesem Tag wird auch Thomas Jensch, Koordinator des Edu-Teams der FSFE, anwesend sein. Thomas wird über den aktuellen Stand des Edu-Teams, geplante Aktivitäten und allgemein über Freie Software in der Bildung berichten. Wenn Ihr euch für das Thema interessiert oder schon selber Erfahrung mit Freier Software in der Bildung gesammelt habt, dann ist dieses Treffen genau das richtige für euch. Gerne dürft Ihr auch Freunde und Bekannte mitbringen die sich allgemein für Freie Software oder gezielt für Freie Software in der Bildung interessieren.

Wenn darüber hinaus noch etwas Zeit bleibt, dann würde ich die Gelegenheit gerne nutzen um mit euch über den Neustart eines regelmäßigen Fellowship-Treffen in Stuttgart zu sprechen. Was sind eure Interessen? Was erwartet bzw. erhofft Ihr euch von einem regelmäßigen Fellowship-Treffen in Stuttgart? usw.

Thomas und ich freuen uns schon darauf euch am Donnerstag, den 11. Februar in Stuttgart zu treffen.

Um einen ausreichend großen Tisch reservieren zu können, würde ich mich über eine kurze Rückmeldung freuen!

At the moment Free Software in education is one of my main interests in the Free Software ecosystem. FSFE’s Fellowship wiki already provides some useful information on this topic. It’s quite interesting to see the development in this area. Further I think schools play an important role for the adoption of Free Software in many areas. What pupils learn and get used to during school is what they want to use and what they demand if they enter the business world. I also think that it is important to get as early as possible at least a basic idea about the role of software in the information society.

Today I read an interesting article about a school in Austria which uses GNU/Linux systems on USB sticks (German only). With LinuxAdvanced the school created their own distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (aka Lenny) and the lightweight desktop environment Xfce.

The Kremser Bundesgymnasium uses this system since two years on all computers in the computer science classrooms. Now they decided to switch from local installations to live systems on USB sticks. The advantage: The pupils can carry their system around with themselves. They can use it at school, at home or at any computer they want. About 50% of all pupils uses the system regularly at home. It seems like especially the young pupils using the system quite naturally and have no reservations. Further Rene Schwarzinger explains: “We don’t want to encourage our pupils to create illegal copies just to be able to work at home with the same programs as at school”. The obvious solution to avoid this is to use only Free Software at school and pass it down to the pupils.

In autumn they want to introduce netbooks together with the GNU/Linux USB stick to the pupils.

I really like the idea using USB sticks instead of normal installations on hard disks. Live systems are nothing new but I think it makes much sense in this scenario. With the USB sticks the pupils can work with their systems and their data wherever they want without having to convince their parents to install a new operating system at home which could be quite challenging, both technically and philosophically.

I’m interested in more success stories about Free Software and GNU/Linux in schools. Please let me know if you know schools (especially in Germany or Europe) which already uses GNU/Linux or prepare the switch to Free Software.

It’s time for the next Fellowship meeting in Stuttgart. It will take place at Thursday, 2 April at 19:00! We are going to meet in the “Unithekle”, Allmandring 17 , 70596 Stuttgart. Short term changes are announced in the wiki.

This time we want to talk about Free Software in education. I think this is an interesting and important topic. We live in the digital age. Therefore pupils should learn how to use and develop information technology in an social and sustainable way and all pupils should have equal opportunities. So if you know pupils, teachers or parents which are interested in Free Software, just take them with you to the Fellowship meeting.

I’m sure we will also have enough time to talk about other interesting Free Software topics. So if you are interested in Free Software, the FSFE and/or Free Software in education come and meet us at Thursday, 2. April.

For more information, also about previous events, look at our wiki page.