NLedu campaign plan, draft

Jan Stedehouder janstedehouder at gmail.com
Mon Nov 21 09:08:26 CET 2011


Good morning Guido,

>
> Looks good to me. Enough to start and get active! :)
> What I am missing is a kind of time plan and an overview of what's
> being worked on right now to eliminate duplicate work. More comments
> below.
>

The campaign plan is currently of overview of things to do. As for the
time plan, it all depends on the amount of help that is available. So
far the moral support is great, but hands-on support is scant. When
someone stepped forward to take care of one of the campaign items,
I've added it to the plan.

>
> which brings me to: Are you in contact with Gijs Hilenius? He seems to
> be dutch speaking and he publishes a lot on osor.eu.
> http://forge.osor.eu/users/gijshillenius
>

Yes, Gijs and I are in contact. In the upcoming edition of Linux
Magazine (Dutch edition) he will write an article about the campaign.

>
> Back to the campaign itself:
>
> I just had a look at the campaign page:
> http://fsfe.org/campaigns/nledu/nledu.en.html
>
> The first thing I noticed was that there is no dutch translation for
> it. Is this being worked on?
>

I thought there was some work being done on the translation, so I
focused on other tasks.

> The archive of the advertised discussion list shows the last email
> from August 1st. Is it true that this campaign hasn't been discussed
> there? Not even announced? If this is true, I admire Jan even more,
> Jan, but it also makes me sad that you had to do everything all
> alone...
>

Well, not everything. Mark and I spoke this weekend and he will
approach the Dutch fellows for some specific tasks. There is also some
help from a couple of Dutch activists, but overall the pace of the
activities is suffering from a lack of hands-on help. This weekend I
finished the final draft for the second round of questions to the
minister of Education, as requested by Arjan el Fassed. I've send the
draft to the members of the Dutch team that have been the most active
so far and will send it to Arjan tonight.

After that I'll start working on a FOIA request to gather more
information on what really has been done by the ministry of Education.

With the risk of offending our pacifist friends, but most of the work
that needs to be done is stacking up the ammunition for the next phase
of the campaign. Favorable PR alone won't pursuade parliament to pass
a new motion and legislation, especially not in the field of education
(which is already one of the most resilient to change).

> I didn't go through the whole donation process, but it seems that it
> doesn't allow to specify that the donated money is dedicated to this
> particular campaign. Is this intended?
>
> The Microblog widget shows only one dent by Jan labeled
> "Twitter / janstedehouder"
> a click on that makes the notice disappear - nothing else.
> a click on the time stamp below brings you to the actual dent.
> a click on the identi.ca icon in the widget brings you to the fsfenl
> identi.ca group which currently contains one posting. And that's not
> the one showing in the widget.
> the microblog widget itself is not labeled
>
> I'd open a ticket for our web-team, but I don't know if some of this
> is intended. What is supposed to be shown there?
>

It would be nice if all #nledu tweets and dents could appear there.

> It happens that I am the very first and only follower of the fsfenl
> account on identi.ca. Is it possible that we promote it a little more?
>
> Whoever has access to that account should add some tags and join the
> fsfe group and possibly other groups which might be of interest. Our
> dents will only appear in other groups when that account is a member
> of them.
>
> I think it is time for another news item on the campaign page. Do we
> have something to report?
>

The next item will be the second round of questions to the minister of
Education.

> I just joined the fsfe-nl mailing list as suggested by the campaign page.
> Is it ok to post in English there?
>

It won't be a problem for me ;-)

>
> Now to the points of the campaign plan. I'll quote the to-do items
> as (CP):
>
> CP >1. Reaching out to organisations for students, parents, teachers,
> CP >   consumers etcetera;
>
> That's mainly meant for people in NL, correct? Who is working on this?
> Is there a way, people from outside NL can help here?
>

No strong commitment there, so I've added it to my list of things to do myself.

> CP >2. Involving students and parents by actively engaging them via
> CP >   various social media;
>
> What's being done here?
>

There is a strong use of social media, but so far we haven't extended
it to the new target audience.

> CP >3. Increase presence of the campaign in education, i.e. making sure
> CP >   we are present and visible at educational conventions and seminars;
>
> Do you have a list of upcoming conventions and seminars? Any specific
> plans to show up there?
>

Not yet I'm afraid.

> CP >4. Compiling a list of schools that use proprietary webtechnologies
> CP >   and closed standards, and the real consequences this has for their
> CP >   students;
>
> How did you reach the 900+ supporters for the petition? Do you think
> you can motivate them to report such incidents? Where to? To the NL
> List as well? How many dutch speaking activists do we have at hand to
> act upon reported incidents?
>

A substantial group of supporters have signed the petition with the
option to receive updates. I'll need to create a mailing list and will
then approach them. Basically I'll use any platform that is available
in the shortest time possible with the lowest barrier to
participation. A simple Google form would be sufficient for the first
gathering of information.

> CP >5. Writing a whitepaper on alternative tools for the online
> CP >   schoolbuilding that use Open Standards and allow for
> CP >   vendor-independent access;
>
> Please forgive my ignorance, not being a silverlight user myself, what
> is it what the current system is doing? What services/functionality
> needs to be covered by the alternatives?
>
> Once I have a list of the functionality, I can ask aground.
>

I think it's up to the people who write the whitepaper to analyze both
Magister and Silverlight before compiling a list of alternatives. What
it does now is:

- Calendar
- Publishing grades
- ELO
- Homework assignments
- Communication with teachers
- Projectteams
- Student portfolio
- HR information
- Financial information

http://www.schoolmaster.nl/Producten/MagisterFunctionaliteit/tabid/84/language/nl-NL/Default.aspx
(in Dutch)

>
> CP >6. Writing a publication for educational institutions on how to
> CP >   broaden their curricula with vendor-independent skill-sets;
>
> That's a tough one. But it would be great to have! Do we have
> qualified pedagogic people on board? I think we can ask around
> throughout Europe again. Don't you think? I have a couple of groups in
> mind to ask.
>

Please do approach them. This is a publication that would benefit from
a broader European perspective. Perhaps we could even approach Neelie
Kroes as it harmonizes with the Digital Agenda.

> CP >7. Researching (and publishing on):
> CP >    1. the accessibilty of all online educational environments
> CP >       (in line with:  http://www.accessibility.nl/algemeen/publicaties/digitaletoegankelijkheid
>
> I can't read the linked article, but accessibility is going to be a
> tough one, too. I was told that there aren't many Free Software
> programs that can compete with their proprietary counterparts. I
> really have to do some in-depth research here and I am going to write
> a separate email on this to edu-team@ anyway. I learned a lot about
> accessibility at FSCONS. If there is anybody here who has a deeper
> knowledge on this, please ping me!
>
> CP >    2. the use of open standards in educational procurement;
> CP >    3. possibilities with existing law and regulations to mandate
> CP >       the use of open standards in education.
>
> I take that you are working on this with your lawyers?
>

No, the legal route with the lawyers focuses on educational
institutions that are locking out students. It will emphasize the
existing problem. A favorable ruling helps in pushing for a new law.

>
> Next paragraph: 2. Pushing for legislation
>
> CP >What needs to be done?
> CP >
> CP >   1. Supporting parliament with the next round of questions for the
> CP >      Secretary of Education;
>
> I understand this is being worked on.
>
> CP >   2. Lobbying with the various members of parliament, informing them
> CP >      about the need for new legislation;
>
> Any specific plans here? I saw that the list of arguments has been
> translated. Great stuff! Is there a way, non-NL people can help?
>

I've had a few conversations. Work is being done on approaching the
christian democrats party, I've had a chat with someone who can do the
same with the liberal party and the freedom party.

> OK, I am leaving the campaign plan on google docs again and list some
> remaining points from my notes:
>
> An earlier email stated that there is a "central place needed to
> aggregate all info". I understand that
> http://fsfe.org/campaigns/nledu/nledu.en.html
> is supposed to fill that.
>
> How do we feed that page? Who puts more stuff to it when it arises?
> Apparently, not every #nledu tagged tweet is reported there. How are
> we going to handle this?
>
> Another unanswered question from previous emails I read today is, that
> it is "difficult to delegate tasks" and "exchange information".
>
> How can we make the campaign page help here? The mailing list is
> obviously not being used to exchange information. So, I assume Jan has
> been coordinating and answering every email all by himself.
>

So far, yes.

> Jan, is there any way we can help you here?
>

I'd like to hear what is the FSFE experience here. This is my first campaign ;-)

>
> Another quote from eariler emails:
>
>  we need a campaign site with static information about our goals (why,
>  how) and about how to participate (a student suggested to provide some
>  instruction on how to approach schoolmanagement). It would be good to
>  be able to pull in social media updates and to publish regular
>  updates.  The pick-a-task thingy indeed is on my wishlist. Finally,
>  some tool for people who wish to donate. So far it wasn't necessary to
>  raise funds, but once we go to court we will need it. And I suspect
>  the entire campaign will incur costs sooner or later.
>
> We fixed the part with the static page. Is there any work going on on
> the "instruction on how to approach a school management"?
>
> The regular updates can be done by the microblogging widget on the
> campaign page, but it has to be used!
>
> I like the idea of the "pick-a-task thingy" a lot. Any ideas how we
> can implement that?
>
> The funding issue is addressed earlier in this email. I think it
> should be possible to donate for this particular campaign.
>
>
> So much for today. Looking forward to your responses.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Guido

Regards,

Jan


More information about the FSFE-BNL mailing list