[TOS] Fwd: [EXT] Greetings to the GNU Education Project from the TOS community!

Mel Chua mel at purdue.edu
Thu Mar 22 21:58:29 UTC 2012


Passing on the email I got back from the GNU Education Project, which 
made me sigh a bit, but... ok, I understand that GNU takes the 
terminology thing very seriously (even if I explained that TOS does 
include Free/Libre software in the first sentence of my email, which is 
included below for context since it's been a while).

I' not sure that this actually tells us anything more about what they're 
doing or how we might be able to join forces, so I'm putting this 
conversation down for now because I've got a few classes to pass at the 
moment, but wanted to do so publicly in case someone else wants to pick 
up the thread.

----------------------

Hi Mel,

Thanks for your note and sorry for the delay. I have no doubts we have
a lot of things in common, except we can't help it to feel excluded in
a name like TOS. Let me know when your group will decide it's worth
looking back to the old days when the US was proud and not afraid to
talk about freedom.

We don't have a public mailing list but just a small list we use to
coordinate the various tasks, the results of which can be seen in
gnu.org/education.


Best!

-- 
Dora Scilipoti
GNU Education Team
www.gnu.org/education


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [EXT] Greetings to the GNU Education Project from the TOS 
community!
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:48:46 +0100
From: GNU Education Team <education at gnu.org>
Organization: www.gnu.org
To: Mel Chua <mel at purdue.edu>
CC: Education Discuss List <education at gnu.org>


Hello, Dora --

My name is Mel Chua, and I'm one of the members of the Teaching Open
Source community. Although the group name says "open source," we explain
in the introduction that it's meant to encompass free/libre/open-source
software and content in all its forms, it's mostly that "TFLOSSAC" is a
little awkward to pronounce.

We're a little community of practice primarily composed of college-level
faculty and others interested in getting students *contributing* to Free
Software projects and communities as part of their coursework -- moving
beyond simply using Free Software to actually making it, adding to it,
giving back, and becoming active participants in the Free Software movement.

We come from all over the world, from all sorts of disciplines (from
journalism to electrical engineering), and from all different sorts of
schools (from small liberal arts colleges to huge public universities),
and mostly keep in touch via a mailing list but occasionally meet up at
academic conferences.

One of the things we've done for a while is teach a summer workshop for
faculty (http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE) who are
interested in designing their courses to include FOSS contribution as a
component -- instead of working through a "pretend" textbook problem, why
not have students contribute directly to a living, breathing project?

I'm writing independently (we don't have an elected leadership or
anything, but I told the list I'd take the initiative to send this
email) and therefore can only speak for myself, but I would love to hear
more about your plans for the GNU Education project. I think the other
folks at TOS would also be curious. And it may be that we have some
common goals and projects that it might make sense to partner up on --
for instance, perhaps teaching those faculty workshops together.

Our mailing list is at
http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos, which is the
best place to follow the conversation and ask questions if you'd like to
earn more about us. What's the best way for us to follow along with
what you're doing?

Best,
--Mel



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