Free software in schools. Download this from here
http://www.divshare.com/download/4053521-61e


From Farida Umrani <mailtofarida@...>

I am working with Prof. Sridhar Iyer at Dept of Computer Science, IIT
Bombay on content development for school computer science based on
Edubuntu . We will have the content for elementary class ready in
2008. I am sending you a draft of a textbook for class I (the file is
bulky; hence split and send in two mails). [DOWNLOAD FROM URL ABOVE]
At present, I am implementing this curriculum in one of the pilot
schools. We have included Scratch as a programming language for
students in Grade 3 & 4. Currently we are focusing on elementary
classes and plan to scale it up in the next academic year.

We are facing difficulties in getting the teachers familiar with open
source. Most schools do not have a system administrator or even a
regular Internet connection to get the regular updates and prefer an
installable CD that gives them everything. But to a windows user, this
does not appear intuitive and hence they are put off by it. I wanted
to know about your experience with Goa schools? I have read that GCSP
trained engineering students and teachers. Did these students help the
local schools? We announced a training program for school teachers,
but got poor response and therefore deferred it. Did you face similar
problems? How did you deal with them?

I myself have a Psychology background... and it has taken me several
hours of work and reading up the forums to understand the installation
and getting all the dependencies right. However, what is encouraging
is that students have received the open source applications very well.
I hope to learn from your experience at Goa.

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Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Ym/Gmailtalk: fredericknoronha
http://fn.goa-india.org | fred@...
Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9970157402
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