[Linux-aus] New Federal Govt's Education/PC plans

[Janet Hawtin]

Marco Ostini wrote:
> Hey Phil, et al.
> 
> It makes good sense to me that we should immediately lobby the government 
> to encourage schools to use FOSS.
> 
> In practice however, given that a lot of the people we'll be talking to 
> might be somewhat green and strain to be interested, we should.
> 
> 	1) Give clear, simple, practice examples of what can be provided.
> 	2) Give a hands on demonstration and explain simply the benefits.
> 	3) Emphasise that we don't represent a vendor and FOSS works on all
> 	 mainstream vendors products. Support is available from vendors.
> 	4) Emphasise that it is a sustainable solution that saves taxpayer 	
> 	dollars, and make sure that it most certainly is.
> 
> This seems an especially good time for us to provide a little enlightenment.
> 
> What do other LA people think?
> 
> I was also thinking of inviting one of the new cabinet members along to the 
> LCA in Melbourne, unless someone has beat me too it...

Good advice
Tying efforts to things which can be practically supported is great.

There is a vet ace kind of focus at the edu miniconf this year.
Some via secondlife.
The vet ace focus might be useful as I think wide based training is something we 
could look to do more of and vet and ace sectors are a good fit for that kind of 
thing. If there is a tafe or other educational organisation doing linux training 
currently then feel free to send me an email if you would like to talk about 
that. Aiming to visit Computerbank and have a chat/lunch on the sunday so if 
there is a political person there it might be nice for them to come to that and 
see linux training in the round.

Cheers

Janet