[Linux-aus] Fwd: [LACTTE] Notes for Council Meeting 2010/02/03

[Silvia Pfeiffer]

On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Russell Stuart
<russell-linuxaus at stuart.id.au> wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-02-17 at 12:28 +1100, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
>> The students ordinarily don't know about Linux. None of the other kids
>> at my son's school do unless they heard about it from him. So, this is
>> as much about informing them that such software exists as it is about
>> encouraging them to use it. But yes, the letter would need both: where
>> to download it from and where to get support from.
>
> As the father of some now adult teenagers, I am fairly certain they
> devote roughly the attention span of a gnat to pronouncements from their
> elders on the coolness of a given technology.
>
> If you want to get more than that, you have a few choices:
>
> 1.  Get one of their peers to champion it.
>
> 2.  Make it do something that is immediately useful to them.  For
> example, if the mandatory internet filter comes out produce a live CD
> that lets them bypass it easily.
>
> 3.  Use our control of the system to pound it into them.  Eg get
> teachers interested, or get projects into schools that use open source,
> present a talk at the school computer class, or put up an open source
> tent at the school fete to make a plea to mum and dads hip pocket.
>
> Getting (1) to happen is difficult.  You and/or LA probably don't like
> the idea of (2).  Which leaves (3).  But just handing out CD's without
> doing something to garner more than a gnat like attention span is just
> going to create land fill.

I don't mind (2), but it cannot be the marketing drive - more the
"viral message" that you are only told as an insider. ;-)

Actually, the idea of a tent at a school fete could be cool. Have a
permanent installfest there - have some windows computer sitting
around and show them how to get through a linux install in half an
hour, rinse repeat. Pull them in with some cool stuff - like
programming their own game (I'm hoping to learn that from Tim at the
next SLUG) - or like replacing all their costly MS apps with free
tools (more for the parents, probably) - or running phun - or ...
anybody got any further ideas? I'm obviously already planning my son's
next school fete. ;-)

Cheers,
Silvia.