BoFs/Education/Dec10-2005

Five of us met at the 'My Tea House' near PESIT on Dec 10 2005 to discuss the future plans fo the FOSS EDU IN group. Some of the topics discussed are listed below

Meeting minutes

• Creation of a FOSS course material

1 Most universities in India (exceptions are IIT, IISc, RECs.) have a syllabi that is theory-based. Its just that the theory is not being put into practice. Rather than having to create new course material, what is really required is to show how to apply theory into the real world. For example, if you take the course CS378: Linux kernel programming by Prof. Yongguang Zhang at University of Austin, Texas:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ygz/378-02S/

and look at the grading:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ygz/378-02S/course.html#grading

80% is alloted for practical work so you understand the theory and its application. But, in a majority of universities in India students just learn the theory and don't try it out in real-time, which is what you will be doing in the industry. So, this initiative should be taken by students, until the universities change the method of education.

>> This course will not be for the universities (though that too is in the todo list). This one is to equip students to use and contribute to FOSS. This course will not be for the universities (though that too is in the todo list). This one is to equip students to use and contribute to FOSS. Like how to use CVS, development tools ....

• Consortium for FOSS training

 consortium -  a group of people, countries, companies, etc. who are working    together on a 
 particular project:

• Building local communities in different campuses

1 All these exist in many colleges in the form of LUGS/FSUGS.

>> Not in all the campuses. Even in many campuses that do have LUGS/FSUGS are not active. In PESIT it is just started, BMS inactive for long (MSRIT has a very active LUG, it was inactive for a log time).

• A GNUsletter on to update every months activities.

1 All these exist in the Internet in one form or another. Its just that students are not aware of these.

In a class of 40-60 so-called "engineering students", only 6-8 students are really interested in doing engineering. The system doesn't motivate the others into learning new things.

<gossip> A friends' friend of mine, working in Mentor Graphics, said he stopped going to Bangalore, because he said that I have to explain the problem to Indian graduates, discuss possible solutions. and then they come up with a solution. He has started going to Shanghai because he says that he only has to give the problem to the Chinese, and they can solve it immediately. </gossip>

• Creation of technical content
• Selecting FOSS projects which students can take up as academic projects
• Broadband internet for students

This was a very interesting point. As high speed internet connection is a must for foss development we should offer it for interested students as scholarships (comapnies like Redhat/Novell/Google/HP/IBM .... can offer it -- It costs just Rs 250 per month per student)

• FOSS centeres in colleges (Eg: IITB) in association with companies were students get all the facilities for foss development.
• FOSS campaigns in schools

As most of the colleges are having exam season we are looking for schools in the mean time as targets. We hope to have some seminars in schools in Bangalore in the coming months.

• Another interesting project is for a VCD shop in Ulsoor

Here is a link to the discussion

1 Shakthi Kannan responding in BLUG mailing list

Discussion happened in the Mailing List

Tomorrow (Dec 10 2005) 3.00pm is the FOSS-EDU meet at (PESIT) Tea House. Its near DevegowdaPetrol Bunk a few meters from Sagar Apollo Clinic. There is a Planet Bajaj Showroom too.

Tea House is some 2-3kms from Banashankari Bus Terminal. Its a straight drive from Banashankari Bus Terminal on Ring Road ( 100 ft). Landmark is DEVEGOWDA PETROL BUNK where tea house is located. This petrol bunk is a very popular landmark. It will take some 20 mins from Jaynagar to reach there. If u are coming from MG Road area, take the Mysore Road FlyOver so that you dont get confused. Come straight on Mysore Road and then take a left to Ring Road.

The focus is how to involve students in the FOSS process.

Updated list of topics

• Create apt/yum/portage repos for currently available education tools

-->also kindly do provide the collection of tools on a cd so that atleast the lugs/linux clubs can get a copy and distribute ,because some students who really are interested do not have the bandwidth to download from the net. (this achived by involving live CD folks as stated below)

• Help students to select foss projects as part of academic requirement.

---

>as far as VTU is concerned it would be best to brief the students the following semester(march-april,for 3rd year students) so that they can think about it and plan before they get into the 4th year.

• Workout a schedule to conduct workshops and learn foss education tools

--->some workshops to introduce the students how to take up a foss project would definitely be useful in helping them in taking up one.

• How can we help more students to use scholarships/interships to work on FOSS like

* Redhat Scholarships
* Novell internship program  
* Google Summer of Code 

* DotGnu Southern summer of code

Comments from Gopal V

    Almost completely claimed for ... sadly. Aleksey Demakov is working on
   libjit and has done a significant bit of the code required. He knows
   what he's doing and he's doing it :)
       And it wasn't a student internship project - it was technically a bounty
   open for all.

* Sarai/CSDS Short Term FLOSS Fellowship
* Servelots/Janastu has volunteer/internship for community and NGO oriented applications, 
migration support. http://pantoto.com
* Small Research Grant Programme of SPACE 

--->we could put up the scholarships/interships list on the wiki so that we can provide the link to students looking for the same.

• Involve live CD folks like Sarath (slynux), Arjun (morphing morphix), Moinak Ghosh (Belanix)

(This solves the first problem)

-->'ed comments from Sandesh Kamath, SJCE Mysore

(any thing else ?)

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