Ubuntu Wiki

Ubuntu Open Week - Edubuntu - Jordan Mantha - Tue, Nov 4th, 2008

(10:02:38 AM) LaserJock: Good morning everybody!
(10:02:51 AM) telebovich: hello
(10:02:52 AM) LaserJock: Welcome to the 2nd day of the Ubuntu Open Week
(10:02:58 AM) Nabi: good morning
(10:03:12 AM) evandar: good evening
(10:03:25 AM) LaserJock: you'll have to forgive me a little bit, it's 7am local time and I'm still waking up ;-)
(10:04:00 AM) LaserJock: OK, so we're going to start off the day with a project that is near and dear to my heart, Edubuntu
(10:04:19 AM) LaserJock: has everybody heard about Edubuntu?
(10:04:28 AM) kippy: yep
(10:04:29 AM) Nabi: yes
(10:04:42 AM) LaserJock: awesome
(10:05:07 AM) fules67: üdv
(10:05:09 AM) LaserJock: for those of you who don't know, Edubuntu is the Ubuntu "derivative" dedicated to education
(10:05:34 AM) LaserJock: it's an officially supported derivatives, just like Kubuntu
(10:05:58 AM) LaserJock: but rather than focusing on a different desktop environment, it's focused on a different target
(10:06:41 AM) LaserJock: specifically, bringing Ubuntu, open source, free software to kids, students of all ages, teachers, and schools
(10:07:34 AM) LaserJock: Edubuntu has worked on that target by creating a great classroom server
(10:08:05 AM) LaserJock: Edubuntu had pushed LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) into schools around the world
(10:08:45 AM) LaserJock: it's also tried to include the best the free software world has to offer in educational tools, such as gcompris, KDE Edu, tux4kids
(10:09:03 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: can you explain about ltsp a little bit?
(10:09:22 AM) fules67 left the room ("Hoppá").
(10:09:25 AM) LaserJock: well, I'm not going to go into huge detail about it here, but it's really pretty awesome, IMO
(10:09:32 AM) lordnoid: lol
(10:09:53 AM) LaserJock: the basic idea is that you have a central server, where all the programs and administration takes place
(10:10:22 AM) LaserJock: then "thin clients" connect to that server and an "image" is loaded up in RAM on the client that then connects to the server
(10:10:39 AM) LaserJock: so you can run say 30 clients off of one server
(10:10:48 AM) LaserJock: and you have *1* machine to administrate
(10:10:57 AM) LaserJock: the thin clients don't even need a hard drive
(10:11:34 AM) LaserJock: I would point people to http://ltsp.org and #ltsp for more info
(10:11:51 AM) LaserJock: LTSP is not only used a lot in education, but also in corporate settings
(10:12:06 AM) LaserJock: and you can install it from the Ubuntu Alternate CD
(10:12:15 AM) LaserJock: any other questions so far?
(10:12:40 AM) LaserJock: ok, moving on then :-)
(10:13:11 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: Can Edubuntu used in primary school and in secondary school as well?
(10:13:24 AM) LaserJock: Edubuntu can be used in *any* school, IMO
(10:13:37 AM) LaserJock: we've used it in university labs before
(10:13:59 AM) LaserJock: the "theme" is quite a bit more suited for young children and elementary schools
(10:14:07 AM) LaserJock: but that can easily be changed
(10:14:43 AM) LaserJock: we try to have 2 themes generally, a "young" one and one that's more suitable for secondary and tertiary
(10:14:58 AM) gmoreno: Question: How edubuntu protects or promote the free knowledge?
(10:15:17 AM) LaserJock: in terms of applications, it's mostly focused on pre-school and elementary right now, but I'm trying to move us more into secondary and tertiary as well
(10:15:53 AM) LaserJock: Well, Edubuntu certainly tries to protect and promote free knowledge by protecting and promoting free software
(10:16:57 AM) LaserJock: As the project develops I think we are going to start seeing more "free" content as well, we've thought about things like including free, scaled down Wikipedia content for instance
(10:17:07 AM) LaserJock: UESTION: Are there any architectural differences in Edubuntu vs Ubuntu? or is there difference in softwares only?
(10:17:15 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: What are the most obvious difference for a desktop user between Edubuntu and Ubuntu?
(10:17:31 AM) LaserJock: ok, so that brings me to some technical bits of what exactly Edubuntu is
(10:17:58 AM) LaserJock: so technically right now Edubuntu is shipped as an addon CD to Ubuntu
(10:18:20 AM) LaserJock: Edubuntu started it's history (ancient by Ubuntu standards ;-) ) as a normal derivative
(10:18:30 AM) LaserJock: 1 CD installer with LTSP and some educational apps
(10:18:42 AM) LaserJock: however we out grew our single CD
(10:19:05 AM) LaserJock: so over a year ago we split into 1 installer CD + 1 addon CD
(10:19:35 AM) LaserJock: then for Hardy (8.04) we decided to drop the installer CD as it was mostly redundant with the existing Ubuntu CD
(10:19:50 AM) LaserJock: so LTSP now resides on the Ubuntu Alternate CD
(10:19:59 AM) LaserJock: and the educational programs are on the Edubuntu CD
(10:20:33 AM) LaserJock: but Edubuntu is really educational content
(10:20:49 AM) LaserJock: we "derive" from Ubuntu in that we require an Ubuntu desktop as a base
(10:21:12 AM) LaserJock: we're also working some on package that would base off of Kubuntu, but we haven't had a ton of interest there
(10:21:51 AM) LaserJock: so the most obvious differences are going to be 1) theme, artwork 2) a lot of educational programs in the menu
(10:22:03 AM) LaserJock: 3) LTSP goodness if you want it
(10:22:21 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: What about the communication with other similar project like skolelinux, etc? Is it going to be extended?
(10:22:43 AM) LaserJock: We naturally have pretty good communication with Debian, as Ubuntu as a whole derives from Debian
(10:22:53 AM) ys76: q/win 21
(10:23:13 AM) LaserJock: in the past people from K12LTSP and skolelinux have come to some of the Ubuntu Developer Summits
(10:23:46 AM) LaserJock: we try to keep good communication open, especially around LTSP, but of course that can always be improved
(10:23:56 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: what edubuntu can offer to a programmer student for example?
(10:24:26 AM) LaserJock: well, Edubuntu specifically isn't going to offer you much right now
(10:24:39 AM) LaserJock: Ubuntu is simply *awesome* for programming students though
(10:25:17 AM) LaserJock: and Edubuntu has had a Google Summer of Code project for instance working on a Python "test" grader and teaching tool
(10:25:33 AM) LaserJock: but people should realize that Edubuntu is a very small community
(10:25:43 AM) LaserJock: with only 2-3 developers at any given time
(10:26:13 AM) LaserJock: so we'd love to see people join and work on new educational apps, but we mostly rely on other people (called upstreams) to write software
(10:26:28 AM) LaserJock: telebovich: does that answer your question some?
(10:26:38 AM) telebovich: yes
(10:26:54 AM) LaserJock: so Edubuntu is the first official derivative to do the addon thing
(10:27:01 AM) LaserJock: I think we might see more of it
(10:27:08 AM) LaserJock: but it does create some unique issues
(10:27:18 AM) LaserJock: as people are used to 1 CD installs
(10:27:55 AM) LaserJock: but it gives us 700MB of room for the stuff that kids, students, teachers, and schools really care about
(10:28:15 AM) LaserJock: now we want to fill that up with the best open source/free software and content
(10:29:22 AM) LaserJock: so that's most of the info on what Edubuntu actually is: a addon CD on top of Ubuntu that can be used to either set up a Classroom Server (via LTSP) or a educational workstation
(10:29:37 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: What are the biggest challenges facing Edubuntu and getting it into schools?
(10:29:43 AM) LaserJock: ok, that's a really good question
(10:30:02 AM) LaserJock: it really surprised me how hard it is to get Edubuntu (or any Linux OS) into schools
(10:30:21 AM) LaserJock: on the face of it one my think, "well it's so much cheaper, it's simple"
(10:30:24 AM) LaserJock: *might
(10:30:34 AM) LaserJock: but there are 2 primary challenges
(10:30:38 AM) LaserJock: 1) cost of transition
(10:31:01 AM) LaserJock: it takes quite a bit of work to completely convert a school from all-Microsoft to all-Edubuntu
(10:31:11 AM) LaserJock: and in fact most schools will never reach that
(10:31:33 AM) LaserJock: most schools have a mixed environment of Edubuntu in classroom labs and Microsoft elswhere
(10:31:50 AM) denisbr: Hello !!
(10:32:05 AM) LaserJock: 2) curriculum inertia or curriculum conformance
(10:32:15 AM) LaserJock: schools have standard ways of doing things
(10:32:34 AM) LaserJock: many schools are mandated as to what they must teach in a computer curriculum
(10:32:49 AM) LaserJock: and quite often standards are wrapped around Microsoft products (such as MS Office)
(10:33:10 AM) LaserJock: or there are programs that students must use for testing, etc. that only run on Windows
(10:33:35 AM) LaserJock: that's a pretty big hurdle there, but in many areas of the world we're gaining ground
(10:34:02 AM) LaserJock: the Latin American countries really seem to be grabbing on to open source/free software
(10:34:17 AM) LaserJock: some European countries also are doing quite a bit
(10:39:19 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: i'd like to know more about whether you plan on supporting common windows packages through wine/vms etc
(10:39:19 AM) LaserJock: ;-)
(10:39:20 AM) LaserJock: at this time we really don't have any plans to no
(10:39:20 AM) catonano: Some european countries ? Which ones ? I'm just curious
(10:39:20 AM) LaserJock: Spain and Macedonia are the ones that come to mind
(10:39:20 AM) catonano: thanks
(10:39:21 AM) LaserJock: Macedonia ordered up 100k Edubuntu computers for it's schools
(10:39:21 AM) gmoreno: comment: in latin american, especially Venezuela, the Free Software is winning big battles against the bussiness model of Microsoft... elementary school is right now teaching Ubuntu an Debian as the first Operative Sysytem
(10:39:22 AM) LaserJock: the problem with supporting particular windows programs, is that there are so very many of them
(10:39:22 AM) LaserJock: and this is a general issue with educational OSes in general
(10:39:23 AM) Nuc134rB0t: i live in Venezuela :)
(10:39:23 AM) gmoreno: me too :P
(10:39:23 AM) LaserJock: each country require different programs, each state, district, town, etc. may have it's own requirements
(10:39:23 AM) LaserJock: so it's very difficult for use to go through all the possibilities
(10:39:26 AM) catonano: I see
(10:39:26 AM) LaserJock: so our current strategy is to provide the best free/open source bits and let schools adapt them and put them together as needed
(10:39:26 AM) LaserJock: *however* wine is certainly available to them
(10:39:26 AM) LaserJock: but with only 2-3 developers we don't have resources to go through and make sure Windows apps work in wine
(10:39:27 AM) LaserJock: but it would be, IMO, a very cool project to have somebody test common Windows educational apps and put that on a wiki page
(10:39:39 AM) LaserJock: UESTION: there are any ideas about the fact that not only help the schools using Edubuntu, but as something to interact with school-developers?
(10:39:51 AM) LaserJock: darn, I keep missing that Q :-)
(10:40:42 AM) Nuc134rB0t: no problem we know what you meant
(10:41:16 AM) LaserJock: well, we really try to get the whole "stack" of people involved in education sort of "in the loop"
(10:41:49 AM) LaserJock: we talk to students, teachers, IT admins, school administrators, all the way up to occasionally Ministers of Education or similar
(10:42:14 AM) LaserJock: I'd personally *love* to interact with people who are writing educational code
(10:42:50 AM) LaserJock: I want to know how I, as an Edubuntu developer, can make their life easier as well as perhaps give a place for their code to live that will help other people
(10:43:19 AM) LaserJock: we have had a couple Ubuntu Education Summits
(10:43:38 AM) LaserJock: that are similar to the Ubuntu Developer Summits, but more about education and how we can get Linux into schools
(10:44:11 AM) LaserJock: we also have a fairly active mailing list, edubuntu-users (on lists.ubuntu.com) that often has discussion on new apps, etc.
(10:44:47 AM) LaserJock: UESTION: Are there any other projects that are available as addon CDs like Edubuntu is? The idea of having a common base system and being able to add specific functionality by downloading one CD seems quite useful
(10:46:25 AM) LaserJock: not in the "official" Ubuntu landscape no
(10:46:26 AM) LaserJock: most derivatives need to have a different CD because they're changing core "bits"
(10:46:26 AM) LaserJock: like the desktop environment (for Xubuntu and Kubuntu)
(10:46:26 AM) kippy: perhaps outside the Ubuntu bioshpere?
(10:46:27 AM) LaserJock: I think as we work on smoothing out some of the rough spots of having and addon CD it might get better
(10:46:27 AM) LaserJock: well, there are a number of projects that do "addon" stuff
(10:46:27 AM) LaserJock: but usually it's sort of unofficial and scripted
(10:46:30 AM) LaserJock: i.e. "run this shell script and it will install all the goodies"
(10:46:53 AM) LaserJock: we actually use Ubuntu's Add/Remove technology and have our own little "installer" hook
(10:47:19 AM) LaserJock: so that when you pop in an Edubuntu CD it pops up a dialog for you to start installing software
(10:47:46 AM) LaserJock: and we try to bundle it in such a way as to make it easy for people to install "bundles" of software
(10:47:55 AM) LaserJock: and we'll certainly be developing that as we go along
(10:48:04 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: As it's unlikely developers will target only Linux, do Edubuntu developers recommend a particular development environment for cross platform educational tools?  Java, Flash, .Net, Web/AJAX?
(10:49:01 AM) LaserJock: well, Ubuntu loves Python
(10:49:20 AM) LaserJock: and so do I
(10:50:37 AM) LaserJock: if you're going to either teach programming or are comfortable enough to use a "real" programming environment I'd certainly recommend Python
(10:50:38 AM) LaserJock: Flash is always tricky as we don't yet have a very stable/reliable free flash player
(10:50:39 AM) LaserJock: between Java, .Net/mono, and python I'd personally pick Python
(10:50:40 AM) LaserJock: for toolkits it's sort of up to you
(10:51:02 AM) LaserJock: I think Qt is particularly good in terms of having a nice looking, cross-platform, and easy to code GUI toolkit
(10:51:13 AM) LaserJock: so PyQT is a good option to look at
(10:51:39 AM) LaserJock: Ruby rocks for sure
(10:52:33 AM) LaserJock: but it doesn't quite have as much as Python in terms of libraries that would be relevant for education, IMO
(10:53:54 AM) LaserJock: if you look at things like pygame and even scipy/matplotlib for sciences
(10:53:54 AM) LaserJock: *but* bottom line
(10:53:54 AM) LaserJock: Ubuntu is a great place to code
(10:53:54 AM) LaserJock: just like most Linux distros
(10:53:54 AM) LaserJock: because we have C/C++, ruby, python, Java, .Net/mono, ....
(10:53:54 AM) LaserJock: and it's all free and open source software
(10:53:54 AM) LaserJock: so students can dig into their computers and learn about things
(10:54:09 AM) LaserJock: rather than just being stuck learning how to run menus on some proprietary app
(10:54:32 AM) LaserJock: I think that's one of the true goals of Edubuntu
(10:55:03 AM) LaserJock: to get students to not just use their computer but to really think about how they can effectively change their software to suit their needs
(10:55:29 AM) LaserJock: ok, we're getting close to the end here
(10:55:34 AM) LaserJock: are there any last questions?
(10:55:52 AM) gmoreno: thanks for the answers
(10:56:02 AM) catonano: Thank you
(10:56:11 AM) LaserJock: QUESTION: Why doesn't Shipit distribute Edubuntu?
(10:56:43 AM) LaserJock: I think that could be due to being an Addon CD
(10:56:58 AM) LaserJock: for us to completely ship the everything you need we'd have to ship 2 CDs
(10:57:19 AM) LaserJock: as postage/printing isn't free Canonical makes decisions on what it can afford
(10:57:42 AM) LaserJock: I'd like to get it back for sure in the future though
(10:58:13 AM) Maurici1: Thanks Laserjock, it was a very nice presentation....clap, clap, clap, clap
(10:58:19 AM) LaserJock: OK, in the last couple minutes here I'd like to give you some resource and give a bit about what you can do to help
(10:58:36 AM) LaserJock: Our website is http://www.edubuntu.org
(10:58:56 AM) LaserJock: we also use the ubuntu wiki so there's resources at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Edubuntu
(10:59:04 AM) Nuc134rB0t: thanks a lot LaserJock
(10:59:19 AM) dholbach: thanks LaserJock!
(10:59:27 AM) LaserJock: we have an IRC channel, #edubuntu, and 2 mailing lists, edubuntu-devel and edubuntu-users on lists.ubuntu.com
(10:59:42 AM) LaserJock: we also have a number of Launchpad teams that people can join
(10:59:57 AM) LaserJock: we need *all* kinds of contributors from all technical levels
(11:00:17 AM) LaserJock: artists, documentation writers, bug squashers, packagers, coders, support people, etc.
(11:00:49 AM) LaserJock: NOTE: we will be having a planning IRC meeting tomorrow at 18:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting
(11:01:04 AM) LaserJock: if you have *any* interest in Edubuntu please try to stop by, we'll make it worth your time
(11:01:12 AM) LaserJock: and with that I'm done :-)