Lecture Outline

 

• Introductions (15 minutes)
  • Group in 2, 4

     

    • Name
    • How many ponies can dance on the head of a pin.
  • Daniel Miller
  • John Nishinaga
  • Sheet pass out
    • Name
    • Email
    • Rate your computer experience
      • 1 = Absolute Novice (Computing with the woody feel of abaci is incomparable)
      • 10 = Very Experienced (I write my own lisp derivatives, in assembler, for breakfast)
• Course Outline (2 min)
• What is Software? (5 min)
  • What is Software? Recipe Analogy
  • It's your friend's birthday!  You want to make birthday cake for her.
  • There's you.  Cooking Equipment.  Ingredients.  A recipe.
  • You & equipment = computer hardware.  Ingredients = power source.  Recipe = software.
• What is Open Source Software? (5 min)
  • Close source
    • Cake is usually not free (as in $$$).
    • Recipes are a secret.
  • Free/Open source

     

    • Cake is usually free (as in $$$).
    • Extra frosting may not be free.
    • Recipes are available for everything to duplicate/modify.
    •  
    O
    • You share your recipes openly.  If somebody changes the recipe and distributes a new cake, they don't have to provide the new recipe.  But they have to let people know where the original recipe came from.
  • Free Software
    • Cake is almost always free (as in $$$), but not doesn't haven't to be.
    • If you have distribute your cake to others (sell or not), you provide the recipe too.
    • If somebody else uses that recipe to make a derivate cake, and distributes that cake to others, they *must* provide that new recipe too.
• Free Culture (5 min)
  • Free Culture Movement
    • Linux
    • Copyright
• • Patents
  • Linux
  • Independent Music
  • Creative Commons
  • Open Culture
  • Wikipedia
  • What is cooperative movement?
  • Rochdale Principals
•  
• • Stallman, the Free Software Movement (born of Academic inquiry)
  • OSS
  • Rochdale Principles
• Back to reality...Discussion (15 minutes)
  • What kinds of software are you using in your house?
  • What problems are you trying to solve?
  • What alternatives are there?
    • http://www.osalt.com/
• Sasona (15 min) 
  • Firefox
  • Openoffice
  • Wiki (TikiWiki)
  • Gimp
  • Miro
• Open Discussion (20 min)
  • Are you things you would like to use software for?

    Caveats for using technology

    How can we deploy it so it's more useful?

• One-on-one time (20 minutes) 

 

Course Description

We will look at using open source software and other free, web-based resources to help your co-op be better connected and run more smoothly. Attendees will learn many things including: how to keep vital information (e.g., house policies) available on the web, how to store (and keep up to date) your meeting minutes, how to keep a calendar of house events, and how to create email lists for use within the membership.

 

Class Structure

 

• 1.5 hours
• Semi-circle chairs
• Projector, small number of laptops (3?)
• As of now, expect 15 people, give or take 5.

 

Observations from Last Year

 

Things that worked well

 

1. How open-source / free software philosophy fits in with co-ops
   1. This should be maybe 10 minutes or so?
   2. a quick explanation of the paralells between the vulonteer structure of OSS vs the democratic structure of coops.
   3. EULA:GPL::Stock corporation:Cooperative corporation
2. Demonstrations of various open-source software packages
   1. This should be what?  20 minutes?  40 minutes?  60 minutes?
   2. The length of time would be affected by the number of demos we want to give (I don't think any of them should take very long each)
   3. The length of time would have to be balanced against how much time we want to spend talking about the need and the uses of the software
   4. I would like to talk about the need and uses of software for a few more minutes than in last year, so that people can be more sold on how this can be a benefit, and the techie details can be done later, online.
   5. I think a wiki as an incidental way of distributing the info would be good, but less so as a demo, since there is a seperate wiki class this year.

 

Things that didn't work so well

 

1. Discussion of "software for John" to work on.  (John didn't work on anything anyways)

 

---

 

 

The main things in my mind that need clarifications are in these categories:

 

 

1. format:  how do you want to present, and how do you want to divide the time

 

We have a hour and half, right?  Or is it two hours?  Can't remember.

 

I think one of the things we wanted to focus on was making it more of workshop class.  

 

 

 

2. topics: which main topics do you want to see covered?  specific programs?  things that are and aren't good fits for compooters?

 

Perhaps one strategy would be to focus on a hypothetical co-op (8 people) and come up with scenarios where the different folks use open source software to accomplish various goals?  It would be entertaining and we good fodder for humor / rib-poking.

 

I think we want to cover all the major open source programs, e.g.:

 

• 1. Firefox
• 2. OpenOffice
• 3. Thunderbird
• 4. Video Player (Miro / VLC)
• 5. Gimp
• 6. Audacity
• What we thinking about Wiki's?  Maybe log in to a hypothetical wiki.
• Also, a few free, but non OSS solutions might be brefily mentioned... such as hosting your presentations and documents with google, which a few coops are using very effectively, or the free google apps for non-profits.
• I am looking into whether or not NASCO would be willing to extend yourcoop.nasco.coop domains to any interested groups, and slap a wiki up on that subdomain... would takes seconds to set up, but I want clearance first.

 

I think a good topic to cover would be to go over the typical arrangement where people have different interests/enthusiasm for using computer based solutions, and how to go about seeing things come to fruition.  E.g., make sure you plan, seed before announcing.

 

 

 

3. materials: do we want handouts?  do we want files to be presented?  do we want any materials to be online?

 

• Handouts...maybe?  I always liked those handouts with various things left blank where people "fill" it in.  It's sort of a way to help remember things and to have a more active group.
• Make enough copies of Ubuntu's live CD for everyone to play with.
• Of course all the material should be online.  We still have last year's class information on my wiki:
• http://www.ejinjue.org/wiki/NascoOpenSourceClass

 

 

 

4. ponies:  sparkly?  winged?  talking?  do we need a stable?  will there be enough magic hay in the Michigan fall?

 

Pink, with polka-dots and wings.  Don't need a stable -- they can hang out in the reception area.  And hay is for horses.