[education-wg] Hi education-wg

[Ken Drachnik]

Ken Drachnik
I worked at Sun Microsystems for 7 years (in Menlo Park, CA)  and was 
part of the open source group and worked with Terri Molini who helps 
manage this organization. My claim to fame was taking the commercial 
Java EE application server and open sourcing it as project GlassFish. 
The success of that effort lead Sun to use our processes to open source 
the rest of their software portfolio.   I spent several years developing 
open source processes and as an open source evangelist then moved onto 
Canonical which is the commercial company behind the very popular Ubuntu 
Linux.   I now manage a team developing tools and incorporating open 
source technologies that manage Ubuntu in Cloud environments.

I am quite interested in seeing open source software adopted by schools 
and educational institutions (many of which are my customers). As a 
father of 2 kids in k-12, I see how little is being spent on technology 
and software education (they just cut all computer classes from my son's 
grammar school).  The teachers are on their own to support and teach 
computers in their individual classrooms (so I volunteer as IT support 
for room 17) and have little understanding of software in general in 
schools and almost no understanding of open source software. 

I am excited to learn how we can work to help educated the educators on 
open source! 

Ken


Mike Huffman wrote:
> Keep up the great introductions!
>
> Mike Huffman here.  I am very excited about this effort and look 
> forward to hearing all sorts of great ideas - and seeing  them take hold.
>
> I was with the Indiana Department of Education for a long time, and 
> had the pleasure of being the IT Director there for 10 years before 
> moving into instructional technology.  In the instructional technology 
> area, I served as the Special Assistant to the Superintendent which 
> gave me a good platform to begin talking to schools about open-source 
> software.  In future posts, I will share some of those experiences and 
> more importantly, where that led us in Indiana.
>
> For this group, my personal hope is that it becomes a communication 
> forum that leads down many paths.  To see real change  in K12, we will 
> need a clear vision, documentation that will back up our positions, 
> some brilliant brainstorming, and a commitment to our kids' futures.  
> Some of the topics up for discussion probably should be:
>
> - one-to-one computing
> - affordability
> - sustainability
> - scalability
> - repeatability
> - cost effectiveness issues
> - management methodologies
> - professional development issues
> - transition programs
> - more ideas from you!
>
> If you have suggestions or ideas about how you would like to see this 
> list run, please feel free to email me on the list or individually.  I 
> hope everyone participates.  If you have suggestions for changing the 
> web page, let me know.  I plan to get a list of software that schools 
> can begin using posted soon.
>
> I encourage you to go to http://www.doe.in.gov/olt/InACCESS/
> to learn more about what we accomplished in Indiana.  It is not 
> perfect but was a good start. 
>
> I am looking forward to a spirited discussion and your ideas!
>
> Mike
>
>>   
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>   

-- 
Ken Drachnik
Landscape Manager
Canonical
ken.drachnik at canonical.com
Mobile:  408-832-3449

Ubuntu:  Linux For Human Beings


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