<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><DIV>I am working on a <SPAN>MapWindow</SPAN> lesson and possibly a QGIS lesson if that will help. They will not be ready until late Fall 2010.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Tom</DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR><SPAN>GIS</SPAN> 4 LIFE !<BR><BR>--- On <B>Tue, 1/12/10, Cameron Shorter <I><cameron.shorter@gmail.com></I></B> wrote:<BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid"><BR>From: Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter@gmail.com><BR>Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Edu] Update on curriculum effort<BR>To: "Charlie Schweik" <cschweik@pubpol.umass.edu><BR>Cc: "OSGeo-edu" <edu_discuss@lists.osgeo.org>, "live-demo@lists.osgeo.org" <live-demo@lists.osgeo.org><BR>Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 5:10 PM<BR><BR>
<DIV class=plainMail>Charlie and osgeo-edu committee,<BR><BR>We have just started the building of the 2010 DVD. There are links to all project specific information here:<BR><A href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc" target=_blank>http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc</A><BR><BR>Of particular note is:<BR>Schedule: <A href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tMRaCwabv7SiIG3moHEfMrQ&hl=en_GB" target=_blank>http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tMRaCwabv7SiIG3moHEfMrQ&hl=en_GB</A><BR><BR>Release 3.0: feature freeze in 3 weeks, final deliverable in April.<BR>Release 4.0 (for FOSS4G 2010), feature freeze, end of June. Final deliverable in September.<BR><BR>Also,<BR>The list of packages, versions, and point of contact is at:<BR><A href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Al9zh8DjmU_RdGIzd0VLLTBpQVJuNVlHMlBWSDhKLXc&hl=en_GB"
target=_blank>http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Al9zh8DjmU_RdGIzd0VLLTBpQVJuNVlHMlBWSDhKLXc&hl=en_GB</A><BR><BR>We do currently have very light documentation: A one line project description, and a one page description for each project as specified here:<BR><A href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GISVM_Build#Writing_docs" target=_blank>http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GISVM_Build#Writing_docs</A><BR>These docs were filled out for us by each project.<BR><BR>What I would like is for someone to define the structure for the next level of documentation, which I assume would be tutorials which explain how to use these applications. If we make it easy for people to write docs (by defining the templates) and then add a strong incentive for writing them (the docs will be put on the LiveDVD and handed out at FOSS4G and used as teaching material in colleges) then the docs will be written. This is the principle we used very successfully for getting ~ 20 developers
to contribute to the LiveDVD in a very short period of time.<BR><BR>Charlie Schweik wrote:<BR>> Hi Cameron,<BR>> <BR>> Cameron Shorter wrote:<BR>>> Charlie and others,<BR>>> <BR>>> I'm involved in the development of the Geospatial Live DVD which is handed out at geospatial conferences like FOSS4G. <A href="http://arramagong.com/" target=_blank>http://arramagong.com</A><BR>>> <BR>>> The DVD contains a suite of most of the most popular Geospatial Open Source applications. We currently have installed brief instructions on how to run each application, but I would like to see much more comprehensive documentation.<BR>>> <BR>>> In particular, I'd like teachers to be able to hand out a DVD to each of their class, and then have the class walk through tutorial material developed by the education committee and installed on this DVD.<BR>> This is a great vision, and there was this vision articulated last year
as well, but it seems we are struggling to actually make it happen. Somehow, it seems to me, that we need a systematic process of looking at what will be on the DVD, and then someone looking through the educational content we have in our inventory to see if any of it could be used in this fashion. Is it possible to get a point person assigned to each software product on the DVD to do this kind of search?<BR>>> <BR>>> I also believe that project developers will help develop this training material, if they are given clear guidance on what needs to be developed. Ie, we need to tell the community what format to write documents in (ooffice, docbook, html, word?), and provide a template with headings and instructions about what needs to be in each section, then have an example that people can follow.<BR>> Two years ago, we tried very hard to come up with some documentation standards. We investigated the use of Docbook, for example and a couple
other approaches (latex was one I remember). From my own perspective, I was thinking open office writer was the easiest format for others to use with little learning curve. But the conclusion that came out of that was people tended to want to use the format that was most useful to them. We can try to do this again, but it has been challenging to gain any group traction.<BR>> <BR>> It would be fantastic if the project developers could help with this effort. I've been wanting to get a closer relationship between the project developers working on documentation and the education group's efforts. Is having a developer from each project being a point person for their software a possibility to make this happen this year?<BR>> <BR>> What software and versions will be on this years DVD, Cameron?<BR>> <BR>> Can we try and get people to sign up and take the lead (one for each software package, perhaps) to gather or encourage others in the
development of material to go on this DVD?<BR>>> <BR>>> Note also that there are a number of Australian educational institutions interested in creating this material too whom I'm expecting will contribute to the material development.<BR>> I hope everyone will encourage others who might be doing this to use our educational inventory submission page and the educational subversion for material.<BR>> <BR>> Those are my thoughts....<BR>> <BR>> Cheers<BR>> Charlie<BR>>> <BR>>> <BR>>> Charlie Schweik wrote:<BR>>>> Hi edu folks,<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Happy New Year all! I'm hoping we all can commit ourselves to making some great progress as a group over the next six months in advance of the next FOSS4Geo conference, related to developing a framework for organizing OSGeo-related curriculum and educational material, and continue to strive for a working system where we share content and build on
each other's content. As you forge ahead in your own work in 2010, please think about how that work might relate to what we are doing and you try and contribute to our joint efforts...<BR>>>> <BR>>>> On my end, I just wanted to report in that I've been working on my end to get permission for us to possibly use the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science and Association for American Geographer's GI S&T Body of Knowledge [1] as an overarching framework for guiding our future curriculum efforts. The framework is under copyright by both UCGIS and AAG, but *I've received permission by the UCGIS folks to use this material*. I'm now contacting AAG to get their permission since it is under joint copyright.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> I struggle a little bit with this because of the copyright issues and the philosophy of openness and sharing. But this seems to be, in my view, a very good guiding framework for us to
follow. I'm thinking that somehow we would connect this to the discussions we've had about material that demonstrates how to do some particular function or process using open technologies.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> If anyone has any objections to this direction I am taking, let me know, or let me know if we need to open this up to a vote.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Finally, two other things:<BR>>>> <BR>>>> 1) Don't forget about adding new educational content to our inventory page [2] through the submit function [3]. The last postings were September of 2009 -- someone surely has other material developed since then.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> 2) We need people to start building on what Helena has done related to the process of putting material in Subversion so we can continue to move toward a "new derivatives" type system of sharing content. Can somebody step up and build on Helena's work to get that process documented
for others to use? Here's what we have linked on our group education/curriculum page [4]. What we want, I think, is to more clearly connect this process to our submit function [3].<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Cheers<BR>>>> Charlie<BR>>>> <BR>>>> [1] <A href="http://www.ucgis.org/priorities/education/modelcurriculaproject.asp" target=_blank>http://www.ucgis.org/priorities/education/modelcurriculaproject.asp</A><BR>>>> [2] <A href="http://www.osgeo.org/educational_content" target=_blank>http://www.osgeo.org/educational_content</A><BR>>>> [3] <A href="https://www.osgeo.org/node/add/edu-content" target=_blank>https://www.osgeo.org/node/add/edu-content</A><BR>>>> [4] <A href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Subversion_edu_instructions" target=_blank>http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Subversion_edu_instructions</A>.<BR>>>> _______________________________________________<BR>>>> Edu_discuss
mailing list<BR>>>> <A href="http://us.mc507.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Edu_discuss@lists.osgeo.org" ymailto="mailto:Edu_discuss@lists.osgeo.org">Edu_discuss@lists.osgeo.org</A><BR>>>> <A href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/edu_discuss" target=_blank>http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/edu_discuss</A><BR>>>> <BR>>> <BR>>> <BR>> <BR><BR><BR>-- Cameron Shorter<BR>Geospatial Systems Architect<BR>Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050<BR>Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254<BR><BR>Think Globally, Fix Locally<BR>Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source<BR><A href="http://www.lisasoft.com/" target=_blank>http://www.lisasoft.com</A><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Edu_discuss mailing list<BR><A href="http://us.mc507.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Edu_discuss@lists.osgeo.org" ymailto="mailto:Edu_discuss@lists.osgeo.org">Edu_discuss@lists.osgeo.org</A><BR><A
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/edu_discuss" target=_blank>http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/edu_discuss</A><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></td></tr></table><br>