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This kind of nexus should be campaigned against. what strategy should we follow.

http://www.digitallearning.in/news/news-details.asp?News=NIIT-ties-with-Adob...

In government aided schools and already in some government schools this is already followed since a year ago ( students are given projects as movie making using Adobe tools etc etc )

This is indeed a threat to our freedom. There must be a high level of commitment to having free software in government schools.

On Wed, 2008-12-03 at 00:43 +0530, renuka prasad wrote:

Making Screen casts + video tutorials + writing manuals according to schools or colleges ( for the practical subjects -- i mean LABS)

I think this is a very good thing to do. Can we get volunteers?

Some more ideas later!!

Let the ideas flow. We need to find people to execute them too.

Best

On Wed, 2008-12-03 at 00:57 +0530, Raj Mathur wrote:

Tough battle to fight on any except the policy and ideology fronts, since it would be difficult to find equivalent (easy to use) tools in the FOSS arena. We should have a story with a competitive FOSS toolkit ready before we start approaching anyone.

The website says

"they will be taught to use Adobe Creative Suite preparing them for careers in website designing, video editing and sound editing."

I think we do have applications like cinelerra, audacity and ardour that can be taught. Rosegarden is another interesting application. I don't know whether they have all the features required for professional quality work, but what I understand is that they are good. I am sure they are good enough for schools. Once the children study these, they should be able to use any other such application without too much difficulty. What they have to learn is actually not just how to use them but what to do with them. I wonder how qualified the teachers will be to handle such things.

Couple of multimedia gurus available on the ILUGD mailing list, shall I start cross-posting?

I guess you should. Let us gather whatever information we can.

I think what we have to do is to campaign against promoting a particular company's stuff, especially if they are promoted by the state school system. The other, of course, is to promote freedom, especially by pointing out that the students who have computers at home can install these applications without doing anything illegal. We could probably arrange for lectures and demonstrations in schools. They may be attracted by the cost and legality arguments. Once we get a chance to do a demo, we can talk about freedom.

What about arranging a competition of, say, animation movies created using Blender? School teams could participate. We could also have similar competitions for other things (music created using Rosegarden?). Maybe FSFI can sponsor the prizes.

Best