Here is another interview with one of the people in the Debian Edu and Skolelinux +community. I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so +if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email. +After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of +the people behind the German +"IT-Zukunft Schule" +project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview. Give a warm +welcome to Angela FuÃ. :)
+ +Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
+ +I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near +Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my +two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son. + +
At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of +the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids. +Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner +growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar +system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-). We are also +in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.
+ +In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for +nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there. Besides +that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am +working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North +Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer +relationship management and the communication processes in the +project.
+ +Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication +and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener +and a yoga teacher.
+ +How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu +project?
+ +I fell in love with Mike ;-).
+ +Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into +Free Software. At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly +founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for +their IT environment. Often when Mike came home from working at the +newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about +several points where the communication with the schools head or the +teachers did not work. So we were clear that he would not work for +one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication +between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the +parents.
+ +Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we +started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for +schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt +Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building +networks of people and in being in communication we dived into +Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern +Germany.
+ +For information about our school project you can read +the +interview with Mike Gabriel.
+ +What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian +Edu?
+ +First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My +answer comes rather from a social point of view.
+ +The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large +and strong international community of Debian Developers in the +background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs +and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If +something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well +;-). This is of course a user experience. What I also get as a big +advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and +works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students, +teachers, parents...
+ +What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian +Edu?
+ +I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of +Skolelinux / Debian Edu.
+ +What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between +the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the +marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the +schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and +I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.
+ +Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a +do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a +democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good +and helpful. I am also missing some kind of contact between the +Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international +level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the +different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.
+ +Which free software do you use daily?
+ +On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop +on. As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin, +LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of +my N900 running with Maemo.
+ +Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to +get schools to use free software?
+ +I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft +Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get +schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for +that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the +strategy has three crucial pillars:
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- We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and +concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different +kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software. + +
- Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre +are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very +beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that +they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school, +they also pay us for leading all the communication processes +needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because +we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then. + +
- Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in +co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in +contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the +offer to become more and more independent from us. + +