Re: [odf-adoption] Education for ODF

[Louis Suarez-Potts <Louis.Suarez-Potts@Sun.COM>]

Hi,

On 2008-10-02, at 01:02 , robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:

> Louis.Suarez-Potts@Sun.COM wrote on 09/30/2008 08:53:46 AM:
>
>>
>> Let's discuss ways to get ODF taught in schools, including vocational
>> and post-secondary; fancy schools, too. Focusing on ODF allows us all
>> to work together here and will vastly simplify adoption of the  
>> format.
>>
>> The model I want to pursue is the one devised by Seneca College here
>> in Toronto. Mozilla, Red Hat (Fedora) have invested in it and the
>> results have been excellent. Students have come out able to (and
>> doing) extensions to Mozilla and also work on Linux. OpenOffice.org  
>> is
>> now working with Seneca and we will see what happens, but I am
>> optimistic.
>>
>> What we would need:
>>
>> * basic information about ODF
>> * basic *technological* information
>> * basic to-dos, of the sort that students of various levels can  
>> manage
>> in a semester (3-4 months)
>> * mentors, either in person or remote, ie, via video, recorded or  
>> live
>>
>
> A question:  do you mean how to use ODF as an end-user, meaning how  
> to use
> an ODF-application like OpenOffice?  Or do you mean, how to use ODF as
> document format, meaning dealing with XML and programming?

The latter. The idea is to instruct students in the programming of ODF.
>
>
> Is knowledge of XML common in pre-university studies?  Or do we see  
> this
> only in university?

Pre-university means what? I am thinking of "colleges" where that  
means, at least here and in many areas, "community college," or post- 
secondary school. In such places XML is decidedly taught. Also am  
thinking of the kind of schools I saw in india and china, which are a  
lot like vocational schools but do not title themselves as such. They  
exist to produce white collar workers for the likes of IT firms like  
ours.


>
>
> One approach would be to focus on ODF Toolkit programming rather  
> than the
> XML directly.

Indeed, and that was at the back of my head, too.

>
>
> Another approach would be to target a specialized CS subject, like  
> digital
> typography, and have companion ODF-based activities for it.  For  
> example,
> it might be a reasonable project for a student to write a basic text
> layout engine in a semester, one that is typographically correct,
> demonstrates word wrapping, hyphenation, widow/orphan control, etc.   
> Why
> not do this with ODF?

Yes.

The issue is wrapping such a project into a course that would or could  
work. It can be done and should/must be, especially if we wish to  
induce more developers and students to work on what we consider to be  
of signal importance.

>
>
> -Rob

best
louis