Notes on IT@school meeting.

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+# IT@school
+
+[[!meta date="2016-01-21"]]
+[[!tag debian blog]]
+
+Siri and I are on a journey through India and Nepal,
+with the aim of learning about needs of Debian derivatives,
+to improve Debian and encourage closer integration.
+
+
+## Distribution
+
+IT@school is a distribution originally based on Debian,
+later rebased on Ubuntu.
+
+Next release will possibly again be a direct derivative of Debian,
+or maybe even - time will tell - a [Debian pure blend][blend].
+
+[blend]: <https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends#Terminology>
+  "Debian Pure Blend - subset of Debian configured for a target group"
+
+
+## Aim is education
+
+As its name indicates, IT@school is targeted at schools:
+The system is used in 8th - 10th grades
+of most (or all?) public primary schools in Kerala,
+
+Together with [KEK][] members Anto and Fayad,
+Siri and I met with former and current key participants in the project
+where we learned about its history and current status,
+and discussed some differences between Ubuntu and Debian.
+
+IT@school has a strong emphasis on the educational aspect,
+arguably setting it apart from Skolelinux/DebianEdu
+which emphasizes the technical aspect of relieving teachers from admin tasks.
+In the early years of deployment
+the project faced many hardware issues
+- e.g. in getting sound cards to work.
+This was seen not as problems
+but as beneficial learning for the teachers facing those issues.
+
+Kerala public school system has set the standard for other states in India,
+but sadly political support within the state has been weak in recent years.
+It is hoped that next election - this April - will bring a positive change.
+
+[KEK]: <http://kek.org.in/>
+  "Hackerspace KEK - കോവളം എഴുത്തു കളരി (Kovalam Ezhuthu Kalari)"
+
+
+## School book
+
+IT@school is accompagnied by a school book
+written specifically for use of the included tools.
+
+No explicit license is applied to the book
+(which means it defaults to classic copyright).
+Possibly it will get Creative Commons licensed.
+
+If the school book gets a DFSG-free license,
+several collaboration opportunities emerge:
+
+Currently the book is drafted in LibreOffice
+but then - due to state procedures - finalized with PageMaker.
+Would be interesting to setup an alternate process
+using only Free tools - either with Scribus or XeLaTeX.
+An important detail here
+is to ensure that the process supports malayalam script.
+
+## Curriculum
+
+Work is in progress mapping FLOSS tools to the state curriculum.
+I recommended to share that work publicly with a Free license,
+to encourage comparisons across countries,
+and invite collaboration e.g. with Skolelunux/DebianEdu.
+
+## Blend for SBCs
+
+Some Kerala higher education schools (sorry, don't remember which)
+have bought some thousands of RaspberryPi2.
+I suggested to create a Debian Blend for SBCs (Single Board Computers)
+- we will see what comes of that idea...
+
+## Blend for education
+
+I also suggested to make a Debian blend around IT@school distribution itself,
+with its strong focus on educational content
+- i.e. not just as addon to technical tools
+but the primary purpose pulling in tools as needed.