[Scale-planning] Open Source in Education Track (was Re: About the Open Data Track)

Thu Aug 4 04:09:40 UTC 2016

Hi Folks,

To summarize our discussion so far, Kenneth Wyrick and I will work on having an OSSIE track for SCaLE. Others who wish to help us are welcome to join in.

We need to decide what day would be best for OSSIE, or whether it might be extended over more than one day. If extended, what days.

We need to explore the possibility of getting one of the local community colleges on board to grant college credit (typically one unit with a small fee) to attendees who attend a specified number of hours and certain specified events/presentations at SCaLE. 

We need to line up speakers to fill the OSSIE slots. Joe Renzullo has already volunteered and his topic sounds very interesting. (Thank you Joe!)

We need to study the interests shown in the various recent and coming CUE meetings and conferences to see what topics are most timely now and try to find ways open source can meet those interests… then look for speakers we could use on those topics. One topic we should definitely look into is "Why open source in education?" 

When we have all of our "ducks in a row" we need to begin an earnest publicity campaign to reach teachers (through CUE and other organizations) and others who might be interested.

We need to see whether there is any possibility of a sponsor for OSSIE who might be able to fund some really interesting speaker.  

For example: Matt and Kaitlyn Hova (who live in Nebraska) would possibly be a terrific keynote type presentation that would be of interest to any and all attendees (not just OSSIE). Kaitlyn is going to be doing a talk for TED-Med. She also plays one of their 3-D printed violins (they call it a "Hovalin") as part of her presentation. What if we had her (maybe both of them) as a speaker(s), say on Friday, and printed one of their hovalins during the course of SCaLE. I don't know how long it would take, but the cost to make it is about $70, which I think includes strings, bridge, pegs, etc. Maybe it could be a raffle prize.  How does this relate to OSSIE? STEAM at its best! STEAM is STEM with an A added for Arts!

Fill in the blanks…. there are lots! 

Caryl
From: ilan at socallinuxexpo.org
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 17:21:13 -0700
To: scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
Subject: Re: [Scale-planning] Open Source in Education Track (was Re: About the Open Data Track)

Ya, we've also had OSSIE sessions with 5-10 people in the room. So as you can imagine the range varies depending on the topic, etc.

Ilan Rabinovitch Conference ChairSouthern California Linux Expo877-831-2569 x110 Voice 818-442-1865 Mobileilan at linuxfests.org Email
---Ask me about sponsorship and speaking opportunities at LinuxFests.org's upcoming events:DevOps Days SV -  June 24-25, 2016 - Mountain View, CA
Texas Linux Fest - July 8-9, 2016, Austin TXSCALE 15x - March 2-5, 2017 - Pasadena, CA

On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 11:04 AM, Hriday Balachandran <bala at socallinuxexpo.org> wrote:
Hi Ken,
OSSIE specific attendance is hard to predict. Some talks are rather popular, and some are not. On an average, I think 35-45 people attend the talks. The really popular ones approach three figures.
The way I have handled OSSIE talks has been a mix of CFP submissions and curated/invited talks. 5-6 talks are generally the target. 
Bala.
On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 10:50 PM, Kenneth Wyrick <kmw at caltek.net> wrote:
I'd like to know what kind of numbers we are talking about for a track and

how one typically goes about assessing and forecasting the participation

both on the presentation and attendance side?

<quote who="Caryl Bigenho">

Hi Ilan,

Why don't you let Kenneth Wyrick and I see if we can get this going? You

have given us a list of things to work on below and we can get started

right away with such things as whether Friday or Saturday would work best

and how to get more educators to attend.* As I see it, an OSSIE track

shouldn't be just for educators. With so many parents getting involved in

the technology side of their children's education, things like the Khan

Academy videos, Hour of Code and Scratch/ScratchJr are things that will

have a wider audience than just professional educators.

Caryl

* Maybe we could get  a unit of college credit for folks who attend the

entire OSSIE day and pay a small fee. Teachers can use this type of credit

for professional development and, often, it can count toward increases in

salary.

From: ilan at socallinuxexpo.org

Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 14:45:05 -0700

To: scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org; bala at socallinuxexpo.org

Subject: [Scale-planning] Open Source in Education Track (was Re: About

the Open Data Track)

We haven't yet made a decision around OSSIE for this year, but as a track

it has seen reduced attendance and submissions over the past few years. If

we can come up with some concrete plans around what we'd want it to look

like and discuss how we can get teachers to attend I'm sure we'd be happy

to arrange space again.

Another thing to keep in mind is we've gotten mixed feedback from teachers

on what day to hold OSSIE on if we continue to do so. On the one hand we

hear from many teachers they can't attend during the weekend as they have

trouble getting the school district to give them a day off for the

conference.  On the other hand, we also hear from them that they prefer to

keep their weekends to themselves rather than for training.

-Ilan

On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 2:26 PM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com>

wrote:

Hi Folks,

I've been watching silently from afar (summer in Montana). It looks like

everything is coming along well, except for one thing that seems to be

entirely missing: OSSIE (Open Source Software In Education.)

A few years back there was still a dedicated OSSIE track. Have you given

up entirely on having one? If not, I'll be happy to volunteer to help

organize, publicize, coordinate, and do what ever else needs to be done to

make it happen.

Just let me know!Caryl

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 1, 2016, at 1:46 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch <ilan at socallinuxexpo.org>

wrote:

Hello Juan,

The local big data community has been running a data tools/big data track

the last few years of SCALE. It's possible that what you're looking for

might be covered there?   OpenData in general has been a topic we've had

requests for over the years, so we decided to add a one day track around

it.

That being said I think your email highlights an important point.  We find

a lot of confusion from both attendees and speakers about what is relevant

for a given track each year.  E.g. Is intro to kernel development a talk

that belongs in the introductory/beginner track, a kernel track, or a

developer track?

With that in mind we have been looking to recruit experts around each

track to help serve as "track leads".  The role involves writing a one

paragraph abstract describing what type of content we are seeking for that

track, helping to do targeted recruitment for invited speakers on those

tracks, and finally participating in the voting/review process of sessions

submitted via the CFP.

Here is an example of what QCon has done for these track descriptions

===

Track:  Containers -  From Dev to ProdAbstract: Containers came to

prominence a couple of years ago with thepromise of portability,

flexibility and rapid deployments. They remain a hot topic in the industry

and there are several success stories of companiesderiving business value

from the use of containers; especially in the area of developer

experience. At the same time, container technology and thesurrounding

ecosystem are evolving very rapidly, which makes it difficult to assess

its readiness for production use.

In this track, we will hear from practitioners who are leveraging

containers as part of their software delivery processes for a better

developerexperience, simplified operations, efficient resource

utilization, or all of the above. Speakers will share their experiences in

tackling the complex challenges around CI/CD, scheduling and

orchestration, service discovery, monitoring etc. andwhat it takes to

truly reap the benefits of container technology.Track Lead(s): Sangeeta

Narayanan, Netflix

===

This makes it very clear what the goal of the track is and what type of

content they're seeking.

If you see a track on the CFP that you think you'd be a good fit to lead,

reach out to myself and Shyam (kapadia at socallinuxexpo.org). We'd love to

have your help.  We're seeing at least 1 person per track, with 2 leads

per track max.

Thanks,Ilan

Ilan Rabinovitch Conference ChairSouthern California Linux

Expo877-831-2569 x110 Voice 818-442-1865 Mobileilan at linuxfests.org Email

---Ask me about sponsorship and speaking opportunities at LinuxFests.org's

upcoming events:DevOps Days SV -  June 24-25, 2016 - Mountain View, CA

Texas Linux Fest - July 8-9, 2016, Austin TXSCALE 15x - March 2-5, 2017 -

Pasadena, CA

On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 10:56 AM, Juan J. Natera <naterajj at gmail.com>

wrote:

Hi,

I was taking a look at the CFP page

(http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/15x/cfp), when I read the

description of the Open Data track, which I quote here:

"Open Data - This newly introduced track will focus on topics related

to Open Data in Science, Government, and other sources. This will

strive to answer questions such as: Why does Open Data Matter? What

are benefits of Open Data? What are the goals of the Open Data

movement? What is its current status?"

As an Open Source enthusiast, I wholeheartedly agree with the

importance of Open Data, and realize there is a long road ahead of

those working to address this issue. However I believe that this

track, as described, would be more at home as a keynote in Data

focused conference. I am not saying it goes against SCALE's mission to

have this kind of content, far from it. but speaking also as an

attendee, I think SCALE users would be more interested in Open Source

tools for working with data (big or small), since it's already obvious

for most scale attendees that Open Data is just as good as Open Source

software.

I also realize that Big Data is mentioned in the Cloud Track, but

isn't there enough interest in this topic to deserve its own track?

Some food for thought,

Thanks,

Juan

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