Archive for September, 2007
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
miles to go before I sleep…
a photo from my recent trip to Mahe from Bangalore
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
Free software in Kerala
Question
Prepare the poster of your school youth festival using Gimp. Using logo, Insert the title ‘SCHOOL YOUTH FESTIVAL’. Insert name of school, place and date in suitable size and colors on different layers. Provide back ground color and make the poster attractive.
This is one of the questions from the 10th standard practical exams from a school in Kerala.
Here is how you get your score.
Scoring Key
- For providing back ground color - 1 Score
- For inserting title using logo - 1 Score
- For using layers - 1 Score
- For entering name of school, place and date in different size and color - 2 Score
- For total attraction - 1 Score
Yes, You read it right, they are using Gimp. On a customized version of Ubuntu called Called IT@School GNU Linux Version 3.0 !!
See the question papers for Gimp,Spredsheet and word processor.
The syllabus and the question papers are either biased towards free software or at the minimum platform/ application neutral. No mention of M$ anywhere. Thats cool !!
From Hindu
In the largest such simultaneous deployment of ‘free-and-open’ software in India, over 15 lakh Kerala schoolchildren on Friday start taking their quarterly practical tests in Information Technology on personal computers using a special Linux version.
The IT@School project of the State Education Department has developed an operating system based on the Linux version Ubuntu. Called IT@School GNU Linux Version 3.0, it was distributed to 2,832 high schools — over a thousand of them government schools, the rest aided and unaided ones.
Between September 7 and 22, children of Classes 8, 9 and 10 will use some 30,000 PCs to do their quarterly practical examinations in IT.
read the original article IT practical tests on ‘open’ platform on The Hindu.
From NewIndPress
The Director of Public Instruction (DPI) has issued orders making free software compulsory. It says Linux Operating System should be used for IT education in eighth, ninth and tenth standards.
Till last year, schools had the freedom to conduct the examinations either in free software or in Microsoft platform.
As part of it, various programmes were arranged to observe International Software Freedom Day on Saturday.
A small introductory lecture will be delivered in the school assemblies across the state on Monday, followed by a pledge. An outline of the introductory lecture and the pledge have been circulated to the schools.
A digital painting competition for students of eighth standard will be conducted on the day using TUX paint, XPaint and GIMP software.
The topic of the painting competition will be ‘my school and surrounding.’
A presentation competition using Open Office Impress will be conducted for students of ninth and tenth standard in the topic ‘IT and its benefits to the common man.’
read the original article Free software made mandatory: IT practicals of SSLC Exam on NewIndPress.
Here is a detailed write up on The Story of Free Software in Kerala by V. Sasi Kumar
Definitely a step forward.
This is one thing that i can add to the list of things that i like about Kerala. Some of the recent additions to that list were the plastic ban and night shopping
Saturday, September 8th, 2007
One of them didnt go to Iraq
picture from TOI