Experiences in deployment of free software in education
Once again, the Latinoware program will open space for novelties in the use of free software in classrooms throughout Brazil. This year, a team of 25 people will lead a lecture series on the Trail and also in the integration with free robotics.
Check out our interview with Frederico Guimarães, a founding member of the Free Software in Education group. He tells us about the group’s program at the 
event and also details on LibrEdu, a space created to pool ideas from the community about the sector. “In Latinoware, we will have an official meeting of the group on the 18th at 10 am. All user groups and individuals interested in discussing the educational use of free software are very welcome to join our meeting,” he says.
What activities related to FS in education will be held in Latinoware 2012 and which are the main novelties?
There are several lectures on education trail of this year, dealing with a number of different topics, including: inclusive education, lightweight terminals for labs, case studies, software and educational distributions, and philosophical contributions of the free software movement to education.
The most interesting novelty this year is that the education trail is working together with robotics free to structure activities in common, especially workshops, which will be offered in the robotics space. We will also have a meeting LibrEdu group, which is an initiative to organize a federation of Latin American groups that discuss education and free software.
In 2011, in addition Latinoware, Frederico also came to the PTI present examples of open source software that can be used in the classroom and in digital inclusion projects.
When and why did the intention to create the LibrEdu appear? What is the purpose of the group?
The original proposal for the LibrEdu was formulated at the2011 International Free Software Forum (FISL) at a conversation between the Brazilian Free Software in Education group and the Argentine groups SoLAr Gleducar. At this informal meeting, the existence of a number of isolated initiatives in education and free software in several Latin American countries which did not interact was discussed. With that came the idea of organizing a collective entity that would pool these groups, gathering information, disseminating news and providing inputs for the work done by these groups.
Our idea evolved and we are now beginning the work of organizing the group. For this, we held a meeting in person during this year’s FISL (2012), which resulted in the minutes available (temporarily) at this URL: http://miniurl.org/libredu1
And as a result of this meeting, we held another, this time in a distance attendance format, in an IRC room. The minutes of this meeting and the proposals are in the final stages of consolidation and will be available on our website as they become ready. Our URL is http://libredu.org
The idea is to be a space for aggregation. So instead of creating a completely new and independent structure, we are researching online tools that work in a distributed, preferablçy federated way so that the groups can continue with their regular work and our infrastructure undertakes to aggregate that.
At what stage is the LibrEdu? Are there activities planned for Latinoware?
We are now in the design phase of our digital infrastructure, disclosure of the group and construction of our work models. It is a moment of hard work and ideal for anyone wanting to start collaborating with us.
