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Experience loopback
Résumé
For many projects related to free software, large scale publication occurs early. The community of users is prompted to participate to the warm-up cycle and to test the features of the programs (debugging, translating, documenting).
Unsurprisingly, we are observing more loopback about bugs, by the mailing lists used by OFSET members (usually about hardware not recognized at boot time), than structured loopback about about educative usages in the classroom. The other type of loopback we get often is the expression of a satisfaction and of a great enthusiasm. A recurring theme is a discussion about the choice of the window manager (currently Xfce).
1700 units Freeduc-CD have been distributed to the students of lycée Jean Bart in Dunkerque (France), between the 13th and the 17th April 2004. The School Cooperative, conforming to the decision taken some months ago in its general assembly, used a budget of 15 k€ for it. The CDROMs were pressed by the magazine Linux Pratique, which distributed them joined to its issue ♯21, published in January 2004. As payment for 6 articles written about the operation organized in lycée Jean Bart, we recieved an extra issue of the pressed CDROM. Then the cooperative bought custom cases (like cases for DVD media), with a personnalized cover and a booklet of 12 pages to document it.
Since then, the students have had two free weeks, came back to school for the end of the academic year. As to now, the main indication we can observe is a very regular usage of the computers available as self-service machines in the « permanence » room. These machines are thin clients, which boot into the same environment as Freeduc-CD. This means about 800 hours of usage of these computers and of internet browsing. Outstanding facts are the following:
No breakdown, no « first May virus »,
A usage mainly directed towards communication activities (internet access), and secondarily towards document edition: every student can access her private data as soon as authentified, and work with word processors, often using data found from their research in internet,
Girls access the self-service computers as often as boys.