I knew diddly squat about CLCs before going over there, I had done some back ground reading on them but nothing really prepared me for what I learned over there.  They were a form of school for children/young adults that were different and taught children through different means.

Many of the CLCs in the UK are facing large budget cuts due to lack of funding available to them.  Having events like this covering a multitude of topics was rather interesting.  Even better was having an open source stream! It’s great to see conferences doing this as it gives people an opportunity to learn more about a topic they may have only a little knowledge in and a chance to learn more about an alternative solution that may be available to them.

Here is where I stepped in. My talk title was Ubuntu Women, but we’re more than just a team.  We are a part of the Global Ubuntu Community.  Having a large vocal presence on many committees, such as the Community Council, the LoCo Council and all of the membership board!  We are are also active in other teams, Accessibility, Learning, UWN and many many more.  We even offer a mentoring program and run some rather cool competitions open to everyone. This is something  that wasn’t happening 6-10 months ago. So we are growing and becoming more active.

While explaining where we are in the community and also the uniques of the community that Ubuntu has above most other groups I also showed how we operate.  From a virtual Community to a real life go give someone a hug community.  I think, trying to get people to understand the many types of people we have in our community to others is interesting, as something they assume Geeks don’t socialise and in fact we’re a rather sociable bunch of people and very approachable.  Which is easier for them to relate to if they know they can approach and talk to people find someone with a real face to ask a question to at an event or know there are people out there with varying degrees of knowledge able to help them.

It was slightly ironic seeing everyone with their iphones, ipads, macbooks and ipods all tweeting and taking notes and in some cases explaining how they give ipod shuffles to students as a reward for when kids reach a certain level of being able to read in a class. All of these things cost a lot of money, surely if your budgets are being slashed people should be looking for alternatives.   In the middle of my session I showed how easy it was to download software from the Ubuntu software centre.  I downloaded Quickly, and while I’m not a good programmer I do think it’s a great idea and can see the benefits of it for young students who may want to learn and it’s a good way to teach people.  Showing off the Software Centre I did get a few people sit up and take notice, explaining all the free software and applications that are available to them and for their students.  I’d brought over  some Live CDs and handed them out and others took some to bring back to their students so I’m hoping others are interested in looking at alternative solutions.

I did get a chance to talk to some teachers, and asked them why some were so reluctant to move towards using open source as an alternative, was it fear of not knowing about it, fear of it’s use or what? Many said it was to do with integration with other CLCs so if one CLC did it, more would seemed to be the consensus. More did ask about the software centre, which I think is a positive sign.

It was interesting to note that some CLCs do use Ubuntu in their centres, some of the teachers use it in their homes, so they do know it is out there! Some of the CLCs are pushing for it to be used more, again issues such as administration and training are the key obstacles they face in order to make a full switch over.   Every time during the talks when speakers gave a solution or software they used they seemed to only chose applications that worked on windows only or Mac only.  (I did try as much as I could to tweet an open source alternative #clcs10)

I’ve posted my slides here if anyone is interested in them.  Thanks again to the lovely folks at the CLC Leeds who were excellent hosts and again great to see a stream on Open Source making it’s way into the timetable.

Another interesting note, 18 speakers spoke over the two days.  There were two women and both of us spoke on Open Source,the other was MáirínDuffy

]]> http://www.lczajkowski.com/2010/07/14/national-clc-conference-leeds/feed/ 0 http://www.lczajkowski.com/2010/03/24/ada-lovelace-post-2010-women-in-ubuntu/ http://www.lczajkowski.com/2010/03/24/ada-lovelace-post-2010-women-in-ubuntu/#comments Wed, 24 Mar 2010 06:18:50 +0000 Laura Czajkowski http://www.lczajkowski.com/?p=664 Sitting down to write this Ada Lovelace post I counted the number of women I deal with on a regular basis in the Ubuntu Community.  There are a lot of great people in this project. It’s great to see more and more women taking part and using Ubuntu and I can see that since this time last year there are more present, vocal, taking part and contributing. Firstly for those not familiar with it Ada Lovelace

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was born on 10th December 1815, the only child of Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella. Born Augusta Ada Byron, but now known simply as Ada Lovelace, she wrote the world’s first computer programmes for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose machine that Charles Babbage had invented. Her notes on the engine include what is recognized as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine; as such she is often regarded as the world’s first computer programmer.

This time last year I was as active member of the Ubuntu community and helped where I could.  In May I attended UDS Karmic and met some great people and was encouraged to go for my Ubuntu Membership. Since doing so I’ve encouraged other women to do so also when I’ve seen them join Ubuntu and contribute in their way to the community.  This is how I help and encourage other women to take part.

There are many women in Ubuntu who contribute daily to making it what it is. It’s more than just an operating system, more than a community. It’s become a place where you can meet more like minded people, discuss and take part in healthy debates and work on projects with people you never would have had the chance to do so. I thought I’d mention in this post some of the women I’ve met in Ubuntu and who’ve helped me. As I said, Ubuntu is more than an Community and more than a system we use, equally the women involved in Ubuntu participate in both areas.

Below are some of the women I’ve dealt with while using and being a part of the Ubuntu community. They are both community and canonical, one without the other cannot exist. Both have helped me in different ways and been helpful and interesting to talk to and work with. Some you may have heard about or know of, others perhaps not, they all have one common goal together they work within the Ubuntu community.

Ivanka Majic - works on the design team, her team is responsible for making Ubuntu sleeker and rather snazzy! New to the community, she’s jumped in and rolled up her sleeves and is making an impression, and I’m not just talking about the button moment!  Ivanka is approachable and there to help if she can.  When I’ve asked for help she’s been there to aide and offer advice and put me in contact with the right person, which is a valuable thing to be able to do.

Ara Pulido – Works on the QA team, Ara has helped me in the past when I’ve logged bugs and need help in finding out who to poke about, she’s friendly, helpful and if you need a hand wiling to help you. As a software tester myself it’s great to meet a fellow QA and Ara offered useful advice when I asked about other testing techniques which was great!

Maria Randazzo – You may not see her or know her, but she’s there making things run smoothly, she’s responsible for the ShipIt programme. It didn’t always work so smoothly but it’s improving and this is down to her following up and chasing after correspondence. If you’ve been to UDS, she’s there, if you’ve issues she’s the one that you can go ask and she’ll help you.

Penelope Stowe – I’ve yet to meet Penelope even though we were both at the penultimate Lugradio live in 2008 we never actually met, we’ve been in the same IRC channel for some time and gradually chatted more, it wasn’t till I encouraged her to joined #ubuntu-women and get more involved in Ubuntu we got to know one another more.  She has been great to bounce ideas off and help on some of the projects I’m involved in. She jumped straight in taking on tasks and giving valuable feedback and helping where she can.  It’s great to see new people working within the teams and bringing new people together.

Amber Graner -  We met over IRC while I was at UDS and she was remotely participating, now we chat most weeks over the net on Skype and work on projects together. It’s great to be able to say what I like to her and she does the same to me, and we can thrash out items.  She does an amount of work in the Ubuntu community, I’m not sure how she manages it but does a great job! She is making it more accessible for new users to come and take part in the project.

Issabell L – I’ve not met her, but her enthusiasm knows no bounds. We both work on freenode community areas and I knew she lived in the UK, loved open source and gradually poked her to join #ubuntu-uk and get involved in there, it’s been great working with her. She is great at taking on projects and trying new things out and asking for help but also her enthusiasm is catchy and you can’t help but get caught up in the projects she is working on.

These are just some of the women I’ve been lucky to meet and work with in the Ubuntu community, there are more. This post is to mark Ada Lovelace day 2010 and the remarkable women that take part in the Ubuntu and the Community and make it what it is. A great project to be a part of.

Since UDS Lucid we’ve been working on some changes as a team, most know about the Ubuntu team leader, but also a big change was the decision to have a LOGGED CHANNEL. These came about from discussions and meetings discussing the IRC purpose, as again the team is more than IRC.

Many many conversations were happening on IRC and not on mailing list of indeed the forums.  If you weren’t on IRC you missed the information or indeed the lengthy and interesting discussions taking place.  The idea to create a logged channel means if you don’t IRC, not on IRC at the time, and perhaps you don’t run a screen session you don’t lose out on these conversations and discussions, you can catch up and read the logs like many other teams.

We now have two channels and I’d like to point out to folks to perhaps join and update their autojoin

#ubuntu-women-project is the new channel created, it is the logged channel for the Ubuntu Women Project This is the Ubuntu, technical, and project discussions take place, of course social chat is going to happen.

#ubuntu-women is the non logged channel should there be a need to discuss private issues that people may not want logged, it is also marked as the social channel.

If anyone has any questions pop onto IRC and chat to us there

This year, the Ubuntu Women project has decided to celebrate International Women’s Day in a unique way.

International Women’s Day (IWD) is marked on March 8 every year. It is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women.

Started as a political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries (primarily Russia and the countries of former Soviet bloc). In some celebrations, the day lost its political flavour, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love to the women around them in a way somewhat similar to Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day mixed together. In others, however, the political and human rights theme as designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner.

What we are doing is going to collect  stories from people who are involved in the project. Everyone gets involved in different ways, and we want to hear your story.  Were you involved in your LoCo before this, a member of a different team, heard about Ubuntu in college, or were you looking for help an answers with a project you were working on.  No story is going to be there same. Your story is important to us, as a community so we can share it with others, and encourage them to join and take part.

To hear how you got involved, shows us there are numerous ways to stumble into our world and take part.  This is what we want to hear about.

Now, how do you do it, how can you take part, here’s the information, read it and do circulate it. Share it amongst your friends.

There will be two (2) prizes up for grabs. One (1) prize pack will be given to the story that the community votes is their favourite. One (1) prize pack will be given to a randomly drawn entrant. Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager will be drawing this entrant in a videocast, and announcing both winners to the world on March 8th.

Please email your stories to ubuntuwomen.competition at gmail.com by UTC  23:59 22nd February 2010.

By submitting a story, you acknowledge that it will be posted on the Ubuntu Women website under the Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives [0] licence. If you prefer that your story be posted under a less restrictive licence such as Creative Commons Attribution [1] or Public Domain [2], then feel free to let us know when you submit. All stories are to be non-fiction and of a family-friendly nature. The  organisers also reserve the right to interview prospective winners over
the phone or other voice chat at their discretion.

We will celebrate International Women’s Day by announcing the winners, who will receive gift packs (which are still in negotiation — we will announce when it is confirmed!).

[0] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/
[1] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
[2] http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain

Looking forward to reading all the stories about how you got involved in Ubuntu! Remember it can be any length, it can be about anything you want, don’t feel your story has to be technical to enter! We just want to hear it from you!