Many of you may know that Maine has lead the way in the USA with 1 to 1 Apple laptops for middle schoolers, paid for out of the state budget for the last several years. What you may not have heard is when they expanded the program a bit over a year ago the state wanted many districts to pay $250 per year to lease apple laptops with software for middle and high school students.
Many of Maine's towns and rural areas thought that was too much! So they came together and formed a consortium. They created their own open source distro packed with educational software: open1to1.org. They negotiated a deal to buy netbooks for $289 (buy...not lease!)
More than 3000 students are using open source netbooks in Maine today! Many more use open source in general...Maine is a hotbed for Linux and open source software and has been for many years. While Open1to1 has a large deployment base in Maine, there are schools in several other states either using or preparing to use Open1to1. Vermont is also possibly considering a statewide Open1to1 deployment...and we want to be ready!
The FOSSed conference (Free and Open Source Software in EDucation) is in it's 8th year! Born from all this was the Open1to1 project in an effort to bring 1to1 computing to ALL students.
Now we want to add Sugar to Open1to1! That's why we need you! Together we can help each other and bring Sugar and Open1to1 to students all over Maine and the world! Please come help us kick off this effort in Maine July 7th to 9th!!!
Developers will receive a VERY significant discount and still get lodging, great food and access to sessions. The cost for the Sugar/Open1to1 developers summit is just $215 for the 3 day event.
This includes EVERYTHING! Meals, lodging, and the summit.conference. You'll get lots of time to work together, network with actual educators who use open source in their schools and classrooms, and really get to know what educators are looking for. Early arrival the night before is just $30 extra (in other words you get an extra night) and is recommended if you want to hit the ground running the next morning or have extra time the night before. Payment options are flexible...and we'll work with you to get you to FOSSed. Register at http://www.fossed.com When you register be sure to check "Sugar/Open1to1 Developers Summit" where it asks for "Registration Type".
We really hope you can join us! If you have any questions...let us know! http://www.fossed.com
Hope to see you there!
Originally posted in the IAEP list by David Trask
