On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 14:21 -0500, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote: > Hi > On 2007-03-02, at 11:39 , Ian Lynch wrote: > > > > > > For info. > > > > While not specifically an OOo project, (Most of the partners are > > new to > > OOo) a preparatory meeting was held for a Comenius project involving > > myself, Manfred Reiter and delegates from Romania, Portugal and the > > UK. > > Its early days yet but there is also a proposal for a Minerva project > > (which is potentially more money) and these both have potential to > > create curriculum resources in a number of languages helpful to > > OpenOffice.org. Details are yet to be finalised especially for Minerva > > but there are also partners in Turkey. > > > > > > Ian > > I'm familiar with some Minervas [0], [1], but what do you mean by a > Minerva Project?
This Minerva is part of the EU grant system for joint projects across member states. Usually the partners are universities and schools and companies with an interest in education. The focus is Developing open and distance learning and ICT So while this is not directly focused on OOo, OOo could benefit, for example, by developing learning materials in OD format or by assessment of ICT designed to operate across Europe or learning targeted on OOo itself. Minerva funds up to 75% of eligible costs, on average 100,000 Euro a year. Its competitive so there is no certainty that a project would be accepted so there is some risk involved but having partners experienced in making applications helps. Also need maybe 6-8 partners in education establishments in different EU countries. (we have these and already had a meeting recently in Romania) > It sounds quite interesting. Along these lines, I've > also been working with Sakai [3], which has a lot of people here in > Toronto. Things are still early. But let's work together. I'm mostly > interested in getting things going and making sure that people know > of it. At this stage its just information exchange. The Comenius project is small and not so relevant to OOo except in so far as Manfred and myself are showing partners the benefits of using OOo in their schools :-) Also its focused on INGOT assessment and that can easily have OOo flavours. Minerva is a blank sheet. Joaquim our Portuguese partner knows the application process and each partner will have to have a work page they are happy to support, as a minimum we should be able to develop some curriculum modules involving OOo in different languages. Its likely that anything developed will be Creative Commons and so shareable. > Gerry S. (of documentation) also pinged me (we live in the same city) > and suggested the contribution of the Doc project, which I > enthusiastically welcome. What would be useful is versions of the documentation targeted on younger age groups. If at some point a version of OOo that had a user interface designed for young children - fewer and larger icons, default font that was large and the type script kids use to learn to read there would be a massive market since many of these use specialist tools other than MS Office for this in any case. Ian -- www.theINGOTS.org www.schoolforge.org.uk www.opendocumentfellowship.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
