Developer-roadshow was offically declared opened by Vice Chancellor of University of Education Winneba. Host and Co host were introduce after which Tim Tucker gave a talk about the mission and background about the traveling developer-roadshow. Mission was to bring software developers and educators together to meet educational needs of the society, share skills and ideas and in the future work together on a project.He elaborated on those points for a while, after which participants where asked to voice out their problems they face with ICTs. Some issues raised includes:
a. Language barriers among the west africa sub region
b. Iliteracy rate in west africa is too high
c. Inadequate ICT infrascture
d. Connectivity is very expensive
e. Environment not good for computers
f. Accessibilities to computers
g. Lack of right skilled people to impact knowledge
h. etc
after, a presentation was made about The Spirit Of Free and Open Source Software Movement( FOSS ) by Gideon Chonia. He started off with the reason why there is FOSS, the reason being to collaborate and share. He made participants understand free in FOSS is freedom, the freedom to temper with the software's source code, make changes as soul wish, freedom to redistribute and copy and not free as in cost.He went on to let us know how FOSS makes money. Making moneyFOSS includes,
a. Providing end user training
b. Providing support
c. Donations
d. rendering of services
After the presentation we had coffee break for about 15 minutes.After which we came back and the various tacks for the event were introduced which we were to sign up for any of the tracks you're keen to sign up.
At about approximately 12:10pm lunch was ready. After lunch presentations where made about the various tracks available. These tracks include
a. User Interface design of education out of the box( Track 1 )
The first developer road show which was orgainsed in South Africa identified various educational tools and put them together into what is now refer to as Education-out-of-the-Box. The user interface for the package lacks in finesse and proper navigational scheme.
subscribers to that track are to create a better user interface design for the package.
b. eXe tool localization and modification( Track 2 ):
eXe is a simple, off-line authoring environment that enables teachers and academics to author web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup. eXe enables users to create their own devices like objectives, case studies, reading activities, etc. Users can manipulate the look and feel of their published content as well as export for different display or delivery technologies
subscribers to this track is to localize the eXe tool into Twi and
Ewe-Ghanaian lanuauges.
c. Data Resource Bank( Track 3 ):
I didn't really pay much attention to this track. IIRC subscribers were to collect information to a central place which is the internet.
d. School Management Software( Track 4 ):
For this track subscribers were to come out with a school management software. After the week event subscribers came out solution which it will finally be deployed by 2008.Pilot project start here in ghana.
After long presentations on the tracks. The day's event came to an end and after dinner we were all conveyed to our various hotels.
