[Fsf-friends] TeX, SchoolForge, FreEduc... and even Susegado

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

FORMER GOA BOARD for SSC & HSSC Education chairman Raghuvir Vernekar was 
waiting for the meeting to get up seat, as was Animesh, Alwyn and Mario. 
Others walked in somewhere between the appointed hour of 3 pm, scheduled 
for the launch of a proposed TeX Users Group in Goa.

	Normally-silent Alwyn Noronha was in full-bloom, explaining
	why he opted for TeX. "It's a way of creating documents that
	wil last over the years. Size of the documents is small. It's
	typesetting, not wordprocessing. You can get LateX to work with
	computers ranging from mainframes to Windows. Indexing and
	table-of-contents are very easy to create. You can even
	forward refer."

We discussed the ways of creating PDF books. With so much content floating 
around, perhaps this might be a good idea. 

	Prof Vernekar gave some ideas of how we could get in touch
	with Goa school principals (Goa Headmasters' Association) to
	introduce them to the idea of Free Software for education.
	One idea is to link up with the principals, teachers
	associations (AGSSTO, AGSSTA), and the higher secondary
	principal's forum. Any volunteers?

Rizaplaystation, which was lugged in earlier, was demonstrated with 
FreEDUC. FN demoed some of the Gcompris games his daughter enjoys. Animesh 
ran through some other programs on this CD (www.ofset.org).

	This was followed by a discussion on the Goa government's
	approach towards GNU/Linux was discussed, as was whether
	have Goa's own 'base CD' would help. Albert Gouveia of
	NIO gave his inputs, as did educationist Dr Anil Seth
	and Bijon Shaha. Some pointed out that in view of the 
	limited functionality of proprietorial software tools
	offered to students under the Cyberage scheme, a demand
	should be made for installing dual-boot systems on the PCs.

Mario@Alienwiz gave an interesting explanation of his plans to
create a 'virtual Goa' community game, perhaps aptly titled
'Susegado' (a difficult word to translate, but reflecting the
relaxed state of the Goan mind). More about this later.

	Everyone adjourned for the customary tea-and-snacks
	at Navtara restaurant, leading to another session of
	informal discussions. Randall, a young student, was
	also present along with his friend from Don Bosco's
	IT college. Looking forward to seeing more young
	faces at the LUG. Let's take Free Software to your
	colleges too...
	
Some plans:
o St Xavier's Free Software talk and demo, possibly on 19.7
o Randall is checking out possibilities at Damodar's
o Prof Bhat promised to follow up more IT-in-college initiatives
-- 
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Frederick Noronha (FN)        | http://www.fredericknoronha.net
Freelance Journalist          | http://www.bytesforall.org
http://goalinks.pitas.com     | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com
http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks
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