As Education Freedom Day is just around the corner we would like to highlight a few of the possibilities of participations during that day. We are indeed very happy to see projects contributors getting involved and we would like to highlight the Open Book Project lead by Jeffrey Elkner, Kevin Cole and a few others running their own event in Washington, DC. The Open Book Project has for us some special significance as we are also involved in Free Software advocacy and running educational groups which cover how to program at a young age. Definitely learning to code early enough is a good thing for every one as it teaches you the fundamentals of problem solving and logic. We have been using software such as RUR-PLE ourselves but the Open Book Project goes further and provides all kinds of books, tutorials and courses around the Information & Communication Technology with quite an extensive part on Python itself, split well enough not to bore the kids (or at least that is how we feel). Jeffrey Elkner is also involved in the Guido van Robot programming language which is very similar to the RUR-PLE we love. So why do we care about Python in education would you ask? Well that is probably because the language is simple and close enough to the English language and allows you to do wonders at the same time. So rather than learning something that is only useful within its educational context, why not make the slight extra effort to learn something that is also used by real developers? And it is all Free Software!
Of course those materials are usable by either teachers, students or self-learners and EFD will be a day where you can either join the team in Washington DC or get in touch with them and see how you could contribute without being on site.
Then again Education Freedom Day is happening in many other places and covering many other topics. Stay with us and we will highlight other projects in the coming few days.