WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:11.280 Okay, good morning everybody, nice to see you here. 00:11.280 --> 00:20.680 My name is Fierto Omniewissen, and this is my colleague Rauh Kramer, today we'll talk 00:20.680 --> 00:25.280 about public failures and free open source so far for education. 00:25.280 --> 00:42.680 This is our next, just introduce ourselves, email addresses, if you'd like to contact us. 00:42.680 --> 00:48.680 We're a working group of the Internet Society in an Netherlands, and what we're trying to 00:48.680 --> 00:56.880 build is a digital school environment that is really based on public values by design. 00:56.880 --> 01:03.440 So that means you only use free and open source software so that most schools in the Netherlands 01:03.440 --> 01:09.200 do have some kind of document on how they look at the world and why they're founded, and 01:09.200 --> 01:17.360 what they would like to teach children, but most, yeah, that's usually based upon public 01:17.360 --> 01:24.360 values, but what's missing is that they use this public values, this claim to stand for as a design, 01:24.360 --> 01:28.880 starting points to build their IT environment, and that's not happening, but with free and open 01:28.880 --> 01:33.360 source software, that is possible, you could do that. 01:33.360 --> 01:38.880 So that's what we're trying to do. 01:38.880 --> 01:44.920 There's a lot of risks with the current big tech monopolies that are dominating the schools. 01:44.920 --> 01:49.800 So if you send your kid to a school, you can either select, you used to be able to choose 01:49.800 --> 01:56.760 in the Netherlands between a Catholic school, a Protestant school, or a public school. 01:56.760 --> 02:01.560 But nowadays, this choice has changed into, you can select, I send my kid to a Microsoft 02:01.560 --> 02:07.560 school, or to a Google school, or to an iPad school, but there's no free open source software 02:08.520 --> 02:16.360 yet, and also, yeah, schools, again, become very mad at your school, but there's not a 02:16.360 --> 02:23.800 real, there's a lot of nice, very good open source software, but the school's not going to 02:23.800 --> 02:27.720 download all of that, run that on server, integrate it and build their software environment. 02:27.720 --> 02:33.480 So, it needs to be a party that's going to do that and integrate that, and take care of the 02:33.560 --> 02:38.040 digital environment for the schools, so that matches the public values of the school. 02:40.040 --> 02:45.880 There's a lot of public values you can talk about. I will select only a few to zoom into, 02:45.880 --> 02:55.400 because we don't have one a half hour. So, yeah, and if you have all these public values, 02:55.400 --> 03:05.320 if you don't use your public values as a basis to design your IT environment, and you go with 03:07.320 --> 03:14.520 very deep solutions that the tech offers, you have a lot of risks. You can basically chop this risk 03:14.520 --> 03:26.440 up into a few parts. First is privacy. You can also, yeah, but often the bait's only about privacy, 03:26.440 --> 03:30.680 and soon as you call privacy, but you have GDPR, we are compliant, because you have a document, 03:30.680 --> 03:37.800 but there's a lot more than that. And first, look into privatization of collective efforts. 03:37.800 --> 03:42.600 What do we mean by that? Let me tell you an example, in an Netherlands, you have the 03:43.240 --> 03:50.040 application that's called a Reagan term. It's that the learning thing for kids to learn how to calculate. 03:51.000 --> 03:57.320 And what they do is they have a ranking system. You can basically compare it to the tennis competition. 03:57.880 --> 04:05.400 They have each kid has a ranking, and every calculation has a ranking, and then a match 04:05.480 --> 04:12.280 goes to with each other. And it's based upon a scientific research that if a kid has 04:13.160 --> 04:19.480 70% correct score, then it's sufficient to be challenging, and sufficiently difficult enough. 04:19.480 --> 04:26.440 So the algorithm, and that's so that you get 70%. But what happens then is this is 04:26.520 --> 04:34.440 this adaptive learning method that is built on built by a university with public money, 04:35.160 --> 04:42.200 but now it's being commercialized into commercial company, and then sold back to schools with 04:42.200 --> 04:52.120 the proprietary license. And what then happens is that all the kids that are filling out all 04:52.200 --> 04:57.640 the calculations, they train the algorithm on how difficult this calculations are, because term 04:57.640 --> 05:05.480 biggest asset is that huge database filled with calculations, which they know exactly how difficult 05:05.480 --> 05:15.560 this is. So this rating is there asset, but this produced by the kids. So in my opinion, 05:15.560 --> 05:21.400 if the kids make this data set, and it's not privacy invasive, then this data set should be 05:21.400 --> 05:27.480 public domain, so that any software can use that. So basically you pay now three times. First, 05:27.480 --> 05:37.880 there's public money paid for the scientific research to do the math. Then the school is going to 05:37.880 --> 05:43.800 pay for the license to have access, and then the kids pay with their free labor to enhance the algorithm. 05:44.760 --> 05:52.120 All right, you can imagine what will happen with the licenses price, because they're real 05:52.840 --> 05:57.800 they're very popular, schools are very enthusiast about the, about the method. So they'll 05:57.800 --> 06:05.960 conquer the market, and then after the next phase will be ever increasing prices, and no alternative, 06:05.960 --> 06:07.320 because they have the biggest data set. 06:07.560 --> 06:19.000 Now there's the term vendor looking. You probably all know that, but I like to make a distinction 06:19.000 --> 06:24.920 in three different kinds of vendor looking. The first one is for for society at large. 06:26.280 --> 06:33.000 That means at the yesterday, we went out to to have dinner after after force them, and then in 06:33.000 --> 06:36.360 the group someone sends a Google link. So if you want to know where to eat, I need to open the 06:36.360 --> 06:45.640 Google link. And there's lots of, lots of these, these things. You continue to get it, 06:45.640 --> 06:54.280 invite for whatever. In school, a certain working group is made, and as soon as that starts, 06:54.840 --> 07:01.160 someone will create a WhatsApp group. You might not want that, and you're always the critical 07:01.160 --> 07:06.280 person that never wants to cooperate, which is very annoying. So you can try to build your own 07:06.280 --> 07:10.440 life, and live your own life with only free software, but you're not alone, you're in society. 07:13.400 --> 07:19.640 So that's, that's a society you're looking, that continues to get pushed to use proprietary services. 07:22.280 --> 07:27.160 The second one is the organizational. This is the classic lock-in of making exit, 07:27.160 --> 07:35.320 hard for organization to do something else. And you do that, I proprietary software, no good APIs, 07:37.560 --> 07:42.440 and usually quite often organization, especially schools, don't have an exit strategy, 07:42.440 --> 07:50.280 so they're locked in. But that's the one you really know. And then there's also the personal lock-in. 07:50.280 --> 07:56.840 If you spend time and effort to learn a specific tool, you're not going to do something else, 07:56.840 --> 08:00.840 because this is what you know, takes time and effort to start doing something else. 08:02.760 --> 08:07.720 And especially with schools, if you learn certain tools, you're not even aware that there's other 08:07.720 --> 08:13.400 options, and you're also never going to have the idea that something might be wrong with the tool that you're 08:13.400 --> 08:21.240 using. So that's the person who, and you can say, ah, but school, as a data processing 08:21.560 --> 08:28.760 agreement, so there's nothing wrong with that. But these data processing agreements, 08:28.760 --> 08:33.560 especially in the Netherlands, they're very famous, but how the Netherlands is aiming big-tack, 08:34.440 --> 08:44.040 well, they're not, because first of all, there's this, they've done a lot of DPS on how to do. 08:44.040 --> 08:49.880 And the result of that is that to either work with any of the big-tack providers, there's a very 08:49.960 --> 08:55.480 thick menu of very handy features that you need to switch off, but no school is doing that. 08:58.520 --> 09:03.960 For instance, a very simple example, ad blockers are mandatory. Well, if I look at the 09:03.960 --> 09:07.960 computers at my ad school or my kids, I go and they don't have an ad blocker, they even see gambling 09:08.040 --> 09:22.200 out of the ad for us in school. So, with these children, how to use all of these proprietary 09:22.200 --> 09:33.400 not things with not such good conditions. And that has a severe effect. If these services are 09:33.400 --> 09:39.720 not a day, maybe if in a school, the data processing agreement would be adhered and would be 09:39.720 --> 09:46.600 totally GDPR okay. Schools, kids are not only in school, they go out of school, they will use the 09:46.600 --> 09:55.160 school, the schools also out in their private life. So, you have all these fantastic values, 09:56.040 --> 10:04.520 yeah. And all these fantastic values that you would like to have, but there's only one thing. 10:06.360 --> 10:11.560 Kids will do outside of school, what they've learned in school, that's why we're teaching them stuff. 10:11.560 --> 10:15.960 But outside of school, they have to click the red big red accept button and they will. 10:16.920 --> 10:23.560 What's going to ask, can you raise your hand if you have a Google account somewhere? 10:23.560 --> 10:27.480 Ooh, all of them. And who has a Microsoft account in, though? 10:29.480 --> 10:34.360 You less, but it's still the majority. And who has read all the terms and conditions? 10:36.120 --> 10:42.360 A few hands, very good, very good. Unsurprised, but, yeah, kids that go to school, 10:42.680 --> 10:46.680 I'll beg you, think the chance is that they will read the terms and conditions and then go, 10:46.680 --> 10:51.480 nah, not such a good idea. Let's find something else. That's not going to happen. 10:53.000 --> 10:58.600 But all of these values are there being thrown off boards because everybody will use the proprietary 10:58.600 --> 11:05.320 services. And now with all the rising fesses that we have, all the fake news and the 11:05.400 --> 11:10.920 tech billionaires, there are even buying presidents. We'll end up in a total nightmare, 11:10.920 --> 11:19.880 dystopian rules, where it looks a bit like this. So, very bad situation, very terrible. 11:19.880 --> 11:25.160 And now I'm going to hand over the microphone to the, oh, who's going to tell us how to fix it? 11:27.160 --> 11:32.360 Trying to tell how to fix it, but first of all, what is quite, 11:32.680 --> 11:37.800 you're different with some different, with some other countries like Germany and France, 11:37.800 --> 11:46.520 is that we have freedom of education. And that brings that if you, whatever religion, 11:47.400 --> 11:54.600 you can start a school or whatever a conviction and state as the fund those schools and the 11:54.600 --> 12:01.480 municipality have to pride buildings. And a minimal curriculum is prescribed. So, it gives a lot of freedom. 12:02.520 --> 12:12.200 And we have, for that, inspectors and they will check if the school is following the kind of norms. 12:14.360 --> 12:19.160 The schools themselves, they decide about the teaching matters, like what kind of direction, 12:19.160 --> 12:26.600 what kind of books you use, but also the environment that's used. What we kind of see is that 12:26.680 --> 12:32.040 that same school inspection, they, they will kind of check if the tables are in order, if the 12:32.040 --> 12:39.640 school rooms are healthy, if the books that I used are well, if the scoring of the kids is up to 12:39.640 --> 12:46.120 par, but they won't really look at the IT system. So, even with great young set, you will see, 12:46.120 --> 12:52.360 like I go to an open day to find the school for my kid. And I see everywhere popping up advertisements 12:52.440 --> 12:57.880 on their Microsoft computers, like no one kind of checks. Next to that, we will get a big issue 12:57.880 --> 13:02.520 with, for instance, co-pilot and that kind of stuff. So, a lot of people will, we're talking 13:02.520 --> 13:06.280 with some scientists in the Netherlands, and they are very worried about it because it changed 13:07.320 --> 13:16.120 changes the way a children will learn. So, again, with the schools that can choose, 13:17.480 --> 13:21.320 it looks like you have a freedom of choice, but yeah, how big is that freedom of choice? 13:21.320 --> 13:29.880 Like, we can choose, like Google, Microsoft, iPads, and as a parent, it's really difficult to 13:30.680 --> 13:36.440 protest against it because that's how the school works, and often the schools are understaffed. 13:36.440 --> 13:43.800 So, yeah, what to do about it. And again, like at schools, there are not really IT specialists that 13:43.800 --> 13:49.720 will understand a GDPR rules, and it's very difficult for them to check everything. 13:50.600 --> 13:54.440 So, often they just get a subscription somewhere to and everyone use it. 13:56.920 --> 14:03.080 So, there's only a minimal compliance, and yeah, public values, often also schools have certain 14:03.080 --> 14:08.200 values about how they want to educate kids, like that's not really included in the software package. 14:11.320 --> 14:19.400 So, with our coalition, fair digital education, we try to look at it from three angles, 14:20.040 --> 14:25.320 so one part, and I will tell you more about it, it's our pilots, and that we try to educate 14:25.320 --> 14:32.680 schools and showcase alternative IT. We try to lobby and advocate at national and European level, 14:33.960 --> 14:40.760 and we also work together with Juneres, with newspapers, and they do research, and with that 14:40.760 --> 14:48.680 outcome, we try to enforce legal pressure. And I mean, it would be great, and that's actually also why 14:48.760 --> 14:52.360 we're here, like try to see if we can work together on a European level. 14:57.640 --> 15:04.120 Going back to the schools, there are four IT domains. We have the common clouds software, 15:04.120 --> 15:09.640 like that actually has every package, like Microsoft Google, it's kind of interchangeable. 15:09.640 --> 15:16.280 We also have next cloud, that's also possible, or any other open source cloud solution. 15:17.240 --> 15:23.400 And then we have, and then it gets a little bit more complex, we have the kind of school-specific 15:23.400 --> 15:29.560 systems, like the learning management systems, an example, open source is Gibbon, 15:31.080 --> 15:35.800 and we have student administration systems in the Netherlands, it's very famous, Machista, 15:36.440 --> 15:41.160 and I don't know, I think Gibbon is also could be replaced for Machista for instance. 15:41.320 --> 15:50.040 And then we also have hardware, so my son and my daughter at that school's 15:50.040 --> 15:55.560 a laptop is called a Chromebook, so it's very, like it's a, that's what they have. 15:56.840 --> 16:03.560 But that could also be changed for open source software, and kind of a laptop can be called a laptop, 16:03.640 --> 16:11.240 as it is. And often, offered, that's also not open source, and if you were 16:11.240 --> 16:16.760 telling about the rake in town, is the kind of educational tools that need to be integrated 16:16.760 --> 16:24.200 in the package, often, like it's called Wiki Weiss, or certain mocks, they are integrated in the 16:24.200 --> 16:30.920 Microsoft Google package, but with whatever API they can be integrated in a different stack. 16:31.560 --> 16:39.000 And how we are kind of looking at it is, and for sure, there are other countries that they 16:39.000 --> 16:45.480 have to stop already, ready, but we're looking at it to have a kind of software stack with a chat 16:45.480 --> 16:51.000 version, could be matrix, could be something else, could be delta chat, next cloud of its 16:51.000 --> 16:58.120 office suite, a kind of big blue button, or open desk, or a kitschy, a learning management system, 16:58.120 --> 17:08.360 like given, that's all kind of with an identity, access management solution. And that connected 17:08.360 --> 17:13.000 to, for incident analysis, we have KennisNet where we have the digital, uh, uh, 17:13.000 --> 17:20.280 ballooning packages, uh, and we have, uh, the duo that's a kind of, uh, system where kits 17:20.280 --> 17:27.080 need to be registered if they have education in the Netherlands. And for instance, we would like to 17:27.800 --> 17:34.920 kind of not give the school's responsibility to run it on our own surface, but to see if we can 17:34.920 --> 17:41.640 kind of help and maybe train suppliers to have this as a software as a surface. So that we kind of 17:41.640 --> 17:48.040 help them prepare. We're going to try to pilot it. We are, uh, work on it to build, uh, uh, 17:48.040 --> 17:55.880 the stack, and then help and create documentation as so that other suppliers can host it on a 17:55.960 --> 18:03.080 local cloud, when the Netherlands will be a Dutch cloud. So, uh, yeah, I don't know if, if anyone 18:03.080 --> 18:08.840 here later on with the questions as ideas or has experienced with it, there would be great, uh, 18:08.840 --> 18:15.000 we're also talking, uh, with people from Davian with Davian education to see if we, uh, 18:15.000 --> 18:23.480 Davian A do, if we can run that, uh, on computers and connect it to our own, uh, Dutch, let's say, 18:23.480 --> 18:35.480 educational cloud. Um, and, uh, yeah, for this, we would like to ask you, uh, we have an, uh, 18:35.480 --> 18:42.120 international European chat group in Matrix would be great to join in the conversation. Uh, 18:42.120 --> 18:49.240 we have a website. We are busy with a European website, uh, fair digital education, but that's, 18:49.480 --> 18:58.520 uh, we didn't, it's not an air yet. Yeah. We did translate the front page of our Dutch website 18:58.520 --> 19:05.480 into English now, especially for today, sir. Yeah. Uh, uh, I think we have some time for questions now. 19:05.480 --> 19:09.320 Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay. Anyone else have a question? 19:09.880 --> 19:16.920 Fair. Can you, uh, do? Yeah. Um, what is your, uh, I mean, 19:16.920 --> 19:22.680 you mentioned, uh, the teachers wages are pretty low compared to the, uh, the standard. 19:22.680 --> 19:29.560 And so, um, the, uh, the teacher career is not as popular as you've been. Um, so we have a fairly 19:29.560 --> 19:36.440 high average age of teachers. And if I have to bring, I am part of the school council when 19:37.400 --> 19:45.720 I see the speakers, one of the biggest obstacle to come is, hey, but our teachers have habits 19:45.720 --> 19:51.560 about the tool we already use. And you already encountered this, this argument and how 19:51.560 --> 19:59.640 will, if you're the value manager. Yeah. So, uh, the question is, uh, we have, uh, you have teachers, 19:59.640 --> 20:06.040 also an Italy often the teachers are maybe a little bit on the other side, uh, and, uh, not really well 20:06.120 --> 20:12.200 paid. I think maybe that's, everywhere, a national, uh, maybe not in Denmark, uh, but, uh, yeah, 20:12.200 --> 20:17.800 finish the exception, uh, yeah. And, uh, but we, we are also struggling with the same and also because 20:17.800 --> 20:23.160 often schools are understaffed, teachers will move from one school to the other. So, we also struggle 20:23.160 --> 20:27.800 with the, with the situation where they only know how Microsoft works, or how Google works, 20:27.800 --> 20:33.240 because they use them themselves already. So, it's a kind of similar thing. So, we, we also don't 20:33.320 --> 20:40.760 have a direct solution for it, but, uh, yeah. We had, uh, one of our pilot schools quit for that 20:40.760 --> 20:47.160 reason, because, uh, we had two pilot schools. And the first one, uh, stopped because they first of 20:47.160 --> 20:50.680 all they had a new director that doesn't care about software at all, and doesn't see the 20:50.680 --> 20:55.480 any values. That's the main reason. And the argument was, uh, we have lots of teachers and we're 20:55.480 --> 20:59.800 finding it very difficult that stuff in our school works different than what the teachers know. 21:00.760 --> 21:06.440 So, are there questions? Uh, this, uh, this, uh, yes, we have two questions. 21:06.440 --> 21:13.880 Still a little bit about the pilot school and how far have they come in improving this concept? 21:13.880 --> 21:21.240 And, uh, quick question is, how far have you come in your school? Um, first, uh, it's a, 21:21.240 --> 21:26.840 elementary school, and it's a Waldorf school. So, the kids themselves work with pencils, 21:26.840 --> 21:34.440 not with computers, uh, but we did implement, uh, a, uh, a cable. And, yeah, first thing, uh, practical 21:34.440 --> 21:39.720 thing we run into is there's a, uh, API by the, uh, that's supplied by the government where you have 21:39.720 --> 21:47.000 to supply some mandatory, uh, database information, uh, but this API is not yet available in, and it's 21:47.000 --> 21:53.080 not that, uh, in, in, in cable. So, we're going to write it, but it's just a little bit too much work 21:53.160 --> 21:58.920 for volunteer to do. So, it's one of the first thing we're going to solve because now we have a proprietary, 21:59.720 --> 22:04.840 uh, solution next to it and then copy over the data set that needs to be uploaded and use that one to use the API. 22:04.840 --> 22:11.480 So, lots of, uh, this kind of practical, uh, shortcuts, uh, uh, uh, work around, you need to use. 22:23.880 --> 22:47.720 Yeah, we have, uh, uh, uh, uh, what is needed to onboard schools, uh, and what type of schools would be best? 22:47.800 --> 22:56.840 Um, so we have, in the lens, we have, uh, uh, a Kowaldor schools free schools. They, they fit 22:57.400 --> 23:04.440 also a little bit better with, uh, with kind of open source, uh, ethics. So, they can be, uh, uh, 23:04.440 --> 23:10.360 how do you say that, uh, uh, yeah, more prone to, to, to follow it. I would often what we know and we also 23:10.360 --> 23:15.880 discuss, uh, yesterday evening. It's very important that there is an ambassador of open source with 23:15.960 --> 23:21.320 in the school, someone with, in the teachers, uh, and that's sometimes difficult to find, but when you get one, 23:23.080 --> 23:29.080 then then that could be the, the kind of bridge. Uh, also what we now see is the, a little bit 23:29.080 --> 23:37.160 the fear of, uh, like, Kowaldor being switched on, uh, on the computer and that, uh, and then actually, 23:37.160 --> 23:43.720 when you want to control your, your own systems, you should kind of run open source because, yeah, 23:43.800 --> 23:49.960 so we see some, some people, uh, teachers that are worried about it, that that could be prone to, uh, 23:49.960 --> 23:53.000 switch. Yeah. Um, next question, yeah. 24:13.720 --> 24:35.320 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very, very good question. That's, uh, the question is, 24:36.600 --> 24:41.000 where is their responsibility and for school is very easy to just sign a contract with Microsoft 24:41.000 --> 24:46.760 because they're so fun with it. Uh, we want to be the party that solves all the IT problems of 24:46.760 --> 24:52.520 a school, but then with open source and then showcase how that is done and then we hope that that, 24:52.520 --> 24:59.720 that our solution will be, uh, the open standard solution that other vendors will also offer to schools. 25:02.440 --> 25:07.720 Sorry, we need to, uh, we're, uh, we're, uh, one question. One, one question. 25:07.800 --> 25:16.680 Our last question, uh, I am purple shirt. I'm curious. If you consider to set a, uh, fully 25:16.680 --> 25:21.480 all the sorts of school yourself, like as an example, it's a, for example, if you don't schools get, 25:22.920 --> 25:28.680 uh, but then like, we'll also. No, we're really trying to find, uh, existing schools that, uh, 25:28.680 --> 25:33.160 or new schools, but we're not going to fill just to start a school by ourselves because, uh, 25:34.120 --> 25:39.880 that's another huge project. But it would be good for you. Yeah, if someone really wants, 25:39.880 --> 25:43.960 what wants to do that, we will help. That's for sure. I'm sorry. Did not repeat the question. 25:43.960 --> 25:48.680 The question was, uh, are you looking into starting school yourself? Uh, and the answer is, uh, 25:48.680 --> 25:57.160 that's too much work. Um, uh, I like to have some, uh, closing words. First of all, uh, special 25:57.160 --> 26:03.080 thanks to the main sponsor of this, uh, great event for teaching children that they have no right 26:03.080 --> 26:09.160 to see the soft, uh, so see the source code of the, uh, software they're using and for teaching 26:09.160 --> 26:16.280 an entire generation that they have no control whatsoever over their own data. And thank you for 26:16.280 --> 26:24.360 running project Maven, which is used to, uh, with a lot of AI tools to provide to the Israeli government, 26:24.360 --> 26:34.520 to kill Palestinian children, and actively participating in genocide. So thank you.