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<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Hello All</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">You can find me as oneliner in the
freenode IRC network.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Some considerations:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">According to the general schemata of
the Blender Foundation and Blender Institute, any initiative to
support and or expand the official blender offerings to the community
must be:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">-<u>Self contained and managed</u>:
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Initiative surrounding blender are for
the community , BY the community, blender officials will remain
largely uninvolved beyond overseer roles.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">In this regard in particular I would
like to stress the fact that IRC has been a core coordination tool
for the far more extensive and complex issues related to the
development of the software itself.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Please, if you feel inclined to truly
attempting coordination and debate, join IRC , for those of you that
haven't used it, or who want to get friends who haven't used it,
think of it or explain it as “mutiplayer notepad”.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">To get a taste of what IRC is and how
it works you can use the freenode webclient located here</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><a href="http://webchat.freenode.net/">http://webchat.freenode.net/</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Recently two channels where named that
could be used for this very issue at hand, #blenderedu and
#blendereducation , this is the true first resource this initiative
has at hand, I strongly make the case again that we should make good
use of it. For now these channels are mostly empty but feel free to
explore #blender and #blenderwiki for this topic.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">-<u>Free and Open</u>:
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Any investment done in the pursuit of
generating blender products based within the functionality brought
forth by the community will be made under the knowledge that any
resulting service will remain available under the same nonrestrictive
and free policies of use as the software itself.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">This of course does never negate the
right to build closed pay up front highly profitable schema for
teaching Blender, rather what it means is that any contribution you
will make to the community will immediately become sole property of
the community, you are free afterwards to use those very resources in
your own initiatives, as long as the differentiation between your
entity and the blender foundation are clearly stated.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Also, although I am unable to speak on
behalf of the Blender Foundation, I see no reason why private
substantial contributions (e-learning bespoke platforms, massive
amounts of data, etc) wouldn't be acknowledged in the official site.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">-<u>Cohesive:</u></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">It has come to my attention that
various replies already contain what could be a rough draft of
organizational content, in particular it is quite interesting to note
that these drafts are strikingly parallel.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">What truly needs a radical approach is
the overall teaching tool experience, that is, I believe, what will
define any tangible breakthroughs in this initiative.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">In this sense user experience and
content should, above all, be in line with the two previous points
and also work as teachers aid, student platform, self taught tool,
all in one, in a seamless fashion.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">We should as well consider the fact
that there already are documentation initiatives and sharing tools
(the blender wiki docs and <a href="http://pasteall.org">pasteall.org</a> ), these should be
capitalized and are a valuable resource for the purpose at hand.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">-<u>Independently Certified:</u></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Currently, the Blender Foundation and /
or Blender Institute are unable to certify user level accreditations
due to the sheer volume of processes this would incur into.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">The case has been made very clearly
that most of us, as educators, value and cherish the importance of
certification as a means to asserting the Blender software as a
professional grade tool in the industry, and I truly agree with that
point of view, non the less, the viable working method we have thus
far is independent certification, wherein knowledge of the software
by a user is guaranteed directly by the teaching entity.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">The true scope of this initiative in
regards to accrediting and certifying is to build a common
“universal” range of “topics” that could be arranged in
“aptitudes” that would, in turn, be grouped into several tier
level accreditations.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">One main objective is to attain such a
body of study, and craft it in a way that the Blender Foundation can
make it “Official”, thus, institutions and individuals would
claim adherence to the official standards for certification in their
training programs.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">-<u>Crowdsourced:</u></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">This point is
just a sly move on my side to talk once again about IRC.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">Everything in
the software at one point or the other has gotten the IRC debate
treatment, from Gsoc to launch dates to new improvements and features
to mayor bugs to minor issues to splash screen styles.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">The assignments
of individual tasks, supervision of progress, evaluation of strategy,
delivery of final products, all can benefit from people joining a
given IRC channel once in a while with agreed upon times.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">This method is
faster and more involving than any other besides face to face
collaboration.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">There is also
the issue of mutability; certifying knowledge of blender will require
the content of the certification to be in constant flux (private
certifiers should see the potential for repeat customers here and
become an active driving force for updating the material and content
of the official structure).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">I believe this
“moving target” can be a show stopper for usability, if the
certification body of course descriptions were ever to fall behind
the actual software offerings, this initiative would end up hurting
more than helping the overall Blender image.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">One straight up
solution is for the educators to keep close taps on the development
conversations that happen in IRC.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">This would have
the added benefit of including an important and educated portion of
the community to the development support areas of testing and
evaluation because I foresee educators working with SVN branches and
trunk in order to get the insider story on the next coming features.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">-<u>Professional:</u></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">It doesn't have
to be huge or look expensive (although we wouldn't mind it being that
way, would we?), but is has to feel solid and overall, professional.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none">There are plenty
of big boys with big corporations that would love to see this
initiative fail, Blender is entering the big leagues, and its
counting on us, the community, to get it there, and keep it there.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">-<u>Fun!:</u></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">If you are in it for business,
profession, hobby, pride, challenge, pleasure, you have to foremost
bring home the fact that Blender is probably the single most
impressively awesome mix of tech, people and art that has touched
your life, at least thats true in my case.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Above all, this should be fun in its
challenges, frustrations, efforts, achievements, and rewards.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none"><br>
</p>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 9:30 AM, Laurent David <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:laurent@tdm.info">laurent@tdm.info</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<p>On a second thought...that's probably the way forward...but we need a lot of questions...</p>
<p></p><div class="im">On 17 Dec 2011 11:41, "Laurent David" <<a href="mailto:laurent@tdm.info" target="_blank">laurent@tdm.info</a>> wrote:<br><br><p>Ok. Point taken. I find this an interesting point of view... </p>
<p>My only concern is that answering questions is not the only aim of a certification. The key is in the preparation and the amount of information processed/learnt in preparation for the exams. Path vs end result...<br>
I would say that objectives/criteria should be public definitely.<br>
</p>
</div><p></p><blockquote type="cite"><div class="im"><p><font color="#500050">><br>> On 17 Dec 2011 11:28, "Knapp" <<a href="mailto:magick.crow@gmail.com" target="_blank">magick.crow@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
></font></p><p><font color="#500050"></font></p><p><font color="#500050">
<font color="#500050">> On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Laurent David <<a href="mailto:laurent@tdm.info" target="_blank">laurent@tdm.info</a>> wrote:</font></font></p><font color="#500050">
> Sorry... We need to crea...</font><p></p></div><p><font color="#500050"></font></p><div class="im"><font color="#500050"><br>><br>> I have to disagree with this. If the people taking a test know what<br></font></div>
<font color="#500050">> will be on it, then they ...</font><p></p><div class="im"><p><font color="#500050"></font></p><p><font color="#500050">
<font color="#500050"><br>><br>> with open source software!<br>> <a href="http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php" target="_blank">http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php</a><br>
></font></font></p><font color="#500050">
Massage in G...</font><p></p></div><p><font color="#500050"><br>><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Bf-education mailing list<br>> Bf-education@blen...</font></p></blockquote><p></p>
<p></p>
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