[Bf-education] Organizing / supporting education (2)

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi all,

Let's try to summarize the current state of discussions. I think  
there's three main approaches we can evaluate.

(I also don't propose to rush in decisions in this holiday season, but  
try to find a good way forward mid january 2012?).

---- (1) Product approach ----

Proposed by Ivan Paulos Tomé (discussed with me in Brazil too).

Basically it means to develop a course book (or package) for teachers,  
to allow them to efficiently teach Blender to students. Targeted at  
students without real 3d experience.

Ivan could use help from others for it. A good project plan can also  
result in BF to help funding it. We can sell the book via Blender  
estore, or make deals with other publishers.
The contents for this product itself can be open/free licensed too.

---- (2) Free/Open Certification approach ----

Proposed by Octavio Mendez, Carlos Santana.

Challenge will be to find a way to have volunteers cooperate in  
developing a standard Certification test, which can be freely handed  
out to educators and institutes to use. The test will be standardized  
and "BF certified", the certification itself issued by the testing  
facility.

For this to work, a strong and active team of volunteers need to  
cooperate.

---- (3) Centralized Certification bizz ----

Laurent David (sort-of) and others proposed this.

It's based on common practices in training centers, schools and  
universities. For many people it's their living and a viable business  
model. For many software companies a great model for income too  
(Adobe, Autodesk). In order to develop training with good quality, a  
lot of time and money has to be invested. ROI can take 1-2 years even.

For this to work, a BF "licensed" entity should be setup to organize it.

-Ton-

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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands