 Yeah, I have the pleasure to greet people from the network of free school software. Schools help schools. And that consists of Jessica Wawrzyniak from Bielefeld, who is a media pedagogist, Lena Simon from Berlin, Network Philosophist, Jan Seypenbosch from Minden, who is a teacher, who is a physitman in training and working in Baden-Württemberg in the school system. It's moderated by Claudia Fischer from Bielefeld, who is also a media pedagogist. And a journalist, thank you. I'm here for Digital Courage and free school software is also a project from the Digital Courage organization in Bielefeld. I would start with Jessica, who started the entire thing and so how did that start? Yeah, gladly. I'll start in the beginning. So at Digital Courage, we have been working on free software and especially free software in schools for a long time now. And when the entire pandemic thing started, we thought that, okay, that's the time to deliver something now. And we already had a series of blog posts that we were working on at the time. And that's when we really thought, okay, we have to put some effort into that and provide it now and choose the right software. And because a bunch of schools were going in the wrong direction. So we took all of the information that we had and collected it together and added a lot more new material for teachers, for politicians, for parents and packaged that into a so-called education package that one can basically order with brochures and books. Lena is currently showing it in the camera. That's a big part of it. And this package is, of course, also available as a PDF to distribute around without all of the books, but with still all of the information. And so we were in that position and we actually distributed a lot of these packages, like around 800. And so we had all of this information in the world about how to do free education well and how free software works in the context. But it really lacked in terms of practical help. So like the small things that you can actually do in schools. And so we thought, and that's where the AD came from to found this network for free software in schools. And so within this network, schools and teachers, who are the ones that actually know what works and what doesn't in schools, because they are just the closest to everything and they know what their preferences and needs are and also what will work, what won't work. Also, of course, there are lots of various restrictions and legal issues for things about what can be done and should be done in schools. And so there are lots of teachers there that are involved. And then all of these schools that are already using free software, they can enter it into the system and provide help for it. They might just be executing some information about a specific piece of software or maybe about free software in general, but of course also technical issues with installation and administration. And then there's a web formula that can be filled out by teachers, but also individuals, organizations, NGOs. But mostly it's intended for the teachers and because they just have the information and the background, the relevant stuff. And so they will enter what they actually use in their school. And the idea is there are schools that use free software and then there are many other schools that don't. And so the question is, how do you actually find these people and find this expertise that is somewhere they're available in the country? So I read in the press sometimes here are there that there's a small school that does something and then there's another school that does something else, maybe with Moodle or bigger button on next cloud. And so how do you actually get these people together with all of those people that actually do need all of this information and don't have any? So, yeah, people post their offers for help and everything else into the system. Then it's moderated and we check various things. There sometimes happen to be some proprietary solutions that hit within there. And those, of course, will not go through. And then I will post all of them on a website with contact information. And so people can just look at this page and dial the number and or write an email and actually contact the relevant people that can offer help. And this also works the other way around. So schools that actually need specific help for something can also enter that into this form and say, we require help with this. And then this is also collected and distributed over all the channels that we have, which is this, yeah. And then we ask that if anybody can help, for example, if you can help with big blue button installations, maybe specifically in Hesja, then you can enter that offer for help. Then please enter that and then the circle is essentially closed. So this is not a central number that I'm getting information from, right? So it's the schools directly talking to each other. Yes, yes, exactly. That's what happens. The schools will talk to each other individually. And they usually have a way of contacting each other via this website. And we don't have to send in between that. So we couldn't even say any more than please call this number or ask this person. They can just call each other. And so that's also very low effort. There's not a lot of administration and stuff like that in between. The disadvantage is we don't know how extensively this is used, right? Yes, yes, we don't. So there are lots of offers over 290, which is a lot. Very impressive. We didn't expect this many. So in the first week when the project was started, all of the contact information for all the entries, we actually held back just in case. We didn't want them to be overran with support requests. So we held them back a bit. And then a week later, we were able to post 400 entries at once. And yeah, but we don't really know which schools actually require and which schools actually provide help. And this is something we'd want to do in the future to evaluate it a bit more. And I think we actually also need to advertise this project a lot more in the places that actually need the help. The fact that so many people actually entered themselves there is a good sign that many people do want to help. And maybe we need to make it a bit more transparent that this help is badly given. There are people that actually really want to help. It's not like they're shying away from wanting to help. So yeah, somebody who actually involved themselves a lot there, that's our second panelist here. They are a teacher for computer science and religion in Minden and engaged themselves in free software a lot and is entered there. They are giving help for Linux, LibreOffice, NextCloud and lots of other editing tools. And there's so much you provide. So how many calls did you get? Well, sadly none so far. I haven't had a single call. What's your reasoning behind that? Well, of course, in the last few years through networking, I know several people, two several people. I know how schools have been equipped. There's a lot of stuff that has been put into schools. And it's always an attractive solution to have a certain proprietary technology. And their feeling is that they want it that way. And that has been the assumption at schools. That schools that have been close to desperation who've had schools that said, we can't do a single thing, can't even log in. And if you then give them some ready technology, then that makes them happy. You might think I'd be disappointed, but that's not the case. To me, this free software thing for schools is something that shows that we are there, that we have open source as an alternative. If you ask yourself whether Microsoft and other monopoly suppliers should be used because there is no alternative, then the answer is no, because there are alternatives. And that is what this page documents in an impressive way. And maybe we should actually mention the link to that page. It's digitalcourage.de, netzwerk-schulsoftware. That's network free school software in German. You can search for the German term netzwerk-schulsoftware. It's all in German, says the interpreter. Now, do you in your school have no proprietary software at all anymore? Were you able to replace everything? Yes, almost. We needed a few computers for legal mind storms for bots, because software isn't available for Linux. The software that controls that. But we are switching now. We are going to have a new generation of IT technology. And we will then program in Java. And use a different language. And the computers that we've used for that can be replaced with Linux. And if people say tablets into schools, they say, which company comes to mind? People aren't saying my child is receiving a tablet. They're always saying my child is given an iPad. So that's the technology that was mentioned earlier. We as teachers were given devices for our professional needs. And that were iPads with a keyboard, of course. And in our schools, many iPads have been kind of flooded in, we could say, which is good in one sense. Because since 2017, we had been thinking that we want more mobile devices. But of course, it has to be said that the Apple company regarding mobile devices and tablets has really taken over the school market, the education market completely. Google doesn't really have an alternative, at least here. And there is no way to avoid the iPad. What's the response in your school? Do the colleagues agree? And the parents, when it comes to this issue, or do they demand that our kids should learn Microsoft? Because that's what they need in their jobs later. But in these kinds of debates, and they start with how much digitalization do you actually want? And which means should be used? What are the side effects and risks, or should we ignore them? And can we say our children need Microsoft later? They are going to become secretaries or something. Yes, there's a whole range of responses here. Just like with vaccinations, I have the whole range. From digitalization is nonsense anyway, so we don't need any devices up to. We need to have the most recent stuff. We have to see that we have the technology that the leading technology, you could say, and that would be iPads. You have to be honest there. And another solution with other devices, tablets is hard to administrate. And people wouldn't probably, with the kind of inertia and your comfort, but the range is enormous. For four years now, since we've been working on this concept, we are in a continuous discourse. And there are so many opinions in that. And can you still administrate in those debates all the time? Well, thankfully, I have to say, there was this kind of sea change in 2017. And I was able to win colleagues over for doing the administration work. And we kind of divided it into pieces. And every piece in our concept was given ahead of some responsible person. We had presentation in the rooms, which is an issue, administration of the devices. Then I have the networking and next cloud department. And that's the way we divided it up. Otherwise, I wouldn't have done it, not with the amount of hours that I would be given to assign for that task. That would be too little. And we can see that it's not a one-day thing. It's a process that takes months or even years to make that change. Media concept work is a process always. Many people have said in the pandemic, oh, yeah, digitalization, now just make up your concept and then order the stuff and your set. That is a very strange idea about media concepts work. We've been working on this for years. And we never finished. When we finished one version, then the last two pages already include an outlook towards the next few years and what we have to develop in that time. And it's never really going to be finished. But that's how it is. That's how IT works. It's never really finished. Imagine how it was 10 years ago. The way you work then is completely different to today. Leonard, you had this white grin when you talked about the concepts. You are a student in a vocational school in the state of Baden-Württemberg in the South West and you are a member of the network against Microsoft 365. You were very active against Microsoft and you are the person most affected because you have to work with. Do you think that people are listening to you? Yeah, as people do listen. But the response to what we're saying is very slow. So there were a couple of things that were added to the... So there is now a ministry that has to ask us about a few things. And we were invited to a few things which was a very voluntary thing. But it did develop into... Because we weren't really okay with the current plan of involving Microsoft tools for everything. And so that we were not really listened on that. So people didn't really listen to us a lot about that. Even though the data protection officer did agree with us. And then after a few discussions we were actually invited directly again. And we hope that people will listen to us directly and not will be like, oh, actually, well, there were a few things that were said against this. So yeah, we hope that they're listening more now. So what value does free software have for you as a student? So for me, it is mostly that I can easily understand, well, okay, so if Microsoft will have all of our student data, I know that I as a student am in school and Microsoft has to get my data because I have to be in school. So why do they... But I don't understand why my school needs to pass those on, right? So the school has my data. Why do they need to pass it on to somewhere else? We are in a country that should be able to produce this kind of infrastructure. Oh, and now my camera apparently turned off. Well, I'll ask anyway because we can still hear you. So the data that is potentially ending up in the Microsoft cloud, that's one thing. But the use of free software and the possibilities of using that program in the future. So in the place where you are learning, can you actually use your knowledge about free software? Well, yeah, in the company I work at, because I'm currently doing an apprenticeship. Yeah, very much so. We all know that 90% of the servers out there are using Linux servers, most likely, and operating on mostly free software anyway. So basically all of the servers I'm looking at at work, a lot of them have free software on them and yeah, most of them have Linux on them. So that will also bring us now and fall onto a look to the future. And during the preparation talk, I was asking you how long you are still doing this. So I know you are currently doing an apprenticeship, but it's probably gonna end at some point. And so the council that supports these efforts is going to be elected again soon. And of course there's a lot of joining and leaving there. So how do you ensure that the students in Baden-Württemberg will actually follow the political line that you're establishing here? So, yeah, of course. Yeah, so in theory we can't really prevent this and say our followers have to do the exactly same thing as we do, but the next thing is that we are actually required to supply council to the government ministries that actually decide things there. And we will of course pass on all of the stuff that we have been working on, and we offer them to keep going. Of course we will try to encourage them to do that. But the last couple of years, the Landesstudio Bayerat has always been a fairly neutral entity in the school politics and didn't really have a political agenda and really just recommended what made the most sense. And that is essentially what we did as well. We have 60 members and of course that's not just me myself who decided that we want to follow this, but we had an election about this and discussed a lot about whether this is the right thing to do and we had, well, about 60, not everyone is always there, but like 40 or 50 votes that were for this and decided that we want to pursue this effort. And I'm fairly certain that during the next election cycle, the next student government ministry will also follow this. So yeah, there's the chance that this might be a more long form development. So Dina is a network politics activist. And so from the individual view, we now wanna change to a more outside view on this thing. Translator's note, we are not getting audio from Dina. And just a slight correction, Dina is a net philosopher, but the audio is still missing. Well, next to the young people, we are telling people to turn certain knobs and tell people to operate devices, but we're not telling them how to unscrew or open the device and see what's going on behind the scenes. So the young people are taught to become completely immature. We are not teaching them to question what is going on or find out what they might like and what they might dislike, because there is just the option of either clicking or not clicking in it somewhere and not really look under the hood any further and see what is going on, and that is not possible. So with proprietary software, that is what's happening. Free software, of course, makes other things possible. Yes, with free software, we could do so much more. We could actually look at the stuff that we use and see what is going on in the source code here. That is fairly complicated, but you could gain certain ideas and maybe change a detail and see what happens. And that is what makes computer interesting. And in case people are engaged. And what gives people the option of learning about IT security, for example, and understand what they have to do in order to not be completely unprotected as they serve the net. And that, of course, also opens the option of students perhaps maintaining their student PC themselves, maybe as some kind of a working group, which is not possible if they are given the Microsoft license, which has to be transferred to all computers, a kind of work that is not very rewarding at all. It's so boring, in fact, that no student really will voluntarily want to do this and maintain this. But as soon as it comes to deciding what software is good and what should be used and which software is free and they don't have to require a license for that, that gives you so many more options and that's what makes things so much more interesting. Now, the money issue, of course, is one that the argument that students can then do things independently at home, independent of their parent social status, very important social effects. Yes, that is a very important point that's equal opportunities. We give everyone the same base of information which software can be used and they can then download that at home or use it because it's free and schools are not bound to expensive licenses that they have to keep paying for and finding a budget for and because they use open formats, maybe you can use for a software at home to actually join in with some work from home or the school could change to another software. It's much more free than what you have with free proprietary software and their proprietary formats and we've already heard that of course, people have to go to school, children have to be sent to school and if I then tell these people who are compelled to go to school, that they also have to have a Google account and have to open a Microsoft account to access the school cloud or something, this is not something we can do without an account or a US company, you can't actually kind of fulfill your obligations. That is not something that is allowed really and data protection issues of course have come into that as well and cause trouble because from the data protection point of view, this was not acceptable and there were other reasons why free software, especially in schools is important because schools have the special situation that advertising isn't that much tolerated there. If you go to a drinks vending machine, it was not possible to have a drinks vending machine in schools because that was advertising, but if you say there's only one network that you can use, if you want office software, you have to use Microsoft, it's nothing but advertising, in fact, advertising for these products, but if you say, hey, we will learn about free software, we have a transfer and Microsoft could be used because the formats maybe are interchangeable, that is possible, so this kind of transfer is possible and you have a certain base from which you can manage to kind of move on to Microsoft if you want and that gives you equal opportunity and then you have the issue that most of the free software projects can be used in a decentralized way and that in terms of IT security is important too and protects you from monopolies because schools are going to use different solutions within autonomy and the sovereignty over that software is done with the schools and not with some computer in a cloud farm or somewhere, server farm, whatever. Okay, yeah, we could continue to go on for another half hour if I ask you, how do we get there? You as a net philosopher, someone who doesn't just want to explain society but also try to change it, could you perhaps briefly summarize how can we get people convinced and to go along this route? Teachers, the supervising authorities, the federal state governments, how can we actually get some movement into this? The first issue is that we have a free democratic education concept and idea that we all subscribe to and that contains the very same values that free software has to. So why this hasn't been brought together much earlier is really beyond me and we should link up to that and say that contains everything you need just take a closer look because that is the way forward. That's how we can reach this concept of free democratic education that gives people the chance to become mature autonomous citizens and that is a very important point. And the second, well, kind of similar that I would like to use is a system in which I cannot understand the rules. In my eyes is a totalitarian system. So if you want to change the criminal code, for example, and backdate that change so that the deeds I have already done under a new penalty, certainly, then I no longer am in a democracy and I'm not under the rule of law anymore. I have to be able to know the laws that affect my actions and understand them even if I cannot understand them myself but I can get advice. I can ask a lawyer and ask them to defend me in court and interpret the law to me. And that's the way it works with free software too. At the time I use it and inspect it and that is the code. Again, that in this instance it's the programming language. If I cannot look into that code, I am in a totalitarian system again with proprietary software and I am just simply exposed to that to whatever is put in front of me and I cannot check it. And that applies to both the people that can read the code and those that cannot, but even those that cannot read the code, cannot ask a lawyer, no, sorry, a computer scientist and ask them, tell me, is it okay? I often am asked in the kind of counseling that I give, is Apple good? Is it safe? And I can only say that is their business secret. I can either trust them or not but I cannot verify but with free software, I can verify this or have it verified. And that is such an important difference that there shouldn't be any more arguing necessary. It should really be our aspiration to not be in a totalitarian system. Yes, thank you, Lena. Thank you to everyone else. Of course, there'll be questions now, right? You're welcome. I guess he doesn't have any yet. There he is. All right, I will pass on to you and your questions. All right, so big, a big chunk of the questions is about all of this problematic with ISERF, the problematic issues. So various issues like what happens if a kid has to change schools? What will happen to the data if it changes schools? Is it even possible to get out of this data? Stuff like, how is this controllable or uncontrollable? So the ISERF installations are usually on a Linux server, which is one of the nicer things. And which is actually on-premises at the school and provided by the city. This is a Linux server back in the day that was mostly pedagogical solutions from Warn-Württemberg or something like that. Some, it's basically just one Linux box that basically has all the services that can run on there, including a file server and messengers and whatever. And of course, also device management. But of course, all of this data is coming from the school management software. And I don't really see an issue of interfacing with external positions there and entities that might be exported from the school management software and then read into a CSV file to create this account. So this is not something that isn't prepared before. And if a school has to be changed, of course, this data has to be switched over, migrated onto the new school as well. And if the new school does have an ISERF, then those accounts will be created and are imported. And I don't really see an issue about the data ownership there. And so if I had to transfer that into something else with Microsoft Azure, that might be more difficult. So I think actually ISERF is a fairly reasonable solution here. And I've also recently read that this ISERF company from Brunswick, they have their own scripts in PHP and Perl and stuff. And all of those are actually visible. You can actually look at the code, which is also a pretty good move, I think. So it appears, so my kids are actually not in school anymore and didn't have a lot to do with that. But when I imagine this, so they go into the mindset of imagining 20, 25 years back and thinking that my kids would have to actually think about this kind of stuff, I get the shivers basically as a father. And so potentially, was there a chance to make it in such a way that there's a public school server and school cloud with open source applications and stuff. So yeah, that does exist. And that's the structural problem here. So school and the educational sector is a system with many individual actors and the actors within one school, that is a very small system, the kids and the teachers. And then of course, there's the bigger system of the school carrier essentially that organizes the schools. And then there's the state government that has to organize some things. And actually they also have some sort of software called Lugineo now, which is used in the management and is actually in large parts open source or at least doesn't stem from a big monopolist software distributor. So the state governments are actually providing this, but there's of course some friction there between all of the different entities. And so the state governments can't and won't force any of the individual schools to use this or that. And there are various software solutions like Lugineo, there's Lugineo that now. And the schools can test those. And if they don't like that, then they can use the ISA from the local city government or something. And if that's still not great, and a lot of parents say they want something else, then they can still decide that they wanna go with Microsoft or whatever. So this is currently a very many-layered system, like a very big cake. And wherever I look into this entire stack of things, I see very different interests. And whatever is actually cited in one specific school depends on a lot of various people and councils. This is of course kind of interesting, but it also results in a very non-uniform result. And there was recently a networking meeting from our local city circle. And we talked a lot about how much is Lugineo used in the state here? Do you think this has any future? Should we use that, which communes to ISAF, which to Lugineo? And what should we use? It's all very much in flux, so to say. Plenard also wanted to say something to this. I actually can't even remember what I signed up for. So I can mostly just agree to what was just said, especially in my local government of Baden-Württemberg. I can't hear you. I can't hear you. As long as I haven't heard anywhere. That's fine. So here in Baden-Württemberg, we had the exact same topic. There was a platform supposed to be created by the state government, and that was started various times and failed all of the times. And there's a third of schools that use Microsoft, a third that use the state government solution, and another third that use something else that we don't even know about. And yeah, that's the same situation. The state government can provide things, but the individual school organization structures are deciding this. And if they say they want this, then they do. And then there's another thing. And there's different schools, for example, like the one where I am at. And they say that they use the state solution and also something made by themselves, which can result in something like every teacher at the school suddenly using a different system. And sometimes classes being totally overwhelmed. I remember, for example, there was one teacher that used Microsoft Teams, and where I was able to say I didn't agree to this and I can't participate, and then I had to leave the class and couldn't participate. Then there was another teacher that sent data using email, but at least it was on a school email server. But then sometimes there was also like private emails were in use and stuff, which is also not great. So yeah, as the students back then, we said we need one unified state solution. And we actually had something bundled back that worked fairly well, but then we also needed like some other software components and those barely exist. I won't get more into that because that will take too much time. But yeah, but it would be great if every state government could just produce a reasonable solution. Because yeah, we don't just have the digitalization problem and of course also the pressure of the pandemic making everything more urgent. And that makes it even harder to bring all of these opinions together. Jessica. So another thing that makes this more difficult is that the organism school essentially will use various things and then this information is provided to various ministries and then the ministries are looking at various solution and then everybody says that they recommended things here or prohibited things there. And so there is the expectation that the politics are going to do anything and the new German government is just make some promises that are fairly that can make one a bit hopeful. And so if one of these solutions might be created at some point which we can only wait for there is just waiting for people to push the responsibilities around and hope that something is created. Do we have some more questions? We still have five minutes. Yeah, there are some more questions about ISAF like for example, how secure is it? I don't think we can really speak to that right now. And yeah, so much more topics. No, not any more questions. Janet, then Lena, and yeah, I wanted to say one more thing. We need to like on all of the layers, we need to work on this. It doesn't really make sense to only work on the school level or only on the city level or only on the state level because on all of these places, there's only a limited bandwidth of digital mind space and people being involved in this and also being interested in this. So this is something that we really need to work on in all of the layers, all of the entities with students, with teachers, with people in the city governments and with people in the local ruling entities. And as is so often in these unsure situations, of course, it's also very much dependent on a lot of individual people. And yeah, that's also a thing and that I wanted to say again. There are there's lots of money for various things. And then people say, oh, the schools aren't even using the funds that are available. And then they say, like, OK, we have to write such complicated application contracts and stuff. And of course, it makes sense to not just for money add a problem and not have any concept. But it also is something that is very difficult to put all of the effort and all of the things that have to do on the schools. And that is also something that we wanted to do with this education package that we talked about earlier to provide a concept that a school can use to write a concept to more easily get the money from these funds. So and yeah, we're asking why why does there need to be an organization like us that has is providing the schools with this, like, can't this be done on the state level? And so the schools say, OK, we want to do a unified solution for Iran. And then they are running in the different in the wrong direction. And then everybody else is disappointed again. So this is, of course, really, really hard. And I can totally understand if individual people are totally overwhelmed and is very much important that we are working on all of these layers. And there especially is that's where free software is the key. The key technology, the thing where we can all agree if we can all agree that we do want to work on free software. And then we get together and work on finding solutions and with this common base that would probably help a lot with the schools getting together. And it would be great if all of these experiences that would create be created there and would not just be distributed by digital courage, but also at the various governments that are responsible for the schools. So if anybody is watching who is working at a state government in the education sector, then even there, the address is digitalcourage.de slash free network school software, free social software to actually contact all of these individual schools. And you can use that it's also to be used by parents. The idea is that we do want to make this project more public. And that's also why we're doing this talk here right now. And that's why I want to pass on to Jessica for a few last couple of words. What do you think are the next steps for us? So the next step for us is very much what you just said to build out this network and use all of this material and all of this knowledge and bring it to the places that actually need them. That's where we need to go. We all like know a lot. We are all within the bubble. We like to go to the three and we really like data protection, but not everybody is tuned that way. And that's the kind of people we need to reach that we are talking about all of these topics that we bring attention to them and that we really like work on all of these tuning streets that we have available. And yeah, this entire thing can only work if we really work on all of the all of the places individually. So yeah, all creatures, please share, share this thing, share this message and this website and everybody can help with this. Yeah, thank you very much to all of you. Applause to all of you. We will imagine the.