I offer this Freedom Software experience once a week, usually on Wednesdays. It's a bit quieter with fewer people on Wednesdays compared to Fridays. I guess more kids and guardians and everyone else too feels more leeway on Fridays, huh? On Wednesdays the inside space is shared with a poetry group of two which is occasionally joined by one or two others, usually me for a few minutes, sporadically: it's great for learning and chatting. There's a dance section but they only seem to come together and focus before a festival or some other event where they will perform. But this space (a safe space for everyone 居場所) and time isn't really intended for a school classroom sort of approach, I don't think. It's just a place and time where people can get together and having a couple of themes and time slots decided ahead of time makes it easier to come together? The town's Social Welfare office 社協 is one of the main backers or organizers (I'm still don't know much about how it's organized) so certain people are in charge and try to make sure people sign in and put their names by the time-slot they took part in...

You can see hot it would be hard to teach the use of Freedom Software, or programming racket in a serious way here. On the other side of the table with the old PC running GNU/LInux Debian are four people having a great time around the ping pong table. One guy was really good and athletic and helping the three elementary school girls keep the ball going back and forth: not very concerned if the ball hit the table, the floor, or the ceiling just as long as they got the ball to each other past the net somehow. Outside are dozens of kids and other playing dodgeball or on the trampoline (2 at a time!!).. or just running around as some moms(and other guardians) watch and official facilitators also watch participate. But it's freedom exposure..
#YoruGakkou #夜学校 #自由ソフト #FreeSoftwareEducation #TuxType #TuxPaint #LibreOfficeWriter
#MimataNightSchool #三股夜学校 #FreeNightSchool

This was my last Friday night, for a while, at the Free NIght school for my Freedom Software timeslot. I had forgotten I was supposed to be off this night but it was good that I went anyway: it was fun! And I got to see how an older participant (not a pre-school or early elementary school child!) tries this GNU/Linxu Debian Gnome system. I started him out by pushing the Logo (?Super?) key and pointing to the Libre-Office software as the equivalent of well-know proprietary applications. He opened up Writer.. Since I use SKK which is very different of other Japanese IME (Input Methods) so it was good to notice I should rush to change it to Mozc when offering a taste of the Freedom Software experience. This computer's Tux-Type comes with a font that is confusing. The "j" looks like an "i" and "g" looked like a "q". I only figure it out by remembering the lesson was for the keys in the row that only has "j" and "q"... Tux-paint seems to be a hit for all ages. If I remember to pull this laptop out to see if I can do anything about Tux-Type's font I should upload the image "LOVE" somewhere...
This time slot is just to show people what they can do after the bring in a computers so I can put the same operating system and application on their hard drive. I can't set aside the time and patience, or take the risk, of setting up a dual-boot machine with a proprietary system so my conditions are some old computer that can lose all it's data. They either backed up the data or don't care. I think it's easiest for us all to ease into this without any shocks misunderstandings if we start out thinking the PCs will be toys, educational toys, serious games and get started that way. None of us yet seems to have the time to dedicate to replacing work, local business documents and such, with Freedom Software: this would be nice eventually though...
#YoruGakkou #夜学校 #自由ソフト #FreeSoftwareEducation #TuxType #TuxPaint #LibreOfficeWriter