I had the opportunity to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration Open Source Day this year in Baltimore.
I was originally planning to check out the Kids on Computers project but ended up working with the Shared Learning Collaborative.
There is a community project blog entry about our work and also about the event in general. To get involved in the community project take a look at the Getting Started section of the http://dev.slcedu.org site. We spent the day working through these instructions and fixing errors as well as clarifying instructions. Hopefully when the instructions are used at the next SLC Camp the process will go smoother for all the new contributors.
I also represented Fedora while there, wearing my Ambassador shirt, handing out a couple of USB keys, and answering several questions while we worked on the SLC project. There were many MACs at the table in addition to several MS boxes but I think I was the only one with a Linux laptop. Plenty use *nix elsewhere though.
I have attended other unconferences and hack-a-thons; I have worked on technical projects as the only female; I have worked on mostly female teams outside of technology. I have not figured out how to describe it but it was different to work on a technology project with all women. The way the brain works to tackle problems, the amount of thinking aloud that gets done, the way everyone jumps to help each other out... I have seen this done in all types of groups yet somehow for me it still felt new and different than what I generally experience. I work with some great people. Now I have even more great people to work with.
I really hope I can carve out the time to make some additional contributions to this project. One of the pilot school districts is less than an hour from my home and I am looking forward to the NC SLC Camp. It will be a chance to meet some of the local users and contributors.
-SML
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