Even before attending to the Felloship Meeting in Bolzano, I had some ideas about getting speeches in High Schools. Actually, I thought about "Digital Culture in School" and not just "Free Software in School" but, since I have great regard for Fsfe staff ideas, I realized that probably I was wrong and that the right path was the one the Advocacy project was attempting. So, since the Meeting (about four weeks ago), I have been looking around asking everywhere about subjects that could be of any interest for teenagers. And now here I am, ready to tell you what I've discovered with my little poll. I talked with 14-17 age guys from Milan, attending to technical schools like "Itis", or other kind of schools like "Liceo Classico" or "Liceo Scientifico". After explaining what I was talking about (nearly nobody had ever heard the term Free Software), I asked them (a sample of 60 guys) if they would be interested in a talk in their school about Free Software and strictly related subjects. All of them (without exceptions) asserted that they wouldn't join in a talk like this, but that they would be without doubt interested in speech about <something more general> involving also Free Software, not just it.
LIST OF POSSIBLE TOPICS, WITH AN AVERAGE OF THE RANKS RETURNED BY THE 60 VOTERS (Min 1 / Max 5) 1) Legislation about Peer-to-Peer (online music sharing) | 4.4 2) Hackers' famous adventures and anecdotes | 3.4 3) Definition of "Open-Source"; what's the Free Software social movement | 3.3 4) Stories and case of study of bands/groups distributing their music on the net (even on their official sites) | 3.2 5) Common violations of copyright laws | 3.1 6) Hacker culture; difference among hackers, lamers and crackers | 3.1 7) Definition of "licence", "patent" and "copyright" | 2.8 8) Digital Culture in our lifes: An Introduction | 2.8 9) Italian "Siae" music rights system | 2.5 10) Copyright in paper publishing | 2.5
Even if these topics may appear too much common, you should realize that speech's recipients are inexperienced users. Before talking about the speeches' organization we'd better decide the meeting agendas and subjects: that's why I'd like to know if you would opt for a "Just Free Software Talk" or, as I do, for a "Digital Culture / mixture topics Talk".