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This movement is gaining ground. Here's a ton of sites:

Start with Why Use Open Source Software In Schools to answer your (and your superior's!) questions. Note that Microsoft is trying to keep a stranglehold on this and their salesmen are playing dirty; but we as free software activists have one thing they can not have: integrity. Teach the truth about Open Source, explain that this is the true American way, show how we need to use it in education to teach kids the right way to do things (and to share with neighbors) to make a productive world, and we'll go at it. Academia can't afford to lose itself in proprietary software; as this site explains, with free software we've got a chance for a blossoming in academia.

The K12 Linux in Schools Project

A good example is St. John's School in the UK (attention, USA education boards!)

Open Source and Education tells you how to do it, what you need to know.

Linux in Higher Education: Open Source, Open Minds, Social Justice is an important article in Linux Journal about this.

K12 Linux Terminal Server Project for Schools is just one of the things you can do.

K-12 Linux, another good site about this.

A good technical primer on Linux in Education

If you use free software in schools you will also need free documentation and training materials. Here is a list of the best of it.

(Pls mod this up guys, I'm posting anon...)

I came across The Homework Reporting System on Freshmeat the other day, I forwarded the URL to my mother, she's a teacher and have been asking me whether I could hack up something like that. This one is based on PHP and MySQL. They have a couple of other nice things there as well. Point being, they could contribute to useful Open Source Projects.

Heya...

Just a word about the Cyber-Mentoring project. It's not just building websites in English. The whole project is built around making kids more aware of the writing process and helping them to become better writers.

The students work with people from the outside world, it started with friends of mine and now includes writers from the New York Times and editors from Random House and others. Those outside mentors work with one or two kids on their work. The kids post all their rough drafts as web sites, the mentors read the work and the kids dialogue with them about the work. The students revise and post their final drafts (when it all works...) I've seen a massive increase in revision and a real understanding of the process of writing from my kids. It's been a huge success.

Also, remember, the project happens over two classes, their English class and their computer class (and the kids all take those classes together in the 9th grade), so that they learn the HTML and pine and all that in their computer class while I create the projects in English that the computer teacher uses to teach HTML. It works for both subjects because we've found that the kids remember the computer skills more when they learn it using projects that affect their subject area classes.

Hope this clarifies things.

-- Chris

I guess someone is trying to prevent an /.ting from happening, but it's interesting nonetheless, there are some really cool webpages there. And, in the middle of this page you'll find some familiar names...