Open Source In Public K-12 Schools?

MissMachine writes "I'm a computer science major who has been recently getting involved in local grassroots politics in my county and state. I've been discussing the idea with some of my state legislatures of submitting a couple of resolutions, opening up to the idea of switching to open source software in our state's K-12 schools. I'm looking for more information/literature about this topic, open source solutions in public K-12 education, pros and cons, studies that prove or disprove many of the assumptions of open source and linux in public schools. Any help in this field?"

Comments

Helpful Link

[A. B3ttik]

This looks helpful...

Re:Helpful Link

[tdobson]

erk. that would be http://schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/Main_Page actually

Re:Dear MissMachine:

[A. B3ttik]

I know you're scared, but with that attitude, you'll never get her back to your mom's basement.

reasons to switch

[viralMeme]

"You don't state a reason why you think it is a good idea to switch"

'View a cost comparison chart (pdf) that shows how open source solutions can leverage your costs'

'The use of open technologies in education is now commonplace throughout the world with one notable exception, the United States. School and district technology leaders need to become aware of how these other educational systems are leveraging the use of open technologies to improve student learning, engage parent and community interest in education, provide home access to technologies used in school and use their financial resources in the most effective way possible. Consider these possible benefits ..'

* Cost: License Fees and TCO -
* Data integrity/interoperability -
* Independence and Flexibility -
* Stability and Reliability -
* Broader Access to Information -
* Community Support -
* Engage Students in Collaboration -

Check with the Indiana Department of Education

[MISplice]

They are currently working on a similar process to get a unified platform created with Linux to lower the costs in schools. I know they have been working on it the last 2 years but do not know the status of the project currently.

This guy has deployed FOSS in education

[profaneone]

http://www.classroom20.com/profile/AlexInman

Start locally, with teachers, not politicians

[Jonathan Blocksom]

I sell a closed source educational software product and I've seen the insides of a lot of schools. I know that any teacher or school IT coordinator is going to hate to see their known infrastructure replaced at the whim of the state legislature by something they had no say in.

You need to be talking to the people in the schools first, not the people making the laws. Odds are you can find some problems that Open Source software can help with and a few IT coordinators who are on board with it. Then evangalize your local success, highlighting money saved and better student performance, and you'll start opening up a lot more people's minds to open source software.

But top-down through the politicians is not the way to go (case in point).

If you really want to change the landscape, though, find a way to actually fund open source educational software development. It's a shame that we don't have something like a PBS for educational software. I'd much rather write software that everyone can have for free.

Re:Forget it

[GrigorPDX]

This is key. There's more to FOSS than Linux. Tools like OpenOffice, GIMP, Inkscape, Moodle, and Drupal can offer huge savings to schools without forcing users onto a whole new desktop environment.

Oregon is doing quite a bit with open source solutions for K-12. The Oregon Virtual School District - http://orvsd.org/ - serves more than 200 public schools around the state. It's primarily Drupal and Moodle on servers funded by the state Dept. of Education.