Open Source Schools

We've added a few software titles to the Software Directory recently, but this is not by any means, a final or definative list. 

Are there applications that you are using that we've missed?

Are there applications that you would like to see, but don't know if they exist with Open Source licences?

Many of the tools that we have listed are Windows based.  Are there FOSS tools that you use that are Linux or Mac only?

Most important of all, which tools are really, really good to use in a school setting and which are just "ok".

Vital, a joint Open University / e-Skills project addressing teachers' CPD needs funded by the DCSF are inviting contributions of CPD resources for a new Open Course Movement initiative.

Built on open source platforms Moodle and Drupal, the Vital site provides a range of online CPD materials related to the use of technology in schools as well as acting as a hub for other training providers. Project director Peter Twining describes the Open Course Movement as being "to course materials what the Open Source Movement is to software." He says,

The OCM aims to enable ICT CPD providers (and others) to collaborate on the development of course materials which will be available on a Creative Commons licence. The benefits of this will be:

• reduced development costs for individual ICT CPD providers
• enhanced quality of course provision through the pooling of expertise and staff time in developing the materials
• greater consistency of ICT CPD provision across the country
• greater pool of high quality ICT CPD resources available for everyone to use (on a Creative Commons licence)

This sounds like a great opportunity for teachers and others in the open source community to work together to develop Moodle courses to share their insights and experiences of technology in education, either focussing on the use of particular applications to support or extend learning, or addressing broader issues.

The Cabinet Office has launched the new Government ICT Strategy today, applying across the whole of the public sector. Open source, open standards and re-use is one of the fourteen strands for delivering the strategy, which promises £3.2 billion savings annually from 2013/14.

Last year's Action Plan on open source, open standards and re-use has been revised, with a new version released today, which:

• brings this in line with developments in cloud computing, most notably the G-Cloud (G for government, not Google, this time),
• stops open source from being rejected because proprietary software has been purchased up front, and
• adds a line to say that "If [suppliers] are unable to provide evidence of fair consideration of open source solutions, their bid will be deemed non-compliant with government policy and the proposal is likely to be automatically be delisted from the procurement."
  

The latter point would have significant implications for BSF and other managed service procurements.

The Government Application Store, sort of like an iphone App Sore but for really, really big apps, is another of the strands. This will offer 'an online portal for the sharing and reuse of online business applications, services and components across the public sector'. If applied to education as well as the rest of the public sector, this could bring big savings and provide a firm basis for interoperability. Given its popularlity in schools, colleges and local authorities, Moodle must surely be a strong contender for the G-AS, as perhaps are other important web-based apps popular with teachers and pupils, such as Drupal, Wordpress and Elgg.

Community members and visitors who are using Moodle in their schools or authoties might be interested in presenting a paper at April's UK Moodle Moot in London. The Moots are friendly gatherings with a stong culture of learning from and sharing with fellow delegates from all sectors of the UK Moodle community, and it would be great to have a strong representation from schools at this year's moot.

Elena Blanco of OSS Watch writes:

The first OSS Watch newsletter of 2010 has been published and is available on our website at http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/newsletters/january2010.pdf

We wanted to start the New Year with a bit of a bang and so we are pleased to announce the publication of one of our most difficult-to-produce articles 'Microsoft: an end to open hostilities?'  I say difficult-to-produce because we take our non-advocacy role very seriously and so balancing this article with all of the history and strong feelings on all sides was both delicate and time consuming. We are pleased with the result; we hope you will be too.

The Open Source Café (L20) is partnership between the Becta supported Open Source Schools community and Open Forum Europe, a not-for-profit organization that has long advocated open standards and open source for business and the public sector throughout Europe. The Café is also supported by University of London Computer Centre, Red Hat, The Learning Machine (Ingots) and www.linuxit.com/.

Leon Cych of Learn 4 Life is streaming many of the sessions on the Café stand, and we hope to make an archive of these available in due course. Details of the current streams are available by following Leon's twitter feed. Voxpops from presenters are on our You Tube channel.

Other open source interest at BETT includes:

• Sirius Corporation (Becta and OGC approved software suppliers, stand Q50)
• North West Learning Grid (RBC, and leaders of NDRB and OSCA, stand G50)
• Synergy Learning (Moodle Partners, stand N2)
• Edugeek (online technician and network manager community, stand G89)
• Visual Software will be showcasing a Moodle SIF agent, making integration of Moodle with other systems much easier (stand B20)
• The Elgg powered Learning Landscape 4 Schools will be on E2BN's stand, J56.
• Mimio (C76) have a Ubuntu computer running the drvier for their device which transforms any board into an IWB.
• Web filtering and firewall solution SmoothWall (G85) is built on open source components, and has an open source version available from smoothwall.org
• Futurelab (J11) have an example of work they've been doing on student-authored constuction: "using open source electronics [arduino] to construct intelligent objects so children gain a deeper insight into the workings of digital technology"

If past form and the wiki are anything to go by, there'll also be a number of open source presentations at TeachMeet Bett 2010.