Open Source Schools is here to share information about open source software in schools. Our aim is to help you decide whether open source software might offer benefits for learning, teaching, engaging pupils and parents, managing information and resources, or school administration.

The website provides information and articles about open source software, advice on getting started, case studies of its adoption in schools, a directory for exploring what is available, and a glossary. All registered members are welcome to create content for the site.

We are building a community of people who have experience of open source software in schools, and those who are just getting started. There are a number of forums for you to share ideas and experiences and contribute to the debate about the use of open source software in schools.

annem's picture

Open Source Schools’ YouTube Channel

By annem – Posted on February 10th, 2011

Leon Cych of Learn 4 Life captured on film the community’s presentations at the BETT seminar on Saving Money with Open Source. He has uploaded the excellent videos of the presentations to our YouTube channel. 

paulhaigh's picture

Open Source Schools is recruiting

Submitted by paulhaigh on Thu, 10/02/2011 – 11:08am

We are looking to designate schools across each region to become ‘Open Source Hub Schools’.  The role is not funded but would hopefully generate consultancy work that hub schools would be entitled to charge for. The schools would be good schools (in terms of their success with teaching and learning, no point having great ICT systems if they don’t lead to great learning) and would be actively using some Open Source tools in a significant and successful way. This doesn’t mean they’d be 100% Open Source or want to be.

Leadership Conference – Opening Opportunities, Freeing Learning

Submitted by Admin on Fri, 21/01/2011 – 3:03pm

Tuesday 5 April 2011 in London

Draft programme and speakers announced

What it is

This conference has been designed by school leaders and others in the Open Source Schools‘ community to showcase to school leadership teams the best of educational free and open source software whether used alone or blended with proprietary software.

Why you should come

Using open source software in your school will allow you to:

  • save money
  • use technology in a way that is aligned to your vision of teaching and learning
  • have greater flexibility in the way ICT is used.

Deploying open source is something many schools do in house, and support is available from the community, from many local authorities, partner schools and from local SMEs. Many schools prefer open source because of the rapid way the tools develop, adopting new technologies without schools having to pay for an upgrade. Others like the way the tools can be tailored to specific needs or integrated with other systems in school, such as linking an open source VLE with a proprietary MIS.

dwillmot20's picture

Presentation at BETT 2011

By dwillmot20 – Posted on January 13th, 2011

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend our presentation at the BETT show today.  We were very encouraged to be booked up solid and to hear such positive comments as " An excellent presentation!", "definitely worth coming to hear!" and "Please can we have a copy of your slides?" on which point, we are more than happy to oblige.

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BETT 2011

By Admin – Posted on January 12th, 2011

Today sees the beginning of the BETT show at Olympia, the annual 4 day celebration of what David Buckingham dubbed the ‘educational-technological complex’. It looks to be a somewhat different sort of show this year, with hardly any government agencies represented and considerably less money to go around.

johnyma22's picture

Russia going open source

By johnyma22 – Posted on December 27th, 2010

 I have done a load of work w/ .ru institutions and Etherpad so it is no surprise to me that .ru is leading the way by moving most of their goverment SaaS stack to 

dwillmot20's picture

Arduino – open source electronics

By dwillmot20 – Posted on December 8th, 2010

http://www.arduino.cc/

More Open-Source stuff that you can pick up.

Being a Technologist, I love kit (though I wouldn’t want to pick out curtains) and I love the way that Open-Source doesn’t just apply to software but to hardware as well.

Time to dig my soldering iron out!

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dwillmot20's picture

What’s your teaser trailer for open source and student engagement?

By dwillmot20 – Posted on December 8th, 2010

What’s your teaser trailer for open source and student engagement?

"5 minutes. A ballroom full of administrators, faculty, and students looking for ways to transform student engagement in engineering education. They may have heard of open source before (vaguely), but you’ve got 20 slides to convince them that it’s actionable. What would you tell them?"

Slides

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dwillmot20's picture

Can Professors Teach Open Source?

By dwillmot20 – Posted on December 8th, 2010

 

Ok, this is aimed more at Higher Ed than schools, but can help to keep a bit of perspective.

From, http://opensource.com/education/10/4/can-professors-teach-open-source

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dwillmot20's picture

Using Open Source in the Classroom

By dwillmot20 – Posted on December 8th, 2010

Using Open Source in the Classroom: A Professor’s Perspective

Heidi Ellis has a new post discussing the use of open source in the classroom from a professor’s perspective. From the post:

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Online treasures