Open Source Schools

The openSUSE Education team have released a version of of openSUSE Edu: Linux for Education(Li-f-e) which is based on openSUSE 11.3. It would appear to have a good mixture of desktop software and programming languages. It also has wine preinstalled to allow Windows applications to run. It also includes some Learning Management Systems and Course Management systems.

It’s interesting how open source approaches are gradually tipping the balance in favour of open platforms when it comes to developing for smart phones. Whilst Apple’s highly locked down iOS4 platform continues to command a large slice of market share, things are gradually tipping the other way, with the news that for Q1 2010 in the US at least phones using Google’s open source Android platform (such as my shiny new HTC Desire :-)) actually outsold Apple’s handsets. Although the iPad and iPhone 4 will have given Apple sales a boost, the connectivity problems with the iPhone when it’s held the wrong way, the continued absence of Flash support and the restrictive terms imposed on iOS developers are unlikely to do Apple many long term favours. Witness, for example, the removal from the App Store of the Scratch ‘player’.

At the moment, Apple continue to command a lead in the sheer number of apps available in their App Store when compared to the Android Marketplace. However, all this may now be set to change, with Google now inviting applications to access a beta of its App Inventor suite of applications, which takes the building block approach to programming familiar to users of Scratch via the Open Blocks Java Library to make it possible for pretty much anyone to make a start on creating their own mobile phone application, making use of all of Android’s core functionality like its accelerometer, GPS and text to speech, as well as interfacing with public APIs for services such as Google Apps and Twitter.

Originally posted to Naace‘s Advisory Talk List

For Local Authorities the world has changed for us all with the recent cuts to HT Grant and it is very clear that IT support services and products that we currently provide will not be provided next year. This is likely to have a serious detrimental impact on Local Authority staff employed in supporting ICT…….unless we quickly put in a cost effective way of providing ICT services to schools that incorporates these valuable people and yet is a lower cost than before. I firmly believe that this can be done through the implementation of open services.

Oringinally posted at MerlinJohnOnline, but comments welcome below…

So far, things have not gone particularly well for ICT in schools under the new government. We’ve seen Becta’s funding withdrawn, the Rose curriculum thrown away, £100 Million removed from the ‘low priority’ Harnessing Technology grants and now BSF ‘frozen’. Mike Baker’s piece for the BBC on Saturday provided a good summary of the story so far. The worst, I fear, is yet to come with 25% cuts overall in public sector spending. The need to save money wherever possible suggests that open source may be the solution that had been waiting for this particular problem. I’ve remarked elsewhere on the fit between open source principles and coalition policy/rhetoric, but I suspect it’s the massive cost savings which open source could offer that will perhaps lead many to start exploring open source even if it doesn’t fit perfectly with their vision.

Becta’s 2005 survey of the total cost of ownership savings from open source is well worth another look, claiming savings of 24%-44%, but I think, with a little imagination and perhaps a little more courage, significantly greater savings would be possible. I offer below a few thoughts on how to do this, in part inspired by Ray Fleming’s list of ten money saving tips on his Microsoft UK Schools Blog, which include good, platform independent ideas like using virtualisation, switching on power management, and stopping photocopying and printing, although I don’t think Ray goes nearly far enough in terms of how much schools can save by doing things for free and for themselves. As with Ray’s list, some of the following aren’t specific to particular software solutions, but I think the freedom, community and empowerment that are at the heart of the open source movement characterise those suggestions which aren’t directly about open source software.

James Michie captures the atmosphere of Saturday’s TeachMeet Moodle in his blog post, orginally published at http://jamesmichie.blogspot.com/2010/07/teachmeet-moodle.html under a CC by-nc-sa licence.

Today I gave a presentation to fellow Moodlers at the first ever TeachMeet Moodle which was organised by Dan Humpherson (@MoodleDan) and was hosted at Heythrop College in Kensington, London. The Meet kicked off at 11:00 with speed "dating" networking followed by a series of excellent and varied presentations.

The Twitter hash tag for the event is: #TMMoodle.and you can see a complete archive of the tweets here. All the details about the Meet can be found here, including a list of attendees, presentation titles and discussion topics. 

Below is the recording of my presentation: Blended Learning: How Moodle changes the learning inside and outside of my classroom. Thanks to Leon Cych (@eyebeams) for recording all of the presentations.

Open Source Schools was pleased to be a co-signatory to the recent open letter to the Secretary of State setting out a shared vision for ICT in education:

22 June 2010

Dear Mr Gove,

Joint statement: A vision for ICT in education

At a meeting on 4 June 2010 Naace, the ICT Association, brought together leaders from key organisations from across the education system to discuss the future of Information Communication Technology in Education.

Agreement was reached on a joint vision statement. We now circulate this to you and other interested parties. We seek assurances from you that the new government recognises the importance of ICT to learning, to learners, to management, and to the overall success of the whole education system.

The freedoms promised to schools, colleges and beyond by the coalition government provide new opportunities for teachers, lecturers and learners to make the best possible use of ICT to support, enrich and extend learning across and beyond the curriculum, thereby improving achievement, enabling personalisation and ensuring employability.

Responsibility for leadership in this field must be shared between schools, colleges, providers of adult learning, local authorities, industry, and government. If we work together, through membership organisations, subject associations and looser networks and communities of educationalists, technologists and policy makers, we can provide the mutual support and challenge that will be needed if the learners in our charge are to continue to benefit.

When used well and managed wisely, ICT is a powerful tool to ensure that:

• curriculum and pedagogy stay relevant to an increasingly digital world and economy;
• all learners are included, protected, and empowered;
• teachers and lecturers have efficient, effective and economic access to digital resources, together with the tools to create and deploy these resources themselves.

The education system is ripe for the development of new models that:

• maximise the return in learner achievement from investment in ICT;
• support effective pedagogy;
• provide an evidence-base to inform decision-making;
• enable efficient procurement of software, hardware, infrastructure, and services through improved market competition and collaborative purchasing;
• assure the quality and independence from commercial or ideological bias of support available for those in leadership roles.

The success of the country depends on the long term strength of the economy and for this, fluency in ICT matters as much as does competence in English and Mathematics. In short, a digitally literate and digitally creative workforce is of vital importance to every citizen, and achieving this demands an entitlement to the best possible use of ICT in education – by learners, by schools, colleges and institutions, and by educational leaders.

We look forward to confirmation that the newly elected government shares our vision for ICT in education, and we look forward to working with government on putting the vision into practice.

[Declaration of interest: the Open Source Schools project, for which I have the honour to act as community manager, is funded by Becta, although I’ve written the following in a purely personal capacity]

The Treasury announced this morning that Becta is to close as part of a package of some £670M education savings.

I, for one, would like to record my gratitude for all Becta have done to lead the adoption of technology in education over the last few years. Their interest in, and support for, open source software pre-dates my own: I have fond memories of attending an excellent ‘expert technology seminar’ chaired by Dr Malcolm Herbert, then one of the Becta team, now at RedHat, back in 2000 when I was head of maths and IT at a school in Oxford, just starting to experiment with Linux and setting up a Samba server. Despite others’ comments on Twitter and in response to Rory Cellan-Jones’ article, Becta have done much to encourage schools to explore open source, albeit in a way which maintained the level playing field that was part of Cabinet Office guidance, and subsequently the Conservative manifesto and the Coalition’s Programme for Government.