01.27.14
Recent News About Free Software in Education
Summary: New examples of sharing and freedom (data and programs) benefiting education
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Open source events grow at the university
Catherine Dumas is a PhD student in the College of Computing and Information (CCI) at the University at Albany at the State University of New York (SUNY). She teaches two undergraduate courses, one in the Computer Science department and one in the Informatics Department.
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Can open middleware revolutionize education?
“It is a miracle that curiosity escapes formal education.” These words by Albert Einstein reflect a lot about the current state of education. It also captures the need for overhauling the fabric of our school system. Society needs technology solutions that extract the best out of all the stakeholders in education—students, teachers, and parents. And we need enterprises that revolutionize the learning ecosystem. inBloom is one such company that utilizes and integrates massive amounts of data to change the landscape of the education sector.
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How computer science teachers can better reach their students
Imagine being a high school freshman walking down the halls of your new school on the very first day. You somehow make it to first period without becoming epically lost in the unfamiliar halls. Finally, the bell rings, signaling that you’ve officially made it through your first high school class. Taking a look at your schedule, you see your next class is Exploring Computer Science. You think: “Wow, computers! This should be fun!”
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Trust your students with open source
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Open source educational tools for 2014
Last year was a big year of open source learning for me. I had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of awesome people in the open source field, attending my first OSCon, and being a Community Moderator here on Opensource.com. I learned more than I can say last year, especially in education. Here, I’ll share with you some my favorite (and super interesting) open source educational tools for teachers, students, parents, and others to use in 2014.
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Where to start: Upgrading your school system to open source
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Opigno aims to be a true e-learning platform
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OpenHatch brings open source to campus
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U Washington Deploys Kuali Open Source Student Information System
The University of Washington (UW) has deployed Kuali Student, a student information system built on Kuali open source platform. The SIS includes modules for student academic planning as well as course and program development.
The institution selected rSmart to lead the implementation of the new SIS. The company develops enterprise-level open source software for colleges and universities.
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rSmart Selected by University of Washington to Implement Kuali Open Source Student Information System (SIS)
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Open source for homeschooling or supplementing your child’s education
I never realized how much I rely on open source and public libraries until I started homeschooling last year. When I started to write for Opensource.com, my son was in school. He’s nearly eight years old, but he’s already been in both public and private schools and in both special needs and gifted programs. I’ve thus been on both sides of the educational spectrum. As a librarian, former teacher, and homeschooling mother, I am familiar with what formal schools can offer and what homeschooling and open source resources (programs, tools, etc.) can offer.
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Open source resources to teach the youth of America self-control
As an educator, you don’t expect violence in school or prepare yourself for the inevitability of it. Even violence like suicide is far from your mind. Teachers are not prepared for that. Neither are they trained to handle behaviors that can lead to horrific violence: murder as well as fighting, bullying, sexual assualt and harassment, and alcohol and drug use. Despite the heartbreak of violence among youth in school, there is something educators, teachers and administrators alike can do.
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Dumbing Down America: The Decline of Education in the US as Seen From Down Under
My first memories of the idea that Americans actually needed education (and weren’t born winners) were scenes of armed troops blocking students from school – or escorting them, it wasn’t clear. Newsreels of Arkansas (it’s pronounced what?) Governor Orval Faubus (seriously?) hit the screens in my little town about the same time as Blackboard Jungle (which I certainly wasn’t allowed to see) and Jerry Lewis’ Delicate Delinquent, which terrified me: Why would kids fight with knives? Somebody might get hurt. Years later, when I saw James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and black children being bused across town, my overwhelming feeling was: Why are these people so awful to each other? A good question, we’ll come back to it later after we have a look at the scene in Australia.
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Computing in the national curriculum: A guide for primary teachers
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Open Source For Education
Gregg Ferrie, the Director of Information Technology for a school in British Columbia, posted a behind the scenes look at deploying open source at his school on opensource.com. Gregg describes how his school uses Ubuntu on the server and desktops, and that 90% of his school has transitioned to open source. Importantly, Gregg explains how using open source software is fostering a new generation of innovators, ready for the workforce with a real technical education.
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Prepare students for a rapidly changing world by teaching with open source (the original)
At the school district where I am the director of information technology, over 90% of our information systems have been transitioned to open source software. Ubuntu is the server operating systems at the district office and schools, while the Ubuntu desktop is deployed for students, teachers, and administration through the use of diskless clients.
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