Open Source Software

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

As a Teacher in the Trenches, could you tell us what you think about Open Source software. Are you using any, if so what, if not why? Is your school district using any open-source yet and if so what? If not are they considering and discussing using Open-Source. Can you point us to any resources or good open-source software or articles? ( I have attached the file my students used to research Open Source for you information)

[Laura Anania]

This open resource page is great. I downloaded Tux Paint and checked out the big brainz site. It is great to have children because I can try all these sites on them and see how they react. I have talked to some teachers about the budget of some schools and sometimes there is not much extra to spend of software. It is great to find good information about free bees. Thanks to eveyone!

[Kayla Krinhop]

This discussion is great! I have learned about so much other open source sofware! I have checked out Big Brainz, Audacity, Inkscape, and Tuxpaint! They are all amazing, and I cannot wait to decide which ones I want to download! I am excited to continue looking for more great open source software! Thanks for all the links and suggestions!

[Fred Griffith]

Hi there!

I made the mistake of thinking that, if I replyed on the class forum it would automatically show up here! My bad...

I have been using some Open Source Software for years. Mostly, I have been using:
* Open Office (Office Suite)
http://www.openoffice.org/
(now used exclusively instead of MS Office in two local school
districts)
* AVAST (anti-virus)
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
* SpyBot (anti-spyware)
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html
* Ad-Aware (anti-tracking cookie)
http://www.lavasoft.com/index.php
* Google Earth (3D Satelite imagery of the Earth - COOL!)
http://earth.google.com/
and
* Mozilla Firefox (Browser)
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
and recently have added;
* Audacity (Sound Recorder / Editor)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
* Burn For Free (CD and DVD Copying software)
http://www.burn4free.com/
and
* Mozilla Thurderbird (Email program)
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird

What I like the most about these is that they are mostly advertising free AND don't cost anything to install! There are all too many places that don't just run ads, but then use those sites to track your computer use, install tracking cookies and spyware, etc. Thank goodness these don't seem to do this!

Thanks to this course, I am learning about all kinds of other open source sites! Thank you all for sharing your knowledge!

Fred Griffith

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Sorry about the putting things in two places, Moodle and this site, but there is always something new to learn and next semester I am not sure just yet how I will change it or if at all.

The Moodle provides a place to think it through for TECS 290 students and this site allows for RICH discussions with classmates and Teachers from the Trenches. I think we are all learning a ton!! Or atleast, I know I am. learning a ton.

[Heather Burleson]

Just found Scribus, an OSS desktop publishing software. It looks and feels a lot like Adobe Pagemaker, and I don't seem to have run into too steep a learning curve. (Yet!)

[Karli Sherwood]

I have downloaded Tux Paint and it is great! My little cousin and I spent hours playing around with it. It a great find!

[Karli Sherwood]

I agree with Jill, this discussion has been very useful. Although I am not a teacher yet, I will have a ton of resources to use when that day comes. It is great to get resources and reflections from current teachers.

[AbbyMaska]

I read the article and looked through the various resources on Open Source software, but I'm not totally sold on the whole idea. After reading the various posts in the forum I am definitely open to trying a few programs on a trial basis. Perhaps when I begin teaching and budget is a very real issue it will be a necessity. I still have questions as to how easily I will be able to share files from these Open Source applications with others who are using Microsoft Office or the like? This is may not even be a reasonable question, but if someone could help me out here that would be great.

[Sylvia Martinez]

One thing that we haven't talked about here is why or why not districts would support the use of open source software. it's one thing to find cool free stuff, it's another to try to manage it as an IT director.

There are some school IT directors who embrace the open source movement, but there are many who don't. It's important to understand why. Educators often get shut down by IT folks who block things simply by saying it won't work. Of course, educational reasons should prevail. That's why it's important to be able to talk about free or open source software from an educational point of view, rather than a budget one. If you simply talk about budget, you run the risk of being shot down because if your IT person says, "it will take too much time for me to support" that is essentially saying that IT time costs money, so "free" isn't "free".

There are three reasons IT people don't like free and open source software.

1. They have to support it. IT support in most school districts are typically working at a very high stress level. Studies have shown that school tech support is staffed at 10% of the staff considered adequate in business. This means they tend to have a very locked down network and they like computers that are all the same. It makes their job easier.

Many school computers that break are fixed by simply doing something called a "ghost" which overwrites the hard drive with an exact copy of the operating system and the approved software that the school owns. It solves a lot of problems, means everyone has the same starting point, and they don't have to chase down pirated versions, or fix crazy virus problems, or keep track of things people download. So if people start downloading all kinds of cool and new software, it messes up this system.

IT staff also know that people will start asking questions about the software, and they don't have time for that either. There are some programs, for example, that can only use Internet Explorer - what if the district bought some expensive gradebook/student data mangement system that only works with IE, but a couple of teachers like Firefox. The fear would be that tech support would be called out for technical problems that would be non-exisitant if everyone just stuck to the approved list of products.

2. Open source means the program can change overnight. One morning you may wake up and your cool open source software that prevents viruses turns out to have a new feature that is itself a virus. Crazy, and probably won't happen, but there's no gurantee.

3. They didn't approve it. Skype, for example, uses some very cool and smart coding strategy to break through most firewalls. It's why Skype works so well, because it sneaks through all the security protection that big networks have to put up to prevent hacking. Does it mean that anyone using Skype is at risk? No. But if something happened, and your job is on the line, you want to be able to say you took every precaution. Just like they used to say about stockbrokers, "no one gets fired for buying IBM stock", no IT director every gets fired for buying Microsoft.

So it's not always cut and dried that IT are just Microsoft-loving fascists who like to make teachers lives miserable by saying "no" all the time and would be happier if all those pesky teachers and students would just stop messing up their nice tidy network ;-)

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Thanks for that point of view. Our IT folks on campus are what I lovingly call Network Nazi's!! It really seems tough sometimes to make them understand!!!

[Ryan Meng]

This concept of open source software is completely new to me. It is still really odd to me that there can be an alternative just as good as the software we purchase in stores or online and that it is available for free. My parents always taught me that if "it" seems to be too good to be true, it probably is. However, in this case, that does not seem to be the case. The Tux Paint program seems like it would be really cool to try with my daughter. I would be really interested to speak with some of the business and computer teachers at my school, as well as teachers in other areas, to see if they are taking advantage of these programs. It can be difficult to circumvent school regulations pertaining to downloads so I would probably have to gain special permission to utilize these resources. I definitely plan to explore open source more not only at work but at home as well.

[Bronwyn Smith]

I am very thankful for the explanations regarding Open Source Software, since I had no idea what it was! I tried to download Tux Paint, but when I try to run the program, it either shows up on my screen sideways, or the window is so tiny that I have to hit Ctl Alt Del just to close it, because the X doesn't even show up in the corner. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

Thanks