Learn - OSS

50 OSS Alternatives List

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:20:11 -0500

My student Debbie Lee sent me this list of 50 OSS alternatives to proprietary programs entitled The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and Their Open Source Alternatives.

Looking in the Wrong Places

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:30:47 -0400

The Challenge

We in the field of educational technology need to pay more attention to finding ways to provide students in teachers with the tools that they need to increase identifiable learning outcomes. Too often we can be pulled in by the sirens of cool toys or be convinced that if only we could train teachers to understand how to use them, students would learn better. I posit that teachers and students now know quite well how to use computers to increase learning, but that the computers they have do not provide even the simplest supports that they need to do so.

Foundations for Open Source

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:12:06 -0500

Couros linked to Forty Foundations for the future of Open Source.

$100 Laptop Gets Closer

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:51:49 -0500

The International Herald Tribune has a story about MIT's so-called $100 Laptop initiative. It's looking pretty cool, and I believe that there's not much that kids (or most adults, really) need to do that such a machine won't be able to do.

Open Source Course

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 16:30:38 -0500

David at OpenContent.org made a post about a course at Berkeley called InfoSys 296A-2 / Law276.8 Open Source Development and Distribution of Digital Information: Technical, Economic, Social, and Legal Perspectives.

Linux in Indiana Schools

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:15:48 -0400

A couple places have stories about Indiana moving not only to OSS applications, but even to Linux. That's crazy. See School CIO and this piece. I mostly added this because some time ago I posted something about Linux in Indian schools and when I saw it just now I thought it was a typo.

Linux in Indian Schools

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 09:51:20 -0400

This Yahoo News story talks about India's communist-run Kerala state and how the education minister said "ideologically I support Linux and Free and Open Operating Systems for IT enabled-education in schools." I know I'm a zealot and all, but I don't understand how someone wouldn't ideologically support Open Source Software (OSS). If you could have software that was as good or better than its competitors, wouldn't that be better than subsidizing any company, especially one that has repeatedly been found guilty of using non-competitive practices? Isn't it better ideologically to use software that promotes learning (by allowing its source code to be studied) and is available to all students, regardless of their ability to pay for it?

The education minister didn't say that he would support banning Microsoft's products as a zealot might, just that he'd support the idea of people using Linux too. So I don't quite get what the big deal is.

The other thing about this story that I find bizarre is that the author somehow sees a link between this story, which boils down to "Indian Commie says schools can use OSS if they want to," to a story two weeks before when the same commies banned sales of Coke and Pepsi because some (ostensibly whacko) environmental group found high levels of pesticide in locally bottled Coke and Pepsi products. I think then, that the headline might read: "Foreign Investors Beware: Communist Indian State refuses to force its people to drink poison and use Microsoft products."

It is just a random Yahoo! News story, but it does strike me as odd.

Webliographer Has Arrived

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 17:34:47 -0400

Webliographer is, to the best of my knowledge, the first web-based application for managing and sharing bookmarks. The first usable version was in use in October of 1998. It replaced my home page, which consisted primarily as a set of categorized links. I was especially proud of the fact that it tracked the use of URLs, so when you clicked on a link a counter was updated in the database and links that got more hits were promoted to the front page of Webliographer's display. Though I used, and still use, Webliographer primarily for my own purposes an individual, my target audience for Webliographer was primarily teachers who wanted kids to use the web in their classrooms.

Writely is rightly amazing

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:16:00 -0400

Wow. This post over at Weblogged mentioned Writely in passing. I hadn't heard of it, but now I have and it's pretty cool. The post said "Who needs Word?" which is something that I've been saying for about 10 years now, but for entirely different reasons.

Peru Passes Law requiring OSS to be considered

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 14:29:48 -0400

According to Forbes Magazine Peru's congress unanimously passed a law that "would prohibit any public institution from purchasing computer equipment that ties users to a particular type of software or 'in any manner limits information autonomy.' " It hasn't yet been signed into law.

Note that this doesn't require that the government use Open Source Software (OSS), but just requires that it be considered.

Thanks to my student Rebecca Payne for bringing this article to my attention.

Microsoft offers ESR a job

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 15:11:15 -0400

This story details how Microsoft tried to recuit Eric Raymond, one of the most public advocates for Open Source Software. I found it on David's blog.

More on Linux in Indiana

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:18:16 -0400

Couros linked to this eSchool News article on the 1600 new desktop Linux computers in Indiana. There was an earlier piece about this as well.

This quote is consistent with my "no training" idea.
Taylor said the state's open-source alternatives have become so similar to the proprietary models on which they are based--and with which teachers and students have become so comfortable--that teachers and students pick them up intuitively.

Moodle Course Data Manager Extension

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:01:10 -0400

This thread describes a module that allows one to adjust the due-dates of all (or a subset of) Moodle assignments at once. This means that when you import a course and need to update every assignment's due-date you can do it from one page instead of havin g to go to every single assignment to fix them all.

Five reasons NOT to use Linux

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:31:20 -0400

Five reasons NOT to use Linux is a silly one-sided piece about how great Linux is. I think that the framing of the piece is interesting, but it's so clearly one-sided that it's easy to dismiss.

Moving to Moodle

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:05:24 -0400

There are a couple interesting threads on EDUCAUSE's CIO Listserv that talk about using and Moving to Moodle. This one talks about the decision to choose a Learning Management System (LMS) and asks about Blackboard, Jenzabar and WebCT. Many of the responses talk about choosing Moodle. This one talks about the pains of switching from one LMS to another.

Changing from one system to another is a very expensive proposition, not because of the costs of licensing the software and its care and feeding, but in the re-training of thousands of users. In one post, someone says that if Blackboard doubled the $75K/year that it's costing this school now, he'd probably keep paying it, as the current price is half what he's currentlly paying Microsoft and provides similar fractions for lots of other very expensive stuff. That's all true, but the fact that once you've gone with a proprietary system you're forever beholden to their whims is what I get from this line of reasoning.