Yesterday ComputerWorldUK posted Open source in schools could save the taxpayer billions about the growing impact of Open Source solutions for schools. The growing movement of free resources for education including software and opencourseware solutions continue to thrive. This movement is leading a revolution in education.
Google Apps for Education permits any school to tap free, industrial strength resources including: Gmail, GoogleTalk, Calendar, Docs, Sites & Start Page. This solution is standards based while integration is seemless.
Schools continue to face dwindling budgets, staff reductions and program cuts. Lets face facts, globalization also forces schools to implement technology refresh programs, turning over computer labs every 3 or 4 years via equipment leasing. The continued use of commercial software (inlight of Google’s offering to the education community) is a sign of simple fiscal mismanagement.
Looking for a success story to actually justify free software for schools? Click Here for the large number educational organizations (K-12 & Higher Education) that have already migrated to Google Apps for Education.
Consider Arizona State University. Serving 65,000 students, ASU moved to Google Apps for Education in 2006 and saved over $400,000 in IT related expenses. Click here to see details of Google’s offering to schools.
Google Apps is targeted right at Microsoft’s Office suite and its getting harder and harder to justify annual software licensing payments when Google and other solutions are building MS compatibility into their software.
Another incredible free resource is Opencourseware. Free class lecture notes, syllabus, tutorials, audio & video segments from some of the most prestigious institutions in our country including:
Harvard Law School, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michigan State University
UMass Boston
University of California, Irvine
University of Michigan School of Information
University of Notre Dame
Utah State University
Duke University
University of California, Berkeley
MIT has even launched an opencourseware solution for K12 schools including teacher resources. Did you ever consider free educational content would help lead a much needed educational revolution? Opencoursware provides real-world solutions to established high school teachers, curriculum directors and empowers talented students to tap additional online resources to further their education….and prep them for the admissions process at these institutions.
Click here to see a video overview of MIT’s program for K-12.
—Mac users need this plugin to watch online.
Open Source living is website dedicated promoting some of the best open source solutions available to everyone worldwide.
Might be time to ask your school how they are upgrading educational resources to better serve your child’s future. Want an idea of their future? Watch this. BTW: China has the most universities in the world supporting opencouseware and is the host nation for this year’s OpenCourseWare Consortium conference.
Tags: Google Apps for Education, Opensource, Opencourseware, enterprise, school email, Web2.0, budget cuts, trends
3 replies on “Open Source in Education”
Where does MIAD stand on this issue? Certainly I can see using Google apps or Open Office as a free/cheaper alternative to MS Office type programs. But I don’t think Open Source programs like GIMP or Inkscape are quite ready to take the place of Photoshop and Illustrator. What’s your opinion?
I believe MIAD will turn to open source as pricing points for software renewals continue to be a high price budget item. I agree that GIMP and Inkspace cannot replace the Adobe powerhouse applications, but for basic tasks in Foundations, GIMP may not be all that bad a solution … minus print support of course.
Actually, what might be a better solution for MIAD is to require Juniors to get themselves a quality laptop and whatever software they require for their major (if it involves computers). Then MIAD could simply supply laptop stations with power, internet, and perhaps large monitors…