Open Source—Part 1

 

Joyce Kasman Valenza

 

It’s a revolutionary movement with all the associated passion, idealism, freedom fighters, and heroics. It’s been twenty years in coming and it is beginning to take root in our schools. 

I am talking open source.   The idea behind this revolution is simple.  Open source software is created by a worldwide community of developers rather than a single vendor.  The source code is free and available for modification, improvement, customization, and redistribution.  And those in the movement believe the accelerated pace of open source software projects cannot compare with the relatively slow pace of commercial software development. 

The terms open source and free software are associated with the same revolution.  When folks use the term “free,” the term is short for “freedom.” They quote movement hero Richard Stallman who explains this attitude as “free as in free speech, not free beer.”   Folks who use the term “free software” use it philosophically to emphasize the importance of freedom from reliance on one vendor, the freedom to see the source, the freedom from complicated licensing, the freedom from forced upgrades, the freedom associated with greater software reliability, and the free support of the online community. And just as in the “great dialogs” we observe over the course of centuries in philosophy and literature and political theory, a similar, if greatly compressed, dialog is underway in software development.  Members of software development communities see their own exchange of knowledge as promoting another type of greater good. 

Advocates of open source in the global K12 environment believe in it as an economic, political, and academic mandate.  Open source is heavily used in Asia, Africa, and Latin America with great numbers of schools migrating from Windows to Linux operating systems. The UK recently announced a major rollout of open source authentication system that will allow teachers and students to more easily access online educational content.  The United Nations recently released a report praising the quality of open source and free software and a guide-- FOSS Education Primer--encouraging its use in educational institutions, pointing to the advantages of lower costs; opportunities for students to learn about programming; and better reliability than proprietary software.

The movement is gaining local steam as well.

Tim Williams, Director of Information Technology at Manheim Township School District in suburban Lancaster has been using Linux for his back end servers for at least six years. The server pushes the operating system to his “old junker computers”—486s and low-end Pentium machines. “The user sees the Linux graphical interface which looks a lot like Windows XP,” said Williams. After he installed inexpensive flat panel monitors, students who once turned away from older looking machines flocked to them with no further complaints.”  Williams is impressed with the efficiency and reliability of his system. “Rarely do we need to look at it; rarely do we need service, but available support is extensive online.  It is a community. Linux advocates eager to know and help each other.  I wonder if detractors of the open source movement have ever tried to call Microsoft for support.”  Williams finds the economy of open source attractive, “Linux runs more efficiently and we are not beholding to a particular company.  I am a Microsoft certified system engineer myself, and so is one of my guys. We are both strong advocates.”  

 

Penn Charter’s email system is going open source. “We were looking for a new email system,” said Michael Moulton, Director of Technology. “We were using GroupWise by Novel, but found it too heavy; it had too many features; it was too expensive to keep up to date.  Looked at Outlook and FirstClass, and after going through a large due diligence process, Linux beat out the others and it was free.  We use the right tools for the problem at hand. We may be a Quaker school, but we are nondenominational when it comes to technology.  We Quakers are known for fiduciary responsibility.”

 

Though many schools will continue to opt for turn-key solutions, Moulton believes open source will catch on K12, especially in schools “willing to invest in their own abilities to do things. You can pay someone else for the knowledge or you can build the knowledge your self.  If you invest in yourself as the mechanic—you don’t have to settle for what the company offers.”  Moulton also points out, “You’re not just using the tools. How you use the tools teaches too.”

 

Paul Scaer runs an after school Linux club and is his third year of teaching an elective course on alternate operating systems at Masterman. “I got involved in open source through talking with my seniors around five six years ago,” said Scaer. “We were looking for a way to turnaround our low performing computers.  We turned them into Linux systems.  Now I can walk away from computers and not have to worry, because they are so secure.”

 “I am kind of an idealist,” noted my own professor Shannon Peevey from whom I was first formally introduced to open source as a movement. “The prime motivator is to give back to the community. I take pride in the things I’ve been able to do for the community of developers around the world. I want other people to build on the technology that I create.

Peevey also sees the open source movement as an opportunity for students to engage in problem-solving and to make their own authentic contributions. “Students ought to be able to understand how their software works, to examine its inner workings, and to participate in its development.  “You are shaping technology for the future. If the latest version doesn’t quite do it, students can make the software do it. Development groups function as meritocracies. Students have an opportunity to be on the cutting edge, to can take pride in their accomplishments, maybe even get their names put up in a change log.”

My next column will cover specific K12 solutions offered by open source projects.

 

K12 Open Source Resources

School Forge http://www.schoolforge.net/

EduForge http://eduforge.org/

FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Primer http://www.iosn.net/education/foss-education-primer

UNESCO’s Free Open Sources Software for e-Learning http://www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/forums2.php?queryforums_id=9&querychapter=1

K12 Linux in Schools Project http://k12os.org/

Open Source Schools News  http://opensourceschools.org/

Free Software Foundation http://www.fsf.org

Open Source Now http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow/

Open Source Opens Learning http://www.rsmart.com/assets/OpenSourceOpensLearningJuly2004.pdf

The Cathedral and the Bazaar http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/index.html

Open Source Initiative http://www.opensource.org/index.php

Open CD Project http://www.msad71.net/OpenSource/Open_Source_Links.html

Red Hat Academy http://www.redhat.com/training/academy/

 

Open Source: Practical Solutions for School---Column Two

In my last column we explored the philosophy behind the open source movement. Open source software is created by a community of developers rather than a single vendor.  The source code is free and available for modification, improvement, customization, and redistribution. 

In this column we focus on how specific open source desktop solutions might be implemented in schools.

My own first contacts with open source software were with the Graphic Converter image editing software I happily used on my Mac for many years and with the browser Mozilla, the open source version of Netscape which turned into open source in 1998. Among its other advantages, Mozilla and now its descendant Firefox, effectively block annoying pop-up ads, offer form fill managers and a Mozzila offers a free html editor.

Michael Moulton, Director of Technology at the William Penn Charter School is a convert and advocate of open source use. “Most all of our high school students use WebMail to access class information posted by faculty members,” said Moulton. “Our seniors use it for an online class in their last trimester to support them as they do field work.”  Moulton uses the OpenOffice productivity suite as well. The software offers many of the same functions of Microsoft Office suites—word processing, spread sheets, drawing, presentations, and databases.  “It is included on all our desktop machines and it has some features that are even better than the Microsoft Office suite. The ability to create PDF files is built in.  Our students save their presentations as PDF files to compact them.  A student who doesn’t have PowerPoint at home can work with OpenOffice’s free presentation software, which is interoperable with the Microsoft Office suite.  I can simply hand them a copy on CD.”  Moulton is “even more excited” about Moodle.  He runs the BlackBoard-like open source online course management system, on his Linux server. Moulton finds Moodle, “svelte and transparent. Not all of our teachers wanted to learn about creating custom websites; they want to focus on subject matter.  Like most commercial products, Blackboard is not only expensive, but heavy and packed with complex tools. It gives you far more than you need.”

 

Paul Scaer uses open source backend software—Debian Linux and Red Hat’s Fedora Core 3 operating system in the library at Masterman High School.  He finds it “almost entirely hack-proof and offers advantages that ‘Micro$oft’ lacks:  instructive games for leisure users, as well as the OpenOffice suite.” And, as a bonus, “my students are amazed at the large number of ingenious screen savers.”  Although some of the school users are uncomfortable and afraid of using a non-windows system, Scaer notes that “most are able to navigate it easily once our student helpers get them started.”  In a volunteer effort, he used the Koha (http://www.katipo.co.nz/solutions/koha/) free library system to set up Marlboro Music Festival library in Vermont.

 

Scaer feels he is doing something good for his students; he is creating equity. “With OpenOffice, I can offer the software to students to use both home and at school information processing and presentation. They can transport files back and forth. It gives everybody an equal chance. 

 

Scott Garrigan, of CAPE (Center for Advancing Partnerships in Education) in Allentown, formerly technology director at the East Penn and Bethlehem Area School Districts, regularly presents workshops on how educators can use open source software to promote project-based learning, at little or no costs. He uses open source with teachers in his graduate courses at Wilkes University.  At the upcoming NECC conference one of his workshops is devoted to Squeak, software designed to support inquiry- and project-based learning in constructivist environments.

 

Is open source for everyone?  Open source in the school sector is not necessarily an either / or option.  Schools may opt to select particular applications that meet specific needs. Though open source addresses such issues as the high cost of licensing, school and student equity in access, as well as instructional opportunities, schools have legitimate questions to ask.  Does your organization have the time to learn about the software? Is the local support staff willing to learn?   Do licensing issues require the purchase of commercial closed-source products?  Will the organization experience issues of compatibility with existing software?  Though districts may prefer plug and play alternatives and may prefer to rely on outside support, it is important to note the growing number of both large and small companies now offering solid support for free software solutions

 

A selection of open source tools available for educators:

More Open Source links at http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/opensource.html

 

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