This primer covers the use of FOSS from schools to universities. It provides a brief overview of how it can help in setting up the IT infrastructure and administration of educational institutions and considers software (mainly proprietary) which is now used as the basis for IT curricula and alternative FOSS which is available.
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2004-07-26 05:39 PM
This declaration is the result of the expert group of educators and specialists of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in Education, from six continents, who met and worked together in Stellenbosch, South Africa from 4th to 7th July 2005 at the IFIP 8th World Conference on Computers in Education (“40 years of Computers in Education, What Works?”) held by the IFIP
Committee on Education (IFIP TC3). While not specifically concerned with Open Source Software some of its recommendations are.
This Meta-survey on the Use of Technologies in Education in Asia and the Pacific is the first such survey to map the use of ICTs in the education systems of an entire region. The project, conducted by UNESCO with the support of Japanese Funds-in-Trust, gathers information on 44 UNESCO Member States, and provides an up-to-date overview of the state of ICT use in primary and secondary, non-formal, technical and vocational education across Asia and the Pacific. There is a limited mention to the use of FOSS software in the report
A document intended to convince school administrators that using Open Source Software in their schools' computer labs is a good thing. It covers both use of OSS programs on Windows and use of Linux. It is written with United States public school systems in mind, but is not explicitly restricted to them.
An online database of learning content that provides software to Commonweath countries free of charge. Institutions or governments can establish a shared repository by accessing free open source software from COL's LOR.
Teachers helping teachers. Helping one another use Web technology to teach better. OpenCourse.org hosts virtual communities developing, evaluating and using open, non-proprietary learning objects in their discipline.
Eduforge is a virtual collaborative learning and exploratory environment designed for the sharing of ideas, research outcomes, open source educational software, and tools within a community of learners and researchers. They have many links to a range of FOSS initiatives in education.
Open Source Software, particularly the Linux Operating System, provides many advantages over proprietary Operating Systems, particularly Microsoft Windows. The advantages to Public School Systems, the increase in use of Linux in the Enterprise, the increase in Linux used as Web Servers, and the increase in the use of Linux by governments, makes Linux a viable alternative for use in Public School Systems.
