Free and Open Source Software in Education

Kathy Reid20 September 2008

kathy@phpwomen.orgkathy@kathyreid.id.auhttp://blog.kathyreid.id.au

Free and Open Source Software in EducationIn an ideal world, schools and higher education institutions were given appropriate budgets for their IT spend... and everyone was happy Schools and colleges have limited $$$ IT spend must be maximised IT needs to be easy to use IT needs to be easy to administer IT needs to be easy to 'pick up' when the one person who knows the system leaves...

Free and Open Source Software in EducationWhat this talk will cover; Overview of Moodle Overview of Sakai Overview of Alice Overview of WordPress

Free and Open Source Software in EducationMoodle Open source learning management system Has roughly 70% of the functionality of tools such as WebCT, Blackboard etc Is completely open source You still need to take into account costs such as hosting / servers / administration / training etc However it is a cheap option, particularly for smaller colleges

Free and Open Source Software in EducationSakai Also an open source learning management system More geared towards research groups and collaborative teams Runs on Java and Tomcat (more difficult to install than Moodle)

Free and Open Source Software in EducationAlice Developed at Carnegie Mellon (by Randy Pausch's team – of 'Last Lecture' fame) Provides an environment which makes learning object oriented programming techniques both intuitive and fun There is a version available suitable for younger (lower secondary) students

Free and Open Source Software in EducationWordPress Originally developed as blogging software, but has evolved to become a personal publishing platform Useful for students studying in journalism and writing Can be used collaboratively by research teams / those in disparate geographic locations etc Extendable via plugins