Moving to Open Source Software in Schools

There is a celebration going on this weekend in Cambridge.  There are satellite celebrations around the globe.

My thanks go out to Richard Stallman (RMS) and to all the others at the Free Software Foundation who have carried the effort forward. I’m looking forward to the next 30 years.

Maybe education will soon see the value of Software Freedom.

What Free Software is in regular use in your school?

If you are near Boston, Saturday the 21st of September is Software Freedom Day, and there will be a gathering of interested people at Cambridge College in Cambridge, just across the Charles River. I’m planning to go and enjoy the talks and hope to connect with many people I know as well as meet others I have not met before. Hope you can make it.

More information: http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Boston_Software_Freedom_Day

If you don’t live near Boston, look around. There’s probably a gathering planned near you. If you don’t see something, call up a few friends and stage an event yourself.

More information: http://softwarefreedomday.org/

Here’s a new idea for Inkscape, the Free Software vector graphics program.

Get your high school or middle school students involved in making dot-to-dot creations for the kids back in grades 1-3.

This example, by Frankes, comes from openclipart.org where Frankes uploaded it. All the work at openclipart.org is in the public domain, so it is ready for you and your students to put to use.

In fact, it looks like Frankes remixed another person’s witch image into this larger product. Remixing is encouraged at openclipart.org because sharing is GOOD.

Halloween is just a little bit ahead of us, but there is certainly still time for you to organize this project. Even if you are slow about it, there is a whole year ahead with lots of graphic-rich holidays to use as your focus. Inkscape is open source software which can be installed at school and at home by you, by your students, by anybody. You don’t need permission to get started. It won’t cost you anything but your own effort.

Please leave a comment here if you do this project and can give links to your students’ work.

Even better, submit the work to openclipart.org where a collection can be organized.