The adoption of F/OSS in educational institutions is related to multiple factors: value systems that underpin our decision-making, technical capacity of staff and faculty, awareness of F/OSS options, and the degree to which marketing is allowed to influence technology planning. This lesson reviews these issues, while underscoring the potential benefits of F/OSS adoption.
The lesson addresses these topics:
- F/OSS Values and Schools
- What are the Benefits of F/OSS Adoption?
- Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
- A F/OSS School Exemplar
Advanced Organizer
During the lesson, look for answers to the following questions:
- Does F/OSS adoption or rejection really reflect on a schools underlying values?
- What are the meaningful ways that F/OSS can benefit schools?
- If these benefits are possible, what do schools choose proprietary software so often?
- Does teaching to proprietary software equate to teaching a dependency?
- What is FUD, and are there examples of this phenomenon from your own experience?
Walk-through
1. Read the following discussion and consider the embedded questions.
Schools and educators tend to identify with a common set of values. Indeed, many strategic planning processes begin with an examination of the values that an organization wishes to embody, support, and represent. A quick web search for “school values” will turn up values statements from a variety of schools alongside their vision and/or mission statements. Values such as equity, collaboration, community, equal opportunity, and participation occur frequently. It is easy to see how F/OSS adoption promotes these values. Enabling every student to use current software at home and at school promotes equal opportunity. The collaborative nature of building software in cooperation with a worldwide group of like-minded individuals builds communities around software projects. It also demonstrates how a complex process can be tackled by working together and lending your talents to the group effort. The opportunity to contribute non-programming talents; through documentation, graphic design, bug-hunting, online support, translations, and feature-design promote participation from anyone with interest, skills and motivation.
It is difficult to address the issue of proprietary software in schools without an examination of the values that underlie our educational system. In his essay on “Why should open source software be used in schools?“, T. Vessels states that “The advances in all of the arts and sciences, indeed the sum total of human knowledge, is the result of the open sharing of ideas, theories, studies and research.” Educators tend to espouse openness, knowledge sharing , and building upon what we know to create new knowledge. Yet, our schools hesitate in embracing F/OSS – a concrete embodiment of these core educational values.
Why the hesitation? I believe a large part is lack of understanding. Educators are busy people, and F/OSS is not a topic one generally becomes familiar with unless someone sparks interest by introducing the issue. Many, if not most, educators confuse free-of-cost services (Facebook, Prezi) with F/OSS. They assume that cost is the only issue at stake, or perhaps the only immediate concern. There are two major problems with this thinking. First, are the questions of where the user’s data is stored, who owns it, and whether users are able to extract and/or reuse it. Second, chasing the latest for-free technology service fails to support similar F/OSS projects that could provide long-term stability, dependability, and re-usability. A great advocate for F/OSS in education, the National Center for Open Source and Education, recently closed its doors, citing educator apathy on these issues as a prime cause.
Consider This!
- How does one re-use a Prezi presentation (or substitute another for-free online service for Prezi here) if/when the for-free service disappears or begins charging untenable fees
- Alternatively, how can I use and support a related F/OSS project so that we all benefit from long-term solutions?
There are other factors causing educators to focus on for-free/proprietary services and software. Educators receive a constant stream of marketing information about technology products from profit-motivated companies that want a slice of schools’ budgets. Such marketing and slick advertising campaigns are not typically part of F/OSS communities. Finally, proprietary products frequently have newer features than their F/OSS counterparts. Some new features are fluff and bloat disguised as improvements – like continuously revised user interfaces and gimmick additions. Others are useful features, which F/OSS projects will likely implement within a few years. A short-sighted response is to expend budgets in pursuit of the latest technology that will supposedly improve education. A longer-term perspective will weigh new features against the prospects of fiscal sustainability, equity, and vendor control.
Consider This!
- Can and should we afford to pursue the latest technology or features year-after-year? What opportunities do we sacrifice by making such financial expenditures?
- Can our students use the technologies we choose outside of school?
- What happens if a price increase becomes untenable or the vendor drops a product we embraced?
2. Read page 4 of Free Software for Schools, and Benefits of Open-Source Software in Education
These readings describe some of the great things that F/OSS in schools can achieve. Free Software for Schools is a catalogue of open source computer programs for teaching and learning; it is already a bit dated in it’s scope of software coverage – but much is still relevant. Page 4 summarizes “Why Consider Open Source Software” succinctly. The more detailed Benefits of Open-Source Software in Education has been compiled from several related sources. You’ll note that the possibilities detailed therein include pedagogical, financial, and pragmatic benefits.
3. Read Why Schools Should Exclusively Use Free Software, pages 57-58 in Stallman’s Free Software, Free Society
In addition to arguments about saving money and moral behavior (equating to sharing with others in his philosophy), Stallman cites schools’ social mission and refusal to teach dependence. I find this argument compelling, because I have seen the behavior he describes of corporations – giving away software licenses to schools to ensure that students become future customers. In many cases, these give-aways are couched as grants or donations.
4. Read “FUD”, pages 28-38 from Open Source in Education.
FUD is a well-known acronym for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt”. It references a marketing technique that emphasizes scaring potential clients into avoiding a competitor’s products. Unfortunately, propaganda can be accepted and even perpetuated by the target population. Hart addresses some common statements about F/OSS with some reasoned responses. FUD is a real: consider, for example this article on a 2010 Microsoft video attacking OpenOffice.org (predecessor to LibreOffice) – and even watch the video. This kind of attack marketing has negatively influenced F/OSS adoption, as it was meant to.
5. Read New Zealand school ditches Microsoft and goes totally open source
New Zealand school ditches Microsoft and goes totally open source is a great article about Albany Senior High School, a school that decided that F/OSS represented the values they wanted to promote in their school. ASHS opted to go completely open-source when it opened in 2010, despite a district mandate to use Microsoft software. Look for ideas here on why the school did this, and how they accomplished it. Note from the photo caption that the school is presenting at a conference alongside staff from Open Systems Specialists, a company providing support for a range of F/OSS. There are support partners available worldwide to augment the skills and capacities of technical staff. (The UHM College of Education maintains support contracts with 5 separate F/OSS-based companies, but pays no license fees for the software.)
Tying this back to our introduction and school value statements, the vision and values for ASHS that lead to “fully open source” are outlined in this blog post.
Consider what you would ask Mark Osborne, then Deputy Principal of ASHS, about building a “high school running entirely on open source software”. Mark will be speaking with our class next week via Google Hangout, and you’ll have the opportunity to ask him “in person”.
Assignments
Blog post #3
- Consider how you would go about planning a F/OSS implementation like that at Albany Senior High, if your supervisor asked you to lead such a project. How you would build consensus among faculty and staff, delineate a technology plan, execute it and ensure success? Describe the challenges you think you would face. Post the question or questions you’d like to pose to Mark Osborne, former Deputy Principal of ASHS, about building a “high school running entirely on open source software”.
- This is a complex issue with no clear answer. Your post should demonstrate that you thoroughly read the article AND that you considered the likely issues. You should include one or more concise, well-worded questions for our guest speaker.
- In all your writing, including class blogs, try for:
- sources cited to bolster credibility and create informed opinions
- avoid:
- Unorganized, unclear, incomplete, uninformed opinion (lacking credible citations or rationales)
- Marketing material used in place of credible sources or offered as facts
Additional Material
- Free Software in Education News (HTML) – a blog that chronicles news about F/OSS in education
- Why should open source software be used in schools? (HTML)
- FOSS Benefits for Education (HTML)
- Why FOSS in Education Makes Sense (HTML)
- Open Source and Academia: How Composition Benefits from the Open Source Model
