Resources for Schools
Our objective for 2008 is to better support schools to host Software Freedom Day events. For schools already making use of FOSS, it is a great way to help their community understand what and why they are doing this and to involve their FOSS communities in the process. This page is for collating media resources that could be useful to schools and SFD teams generally. Please feel free to add your ideas and resources to this space.
Ideas for school based celebrations:
Plan events to take place in the week leading up to Software Freedom Day on Sat 20 Sept.
Students can make:
- Flyers about different open source applications. Contribute back to the open source projects to engage kids, and make the experience authentic.
- Posters - Use graphic applications to make posters promoting Software Freedom Day events around the school - and around the world. Get kids to create posters for different teams around the world - and upload them to the software freedom day website. Is there a team near your school? Check the map!
- Articles can be written in a range of languages for the school newsletter.
- Make a video or animation advertising Software Freedom Day. Include creative commons music inspired by 'freedom' themes also provides an opportunity to talk about the wider philosophy of open access to knowledge and legal sharing.
- Prepare a speech and presentation for the school assembly.
- Design CD covers for, download and burn copies of the Open Education Disc to give away - ask for gold coin donations to help cover the costs of the materials - the software is free to share, but the CD costs money.
Order free Ubuntu CDs from http://shipit.ubuntu.com/ or download the image and burn copies at school.
Prepare demos and screen-casts on how to use Free software such as Firefox, OpenOffice, Gimp, Inkscape and Audacity.
Media
Name |
Description |
Type/Size |
Copyright |
"Open Source Victoria has prepared the following report for the primary and secondary education sector. Within it, we have researched and provided a synopsis on a range of software which we believe will be beneficial to educators and students. We have also included a large list of other open source applications." |
PDF 13MB |
Creative Commons licence. Copy, mirror and redistribute at will |
|
The UNDP-APDIP International Open Source Network has published a series of primers on Free and Open Source Software. This one, aimed at the education sector is an excellent introduction. "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." |
PDF 659KB |
Creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode Copy, mirror and redistribute at will. Include this link to the license. |
Education Distributions of Free and Open Source Software
Name |
Description |
URL |
Edubuntu |
Edubuntu is the education-focused environment for Ubuntu, installing as a fast and easy add-on an Ubuntu desktop. Based on Ubuntu, it offers regular releases, a simple and intuitive desktop and a tight selection of excellent packages suited for an education environment. It includes the iTalc classroom management software allowing for teacher sharing, monitoring and control of networked workstations and thin clients. |
|
Skole Linux |
Skole linux is a tailored software solution for the needs of educational institutions and schools. Skole linux is available in english and 42 other languages and is based on the Debian Linux Distribution |
|
Open Education Disc |
Free Software for Windows systems. The Open Education Disc contains dozens of programs that are used daily in educational and commercial organisations all over the world. The disc only contains programs that are considered useful and suitable for education, and that have gone through thorough testing. |
|
Open Source Mac |
Free Software for MacOS machines. |
FOSS oriented educational blogs
Name |
Description |
URL |
Steve Hargardon |
K-12 educational technology: collaborative web technologies, free and open source software, e-learning, & School 2.0 |
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FOSS oriented education talk lists
Name |
Description |
URL |
Schoolforge.net |
"SchoolForge's mission is to unify independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for education. We advocate the use of open texts and lessons, open curricula, free software and open source in education." "An open forum for discussing topics related to education, FLOSS, and technology trends." |
FOSS related promotions in education
Activity Name |
Description |
Sector (eg R-7, Senior Secondary, Tertiary) |
URL |
FOSS@Schools and Software Freedom Tour |
Software Freedom Tour is an effort to propagate Free and Open Source Software and ideals to students. SF Tour is a whole year Tour of the Computer Professionals Union for Free and Open Source Software Advocacy. |
High School/College/University students |
