ForFaculty

Write a FreeSoftwareInEducation advocacy piece here.

Also, there should be a catchy name (targeted, of course).

Free software - a low risk strategy for high educational value

Education is about learning and learning is promoted by free access to information. Not just information about science, humanities and other traditional long-standing subjects but also about the technology itself and the issues surrounding it. Technology in an education environment is more than simply a tool, it is also a learning opportunity in its own right. Diverse technology experience educates students, narrow experience impoverishes them. Enrichment of the learning experience via interaction and hands-on-experience with the software occurs at a greater level when the students are able to modify the source code of the software. Education is about learning transferrable skills and principles preparing students for a future in a changing world, training is about providing specific skills for a particular task which will soon be obsolete. So a key need in education is wide choice, free thinking and equality of opportunity.In principle freedom is fundamental to education arguably more important than teaching since much learning can carry on without teaching but without freedom education becomes indoctrination. If Newton had not had free access to the works of Gallileo and Kepler he would almost certainly not have been able to formulate his theory of gravitation and without that there would have been no moon landing, no space programme. Education culture has a long history of sharing ideas for the benefit of all and this is a fundamental principle of the world-wide free software community. The main constraint is lack of widespread knowledge and understanding, and that in education environments provides us with a certain degree of irony! If we are promoting life-long learning for students as a necessary investment for them to cope with a changing technological world perhaps leading by example has a certain degree of merit.

But putting the philosophical arguments to one side, there are also practical reasons why a strategy for free software deployment needs to be considered. It has the potential to lower costs and increase breadth. Both direct costs in terms of license fees but also indirect costs such as harware refresh and software license administration. On these grounds alone education managers have a duty to find out about free software simply to fulfil their remit of providing value for money for the tax payer. It is also quite possible to introduce free software and integrate it with existing proprietary systems at different levels, providing more choice and diversity even if starting with virtually no knowledge at all. Those with in-depth knowledge can replicate virtually all productivity tools and save a lot of money while running legacy education specific applications and therefore providing 100% backward compatibility. At the current rate of development it will not be long before all productivity applications are available as free software and many if not most education specific applications will be available on-line through web browsers. Sticking entirely with existing proprietary systems is high risk. Without the knowledge to change and support free systems, organisations that are over-dependent on existing infrastructure will be left behind in the rapidly changing world of technology where the world-wide influence of the Internet and millions of free thinkers will drive things outside the control of large corporate interests.

Here is a revised version of the above:

Free software - a low risk strategy for increasing educational value

Education is about learning. Learning is promoted by free access to information - not just information about science, humanities and other traditional subjects, but also about technology and the issues surrounding it. This has been the motivation behind free public libraries and governmental support for public colleges and universities for many years.

Technology in an education environment is more than simply a tool for teaching, it is also a learning opportunity in its own right. A diverse technology environment helps to educate students in many ways. These include:

Learning to accomplish common tasks in different environments
Developing appreciation for how different environments can make tasks simpler or more difficult
Teaching the value of knowing multiple methods for solving a problem

In contrast to this, narrow experiences impoverish students by encouraging a "single right answer" look at complex problems. Students leave school and enter a world which is growing more complex each year, and encouraging over-simplified approaches to dealing with these problems does your students a grave disservice.

Technology, unlike most academic subjects, changes very quickly. Software packages which are on the cutting edge of technology one year may be discarded the next. Schools are not, and should not be, about training students in technology. Training is about providing specific skills for a particular task using specific tools. Students can and will pick up training on the systems they will use after leaving school. Educators need to provide an understanding of basic principles applicable to a wide range of problems and environments - which will give students a sound basis for future learning instead of forcing faculty to guess what training they will need in the future.

Schools also offer another opportunity for expanding the students' learning experience. By giving them the opportunity to view and modify the source code of the programs they are using, students can gain an understanding of how these tools work. Reading and modifying software encourages the development of strong logic and problem solving skills - which will be useful to students in all fields of endeavor.

Key requirements for education in a free society are diverse options, free thought, free speech and equality of opportunity. In principle freedom is fundamental to education. In fact, it is arguably more important than teaching since much learning can occur without teaching but without freedom education can easily become indoctrination. In addition to this, open access to information is also extremely critical. If Newton had not had free access to the works of Gallileo and Kepler he would almost certainly not have been able to formulate his theory of gravitation. Without that there would have been no space program and no moon landing.

The culture of education has a long history of sharing ideas for the benefit of all. The free software community carries on this rich tradition - allowing anyone, regardless of economic class, creed, race or other condition the opportunity to learn from the collective work of the community. The main reason this learning has not been as widespread as it could be is that most people, both in general society and academia, are not aware of this great resource. This provides us with a certain degree of irony! If we are promoting life-long learning for students as a necessary part of coping with a changing technological world, perhaps we need to begin with actions rather than words. Free software can be part of this.

Putting the philosophical arguments to the side for the moment, there are also practical reasons why we need to consider deploying free software. Beacuse of the way free software is licensed, it has the potential to lower costs and increase availability. This is true of both direct costs such as license fees and indirect costs such as hardware obsolescence and software license administration. On these grounds alone school departments and administrators have a duty to find out about free software simply to fulfill their responsibility to provide the best possible value for the taxpayer's money.

Free software is not an immediate all-or-nothing proposition. It is quite possible to run free systems and existing proprietary systems in parallel. Modern free software is capable of interacting with proprietary software, immediately giving students, faculty and administration greater choice without requiring much specialized of knowledge to setup and administer. Those with greater technical knowledge can replace virtually all common desktop applications with free software equivalents - saving the school system enormous amounts of money and providing a far richer learning environment.

Specific software to look into:

OpenOffice.org: This is a free replacement for Microsoft Office under development by programmers throughout the world.

Samba: This package allows free operating systems to act as file servers for computers running various versions of Microsoft Windows. It has shown itself to be faster and more secure for this purpose than current Windows server products. The website for this project is http://www.samba.org

Debian GNU/Linux: This is a complete free operating system for modern computers. It requires a minimum 80386 processor with 16MB memory. It has, at last count, over 8000 free software packages available for immediate installation. For more details, consult the Debian website at http://www.debian.org.

JMD -- I have moved an article from Geronimo Poppino out form here into FreeEducation because I feel that it does not have to do with Faculty itself.

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