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Real Open Source Applications for Education?
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun May 06, 2007 08:21 PM
from the stacking-the-blocks dept.
from the stacking-the-blocks dept.
openeducation writes "I have been researching open source solutions for K-12 education pretty heavily for the past year and have been disappointed to find no real alternatives to the large administrative applications like student information systems, data warehouse, ERP, etc. But recently, I ran across Open Solutions for Education. This group appears to be making a serious effort at creating a stack of open source applications that are alternatives to the large and costly commercial packages. Centre, an open source student information system that has been around for a while, is part of the solution stack. They have a data warehouse and are proposing an open source SIF alternative and an assessment solution. While the proof is in the pudding, these guys have working demos and they look pretty good for a first run. K-12 education is in dire financial straits and solutions like these could help with lower TCO. Plus, education is a collaborative industry already, which makes it a good fit for open source."
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Great (Score:5, Informative)
The best place in the world for open source and open formats is in education. They level the playing field, but only when implimented correctly.
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Re:Great (Score:5, Insightful)
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Google Documents and Spreadsheets
Also, File->Track Changes
I took a distance learning Comp 2 class this semester that I wound up dropping, and the teacher used the track changes feature to write comments in.
All that said, yes, I wholeheartedly agree t
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The PDF editing / commenting / markup workflow in Adobe Acrobat Professional is actually pretty good, if you can afford the
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Collaborative k-12? (Score:3, Insightful)
While higher level educations may poke around with the source code and contribute, I would say that in general open source doesn't have any special appeal for K-12. Most teachers are more concerned with getting their students to pass the next state/national test, writing lesson plans, wrangling parents and students, and generally doing education to worry about the software behind it all. They just need the software to work (TM). Open sauce may be cheaper, but in the end the districts will get what they need to educate not what will "stick it to the man" or whatever.
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Unbelievably stupid. Do you really think Red Hat, IBM, Sun, fortune 500 com
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Sakai and Moodle (Score:4, Informative)
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Actually I would have said that Sakai is still maturing whereas Moodle is mature but still improving. I recently saw a Sakai vs. Moodle and was very disappointed with Sakai's
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It depends on your point of view (Score:4, Informative)
There are lots of available applications that are tailored to the individual school level, especially for small and medium size schools. This is an excellent fit for private schools, parochial schools and probably even charter schools. For example, I have been evaluating Open Administration for Schools [richtech.ca] for a local Christian school. It seems like it will be a good fit.
Now, if you are talking about software to help run an entire school district, that is a different story. In such a case, you are talking about thousands or tens of thousands of students, and probably hundreds or thousands of computers and other inventory to track. I would say that you have your work cut out for you. There have been some attempts at developing open source free/Free ERP tools. However, the market for ERP solutions is much smaller (far fewer large organizations than small and medium organizations, be they schools or otherwise). So, in the same way that you will have trouble finding open source manufacturing control software, you will have trouble finding open source software that is targeted at large organizations. It is not impossible. But as it appears you have found, it can be a daunting challenge.
What is needed is open or inexpensive books! (Score:5, Insightful)
The book industry is a huge SCAM.
Writing open english,math,science and more advanced books would help the pocketbook and make education more affordable.
Hell,there are cheaper books at Barnes and Noble & Borders than the bookscams pushed by the schools.
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The schools pretend to offer useful books and the kids pretend to use them.
And besides, the best teaching I received from middle and high school was from teachers who made their own materials, foregoing the bo
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Dire straits? (Score:5, Informative)
As pointed out in this article (based on a recent bipartisan study):
"To fix US schools, panel says, start over"
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1215/p01s01-ussc.ht
for all the money (and technology) increased over that time per student, test scores (for what they are worth) have remained flat.
The problem with most K-12 schooling is not money (or technology); it is that K-12 schooling is actually very good at doing what it was designed to do (see for example John Taylor Gatto's writings).
"The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher"
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt [newciv.org]
Unfortunately what compulsory schooling was designed to do one hundred years or more ago (make people into compliant assembly line workers) is not really what an information age society needs anymore.
That's why efforts like by the Shuttleworth Foundation
http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/ [shuttlewor...dation.org]
to make some of the sort of software you are asking about for schools is misguided IMHO. You can't fix a bad process producing undesireable outcomes by automating it or reducing its cost. You need to change it entirely.
Here is one of many groups devoted to rethinking education:
"The Alternative Education Resource Organization"
http://www.educationrevolution.org/ [educationrevolution.org]
And a related article by the leader of that organization:
"Sustainable Education "
http://www.greenmoneyjournal.com/article.mpl?news
He writes: "Nevertheless, there is an education revolution going on, and it is long overdue. It is moving in the diametrically opposite direction of the "testing" push. The latter comes from the bureaucrats from within that dying system, who do know there is something wrong. But since they can't think "out of the box," the only remedy they can come up with is longer hours, more homework, and "teaching to the test," in other words, more of the same. The education revolution is coming from people who have created alternative schools and programs, thousands of them, and from others who have checked "none of the above" and have decided to home educate."
Once you make the leap to a new process for education (primarily learner self-direction) *then* we can talk about what software makes sense to support the learner (like educational simulations, design tools, plain old access to the web, edubuntu,
http://www.edubuntu.org/ [edubuntu.org]
and so on).
Re:Dire straits? (more links) (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index
The specific chart:
http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlit e-chart.html#2 [ed.gov]
And a related es
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"The SchoolTool Project"
http://www.schooltool.o [schooltool.org]
Re:Dire straits? (increased spending per student) (Score:2)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1215/p01s01-ussc.htm l [csmonitor.com]
with an executive summary here:
http://www.skillscommission.org/executive.htm [skillscommission.org]
here in 2002 dollars is the cost per student
Re:Dire straits? (problems beyond money) (Score:2)
"The Big Crunch"
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg [caltech.edu]
Claroline (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.claroline.net/ [claroline.net]
higher ed software (Score:2, Informative)
Awesome idea (Score:2)
Northwestern University recently upgr
And sometimes tools are just tools. (Score:2, Interesting)
1) Define better what you want to accomplish. (Objective, benefits, expectations)
2) Define better your resources. (Budget, Team, Time)
3) Define better your sch
EDU decision makers != sensible (Score:2, Insightful)
Add to that all the
What a convenient alias you have! (Score:2, Insightful)
Moodle (Score:2)
As a "costly commercial package" engineer... (Score:3, Insightful)
When you sit down and compare the value you are getting, I think you will be surprised how favorably the commercial solutions compare.
The top 3 considerations will probably be support, services, and state reporting.
The largest cost in many of these packages is the services and support component. In this respect, open source or not is largely irrelevant unless you are planning to do support and services in house. But that means supporting a product that you have limited training on, and have very limited familiarity with the codebase of. And unless you plan on doing 1st tier support on up personally, you'll be hiring additional people on staff. Add their salaries into the bid.
If you'll be relying on the vendor, they you have a different set of questions. What kind of response level does the open source provider guarantee? Do they have the staffing and budget to fly technicians and trainers out same day or next day? Can they provide the level of support your district needs? Remember, if the system inexplicably goes down printing report cards the night before parent teacher conferences, the school board isn't going to let you off the hook because you saved a few bucks by going open source.
The other place you are likely to be burned is State Reporting. The reporting requirements in many states are so elaborate that it is only by economies of scale that a vendor can afford to provide and support compliant implementations. The complexity of these requirements are increasing as the state and federal governments want information in more detail, and the requirements change every year. Does this open source provider even have an implementation for state reporting in your state? Does it satisfy the data privacy regulations of your state? Does it support the internal data auditing requirements of your state? Will your auditor agree?
And if it doesn't have a state reporting implementation for your state, how much value does it really provide you, and how will it need to integrate into your existing process in terms of export and import?
If I were starting a student information system from scratch like a lot of these open source solutions are trying to do, I would start in a single state with modest state reporting requirements and target small schools. The customization needs you are going to start seeing even in 5000 student districts will quickly leave you in need of a large services and support organization (or business partners to provide the same), only you won't benefit from the economies of scale the established vendors do. "We'll offer the same product and services as big vendor X, only we'll do it for less!" is generally a non-starter as a business plan. Probably you are going to be looking either to be bought out by one of these established vendors (not a good strategy in the current market), or targeting a niche market, such as sub-5000 student districts, or even sub-1000 student districts.
Squeak? OLPC? Hello? (Score:3, Informative)
'Dire financial straits', my ass (Score:3, Interesting)
Like hell it is. Educational expenditures have never been higher [wa.gov], even on a per-capita basis. We spend [ed.gov] more on education than almost any other country, and get less for our money than almost any other country.
What's more, the school districts that spend the most, like the District of Columbia [fff.org], tend to be the shittiest at actually educating their inmates.
This country needs to spend less [cato.org], not more, on our schools.
We need to get rid of bloated administrative overhead.
We need to increase class size, get rid of computers and other distracting frippery in the classroom, and jettison all attempts at building "self-esteem" among little delinquents who don't deserve a particle of it. Let them earn self-respect on their own, through hard work with plenty of drills and rote memorization.
We need to bring back paddling, dunce caps, and shame.
We need to abandon "mainstreaming". Students with severe behavioral problems are causing terrible disruption of classes. They belong in segregated classes and schools. Tough shit for them, but they can't be permitted to ruin the whole educational experience for everyone else. No more social promotions, either. Either pass the requirements, repeat the year, or get the fuck on with your life of digging ditches.
We need to break up the cartel that controls education. Someone with a degree in math or business is far more qualified than the dregs and losers and nitwits that the typical College of Education churns out. He shouldn't have to sit through months of educrat babble and bilge in order to teach in a school. Teacher licensing is nothing more than rent-seeking and featherbedding and guild-gilding. Tenure should be totally abolished. Vouchers should be implemented nationwide. Worthless teachers and administrators should be hounded out of the profession. Worthless schools should be boarded up.
Most of all, we have to CRUSH the teacher's unions. These lazy, stupid, greedy lard asses put the education of our kids about tenth on their list of priorities, far behind fattening their bloated salaries, gold-plating their lavish pensions, padding the length of their 3-month summer vacations, salting the calendar with "inservice" junkets, diverting public money to shiftless in-laws and mobbed-up vendors and left-wing non-profits, and working the phone banks for whichever Democrat makes the most promises to shovel even more taxpayers' money onto the gravy train.
-ccm
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
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To simplify & reduce costs of managing students.
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Re:Necessary? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Necessary? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Necessary? (Score:4, Funny)
Have you been to a high school recently? They're little more than prisons that let their inmates go home at 3pm.
Re:Necessary? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a comment that is out of touch. Teachers do not get paid that much, especially considering the level of education, continuing education, work requirements and out of pocket professional expenses most teachers have. My wife is an assistant manager of a small woman's clothing store. SHe makes more money than most teachers do!
No, the problem with where the money goes in education has very little to do with how much teachers get paid. It has something to do with unfunded mandates and administrative overhead. Have you ever sat down and read through your local school systems annual budget. I have. It is interesting reading. Those little things like you will provide all day kindergarden, but you have to come up with the money. Things like you will provide free meals, and we will provide half the money. Sports are another big money item. In most cases, they cost far more than they bring in (including football, basketball and baseball). Then, for many schools, there are now security issues - normally at the locations that have the least available to spend anyway.
On top of that, there is all of the required record keeping. Do you have any idea how much that costs? And, there are special education children that can cost as much as 100 times that of a normal student - in our system, they used to be left out. It is good to include them, but the money has to come from somewhere. In many US schools now, we have a problem with non-english speaking students and parents. That adds another large cost.
The list goes on and on and on... Many teachers work as much in 8 months as most people do in 16 months. They work when at school, they work before hours, the work after hours, they work on weekends. They put up with stupid parents (someday, a group of teachers ought to write a book about the parents they have to deal with) and their children. They keep trying. Most of them for less than 60% of what a person with a similar educational background would earn. Here, a starting teacher is in the low $20k with a masters degree.
And if you think teaching is easy, you really need to try doing it for a few years. It is one of the hardest jobs you can take up. Most people judge teachers by what they saw while being a student. Kind of like judging an iceberg by that little part that sits above water.
InnerWeb
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