OSS Not Ready for Prime Time in Education?

cel4145 writes "Inside Higher Ed reports that the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness has released a new study, The State of Open Source Software. Is it true that open source is 'not quite ready for prime time' in education? Or, as I suspect, is the study just another proprietary software vendor funded report for discouraging the adoption of open source software?" From the article: "Lack of vendor support is one of the largest hurdles limiting the adoption of open source in higher education, Abel said. 'The biggest thing is it takes more physical labor to implement open source because it isn't pre-packaged,' Abel said. "You have to have software developers that can make this stuff work.'" Are the staffing issues associated with OSS enough to outweigh the benefits?

A problem now, but not in the future.....

[postbigbang]

K-12 teachers are underpaid, and generally lack a lot of computer skills that are necessary to make free-OSS work. Few initiatives exist to get the message out to teachers that there's both remediation software as well as technical skills development source trees available for use, with a few exceptions.

School systems by either OS X or XP these days, and aren't very compelled to get Linux or OSS alternatives for many reasons, including lack of knowledge of what's available, belief that support doesn't exist, fears of application cracks (like they don't exist elsewhere, eh?), and basic fundamental experience with OSS apps and environments in general.

This changes as a younger generation replaces older teachers, but it will take time for educators to get smart on what OSS is, and how to use it effectively for both skills and remediation.

Let the Kids do it!

[rewinn]

What is "Education" supposed to be anyway?

Primary school kids may be too young to do operating systems, (...although a smart 3rd grader can certainly downloard & install OpenOffice with a little supervision ...) but middle schoolers can definitely install OS's with a little supervision, and high-schoolers should be able to keep the computers running in the school district's kindergartens.

Not every kid will have the desire, but if only 5% of your highschoolers have an interest in technology: problem solved!

Any school district that is paying for its office software is wasting Our Money! and if they are not using this opportunity to train up kids to run computer system, that's a waste too.

Re:Education needs support.

[bjohnson1102]

I'll agree that you're accurate on some of what you've said, but personally I'll take issue with your assessment of my skills as the technology director for a school district. I'll match my skills with yours any day of the week. Now, maybe I'm the exception in that area. I have made an incredible push in my district this year, to the tune of converting all of our Windows-based labs to thin-client machines running off LTSP servers. you are correct in your assessment that teachers are resistant to this idea, due to their lack of technology skills. In the interim, we are still allowing the thin-clients to connect to Windows 2003 terminal servers so they can have their precious Word,Excel and Photoshop, etc. Bottom line is this--we went from the projection of spending 40,000 for a new lab, versus about $5000 for two brand-new shiny dual opteron systems, one for ltsp, the other for the windows terminal server. Since we already owned the licensing for most of our programs, our licensing cos for terminal server CALs was roughly $700 for 30 licenses(educational pricing) The biggest hurdle to overcome in this area is the teacher's fear of the unknown. The best way, in my view, to clear this hurdle, is to put the kids on Linux first, let them preach to the teachers how cool it is, and eventually the teachers will have no choice but to come around. In our district, I am forcing this to happen through a re-evaluation of our current purchasing practices. Within 5 years, we have stated that we will not be purchasing closed-source sofware for use within the classrooom, so get yourself up to speed in the next five years.

Re:A problem now, but not in the future.....

[McShazbot]

Few initiatives exist to get the message out to teachers

SoftwareFor.org [softwarefor.org] is attempting to address just this issue with the Software for Starving Students CDs. We've identified institutional adoption as the key to getting free software to the greatest numbers of students. As such, building bridges to educators is a core initiative for us. Teachers, like everybody else, need to know how F/OSS benefits them.

So in addition to professional packaging and having versions for both Windows and OS X (a must in education), we've developed initiatives to build lesson plans associated with the software. So rather than handing educators a disc and saying, "Here. It's free. Good luck," we're trying to get to the point where we can say, "Here. It's free. And here is how you can use it to teach concept 'x.'"

OK, I know this is a shameless plug for our project, but it's a good project, trying to do good things, and it's on topic -- so a shameless plug might be in order.

Re:*sigh*

[IflyRC]

I agree with everything except for the atheist comments used in the example. I actually have done what you described and honestly I didn't find it silly. I found the message to be uplifting and pointing people in the right direction whether it be spiritual or ethical. Now, should the person I was listening to be Pat Robertson then it does become a different matter - but again, you cannot judge an entire group based on the fringe. In closing, the exercise you described did not sway me toward atheism, it reinforced my faith.

Re:Education needs support.

[skothar]

I don't normally feed trolls, but what the heck...

I am a network and system admin for an elementary school district. I have a BSCS and almost ten years of industry experience. I know my way around a server room.

I don't work in Education because no one else would hire me, I work in education because schools and school districts need IT people too. Sure the pay isn't great, but I have more freedom to experiement with projects that interst me, and I feel like I'm making a difference. Most people who work in IT in education do it because they believe in it. It becomes a cause.

The IT people who work in education are an amazing bunch. They work miracles with tight budgets, scant resources, a clueless userbase and (often) clueless supervisors. Again, because most of us believe that educating children is a noble and just cause, indeed, probably the most noble.

I'm not the best IT guy I know, but I'm pretty darn good... and I can spell and use proper grammer better than you.