Blog Juice for Educational Technology

NetworkWorld has a short piece with a few testimonials from teachers who have successfully been using Linux and other open source software in the classroom. Carla Beard points out that students appreciate tthe opportunity to use open source and offers an excellent metaphor for describing the conversion process:

It’s true that when my tech coordinator broached the possibility of switching to Open Source a few years ago, I wasn’t receptive. When it was forced on me, though, I discovered that it wasn’t a big switch. It’s like driving someone else’s car: at first things seem strange, but once you get used to it, you find you can still get where you’re going. The students had almost no trouble making the adjustment. Some especially appreciated the opportunity to load the software on their home computers, legally and without cost, so that they could continue their schoolwork at home. I am now telling everyone how good this experience has been.

So true. Some cars are faster. Some have more features. Some are less expensive. Some require more maintenance. Others save us gas. But Linux is like Mac OSX and Windows. It can get us where we need to go.

Since we’ve been talking about Linux distributions and Live CD’s, I thought I’d mention two open source applications that I was experimenting with yesterday which could be useful for the writing classroom:

• Inkspace is a vector graphics program in the Illustrator/Corel Draw/Freehand vein. Runs on Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
• Scribus provides desktop publishing functionality similar to Microsoft Publisher and Adobe InDesign. Scribus also runs on Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows. For Windows users, note that the installation instructions for Scribus also recommend that you install Ghostscript to get full functionality in Windows.

read more

For all of you experimenting with Linux (or thinking about it), Ubuntu hit their milestone 6.06 release the first of this June. I haven’t tried it yet, but I think I’m going to hold off in favor of SUSE Enterprise Linux Desktop 10. I was very impressed with earlier Novell SUSE versions, and if this reviewer at InfoWorld is correct, SUSE may beat out Ubuntu as the better desktop environment.

Johndan points out that Brent Simmons lessons on writing feature requests and bug reports are useful, "fairly generalizable" rhetorical strategies.

One additional observation I’d like to make concerns feature requests, support requests, and bug reports for open source software. In my experience with offering support on drupal.org, so often people get the writer/reader part of the rhetorical triangle wrong when posting to open source project communities. They frequently assume the consumer position in a client/customer dynamic in their posts, often demanding assistance and venting their lack of customer satisfaction frustration at the community.

Undoubtedly, it’s a misunderstanding about how open source communities work–that and the fact that such people are drawing on their consumer experience, the most relevant rhetorical situation they have. Open source projects function as communities of collaborators. Everyone who participates is a volunteer working to satisfy their particular interests or needs, and sometimes this involves helping others. But there is never a guarantee that help will be forthcoming. It’s one of the tradeoffs of getting software for free.

So for anyone seeking support from an open source community, keep in mind that you are typically dealing with a non-profit style organization of volunteers who are giving away free product and services, not a company who owes you a guarantee. Sometimes the service is available; sometimes not. If it’s that not the level of service which you need, consider hiring an open source consultant from the project.

Gurdy Leete is an art professor who recently decided to switch to FOSS: Last semester I embarked on an exciting new adventure by erasing Mac OS X from nearly all of the Macintoshes in our digital media lab and installing Ubuntu in its place.. Apparently, he was quite successful, and only hit a few snags. This is definitely encouraging for those us trying to spur new media production in state schools!

The Center for American Progress has a proposal for granting individuals a tax credit for work done on open source projects, up to “20 percent of [. . .] out-of-pocket costs.” Corporations and self-employed folks can already write off their expenses, but this proposal would allow the “hobbyist” to do the same. While the proposal does talk a bit about the cultural and social benefits of open source, the manin trust is on the economic benefits of open source.

[It] enhances the development and dissemination of knowledge and ideas more broadly. Since the benefits to the broader software development community and the economy as a whole go well beyond the users of an individual software product, a policy that subsidizes open source development would increase economic efficiency.

In Open to Open Source, Inside Higher Ed reports on a new study from the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness (A-HEC): The State of Open Source Software.

I am always very glad to here of any discussion regarding open source software adoption in higher education, but I get concerned about such studies when I see them marketed so strongly (note the only):

Read the only research that details the market adoption of open source software in higher education.

If this is indeed the only research out there, then one might suppose that they would want everyone to read it. Well you can, for a price. The A-HEC only provides the table of contents and some summary information. To read the full text, one must go to the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc., website and become a member. And on closer inspection, IMS’s icon appears prominently on the cover of the report displayed on the A-HEC website.

This cover does list A-HEC as the copyright holder, but since Ron Abel, the author, is the Chief Executive Officer of IMS and the full document is only available through IMS, it is surprising that Inside Higher Ed did not report this as being released by A-HEC and IMS. Maybe it’s just an oversight, this is a good report, and I would appreciate it if I could read it. Well, I can’t. But what I can read is the Contributing Members page of IMS, a who’s who list of commercial software vendors who would be concerned about open source’s penetration into the higher ed market. I’m sure they breathed a sigh of relief when the Inside Higher Ed article described open source as

not quite ready for prime time.

Maybe not. But what about a study on open source which is not open and may be funded by commercial software vendors? I’m immediately suspicious given the technology industry practice of funding studies of open source that suit the interests of proprietary software makers.

The amount of creative, and free, software on the Internet amazes me. For every piece of limited, stale, and costly piece of software you find, there’s an equally fantastic, interactive, and free piece of software like Stellarium, a personal desktop astronomy program well suited for use in schools. Until I found this program mentioned in […]

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/10252005

Textbook Economics
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, the online, user-edited encyclopedia
-explains Wikipedia’s new venture, Wikibooks

» Wikibooks
» Wikipedia

There’s some naivte here on the part of callers –an adjunct literature professor saying students will get a cheaper book of readings. Not in the short term since so much of literature content revolves around copyrighted works.

And to the extent that Wiki’s are text-based, devolved around the word, then for humanities based courses, many students, will want to print. Printing isn’t cheap as anyone who’s bought toner or used Kinko’s will tell you.

Well, the news is out–Sun has finally released Open Office 2.0. I’m using a torrent to download it now, and will hopefully be able to discuss its comment/track changes and autotext features (with an eye towards migrating from Word) shortly. At any rate, 2.0 is sure to be much better than 1.x, and I’m really hoping they’ve managed to improve the speed. I’ll also be taking a critical look at Impress, OO’s “PowerPoint” equivalent. Maybe–just maybe–this product will be of sufficient quality to allow me to final

An interesting headline on Slashdot today. Apparently, Abiword now has beat Sun the punch to develop the first free software word processor with integrated grammar checker. We all know how big of a step this is–one more reason why students still using Microsoft Works, WordPad, or Notepad need to download Abiword.

I haven’t gotten a chance to check it out yet, but I’m wondering if they’ve managed to do anything with Word’s powerful track changes and comment feature. I’ve grown to love the functionality I get out of Word for grading papers–autotext + comments + tablet PC = RAPID RESPONSE GRADING PROCEDURE. I’m able to offer students 40+ comments (some custom, some canned) on their papers in less than 15 minutes each. The last version of Abiword didn’t have any support for Word comments, and OpenOffice Writer BETA had only a very primitive comment feature.

1. Write a craptacular draft full of factual errors, incredible sources, and grammatical/mechanical mistakes.
2. Post it to Wikipedia.
3. Wait a few days and let the community clean it up for you.
4. Turn it in!

The open source development model at work, so the article says. Maybe something we can address in the Caucus come March.

Via Lifehacker.

Anyone starting a weblog (or wanting to redesign one) should give Open Source Web Design a look-see. You can browse the designs by date, rating, and number of downloads. Now I’m itching to do a redesign…

Via digg.