After taking a quick look at open office.org it seems to me that there are many similarities with Microsoft office.  Now, I believe in students learning how to use computer technologies in schools.  Most businesses require employees to use their software for communication and development of presentations.  If I owned a business I would not be interested in training workers on how to use a simple word processor.  I would expect that they would have been exposed to that during their education, especially in these times which we are relying more and more on technology in the working world.  

Having said that why is it that students need to use Microsoft Word?  After quickly looking at open office it seems to me that the interface is very similar to Word.  Why is it necessary to have students or schools pay for expensive proprietary products when they can just use the free OSS offered on the internet?  Open Office also states that their program is fully compatible with most other types of software so there shouldn’t be a problem transferring documents to Open Office from other programs.   There are most likely subtle differences between Open Office and Microsoft Word as well and between other applications from Open Office and the Microsoft suite.  In my opinion it is probably not going to be so great that it would cause a new hire to undergo intense training in Word in order to be able to use its basic functions. 

Besides this brings to mind a couple of years ago when I was working as a teacher and the entire school upgraded to the new Microsoft Office 2007 product.  The differences between the older version and the newer version were huge.  Myself as well as many co-workers were very distraught with the fact that our work production was slowed because we had to learn how to use a new program.  Things as simple as finding the line spacing format tab and the print preview button became frustrating examples of changes to the program that slowed us down as workers.  Not to mention there were problems with viewing older works from other word processors that made reading some students work impossible, I’m not even going to get into the frustrations with Power Point!  So even with new versions of PS coming out every few years workers are going to have to undergo some changes to what they are used to using anyway.  If employees are going to have to make changes anyway why not just encourage schools to use the free software for their students so they can cut down on their costs?  Better yet why don’t we have businesses using OSS technology and saving themselves money?

For those of you with your sleeves rolled up in the K-12 sector, I’m pleased to announce a prospective alternate path for your A3 assignment that is entirely optional.  It’s absolutely a one-time only, very special opportunity for those of you who are applying learning technologies in special ways in K-12 classrooms.

Tomorrow morning UBC will issue a press release regarding the UBC Global Minds Challenge.  UBC will award up to five (5) prizes of $2010 each to international K-12 projects that demonstrate innovative uses of learning technologies with respect to themes resonating with the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.  All projects are posted on the 2010 Winter Games website in the Education Project Showcase area.  The deadline for submission of projects is December 19, 2009.

The UBC Faculty of Education has been collaborating for six years with the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) to conceive and now realize the learning potentials of the upcoming 2010 Winter Games.  The UBC Global Minds Challenge is one dimension of this collaboration which we aim to establish as an enduring legacy of the 2010 Games.

For those of you wishing to take this on for A3, the basic idea is that your A3 can be an appropriate project that you’ve completed with your classroom already, or that you are able to complete and submit before November 29th (yes, we’ll keep the ETEC522 schedule, thank you!).    We will keep the rubric for A3 as assigned, only that the Pitch and and Executive summary would be your submission to the Challenge, and you’ll email a separate Critical EVA and Self-Evaluation to me.

Have a look (please ignore the guy in the video at the UBC site!) and email me if you have any questions.

Thanks!

DavidV

Hi folks –

Just a note that you all should have your A1 grades back to you by email by now.  Please email me directly if you have not received your grade yet, or if you have any questions.

I’d like to say I was very impressed with energy and creativity shown by all of you in addressing this assignment.   I’ve never experienced a higher calibre set of responses to an analysis of this kind from a group of apprentice EVAs.  Well done!

DavidV

Welcome!

Please begin by looking at this concept map to get a sense of the content we covered in this module.  This initial concept map serves as a Module organizer only.  Check back at the end of this week to see a more interactive concept map that you can use for summative review.

To start off the dialogue, we would like you to consider the following question FIRST and post your replies here, before proceeding to our NING site.
When you hear the term “One to One Technologies” what does it mean to you?

Once you have responded to the above question, please proceed to our Module 7 website:

http://1to1tech.ning.com

There are instructions on the main page for navigating through the site.
You should be able to SIGN IN using the same email / password that you have used before, for NING.
There are many opportunities for you to engage in dialogue and discussion.
We will also provide an RSS feed so you can follow the discussion here.

Check back here throughout the week to view any posts that pertain to Module 7.
And feel free to post any comments or questions here as well.

Thank you and we hope you enjoy our presentation.
Kathleen Cavanagh, Cathy Jung, Merv LaBrash, Brian Powell, and Erica Toombs

We have also provided a video showing you how to navigate through our Module 7 NING presentation:

I have been reading the comments on the dipity timeline from our presentation and wanted to address a few points. Thanks to everyone who left comments on the timeline. It would have been great to link the comments directly to the blog, but here are my responses (read: these are my thoughts, not the whole group’s).

First there were several comments that OSS does not protect the intellectual property rights of the creators. I  agree that there is a real need to protect intellectual property rights with regard to software creation. However, in proprietary settings the code writers never get credit and it is the corporation or business that benefits financially from their work the most and holds all the rights. Microsoft pays it’s programmers well, but they are not doing nearly as well as Bill Gates. At least in OSS, if the software is licenced under GPL or Creative Commons, the actual programmers get to keep the IP rights to their work. If they want to develop a business around providing services to users of the product they are free to do so. If someone creates a derivative work on the shoulders of what I have done, then the IP rights to the new work should lie with them, but I would want to be credited as having made the original source.

Second, several people commented that they were surprised that ‘open-source’ style software predates PS. I truly believe that hardware and software development would have been seriously hindered if in the early days of computers there had not been a free and easy exchange of information and software between researchers and programmers. Science moves forward through the sharing of ideas, not just competition (although competition is a significant factor). One of the aims of the F/OSS community is to foster the development of new ideas and collaboration.

Lastly, I think we have to consider that OSS actually combats software piracy by giving people a viable alternative to buying shady copies of Microsoft Vista on the street corner. It also means that students can learn to use a wider aray of applications and programs than a school could provide if they had to pay high prices for software. Also students can take OSS home and extend their learning, as Eveline mentioned in one of her comments.

As we move towards things like Software as a Service, will the software we actually install on our machines continue to be something we want to pay for? Or will we be more willing to pay for services and support for software that is distributed at low cost?

Blog Question: Would you support implementing FOSS/OSS in your work environment?

As a secondary teacher I support the use of FOSS and OSS in schools.  I think they are a cost-effective and useful way to bring great software to students.  Not only does most of the software “just work” it is often frequently updated based on user comments and could even provide an opportunity for students to help out with the software.

Although OSS software may not always be the best option, I still prefer Word and Powerpoint for instance, but they often they can bring software to the classroom that might not otherwise be there.  For instance open-source CAD software (Cademia and avoCADo, video editing software (Virtual Dub and ZW-4) or audio-editing software (Audacity).

To give an example of OSS in the classroom I thought I would share an experience I had with OSS in my classroom.   A few years ago I was asked by my principal at the time to develop a new computers/information processing class for the grade 9’s.  After weighing out the various options and considering that I had zero budget I decided to develop an image and photo editing class built around the amazing FOSS photo editor Paint.net.  The software is nearly as  advanced as high-end, and extremely expensive, editors like Photoshop and also has a similar interface and shortcuts.  This is great for students who might pursue photo editing further and makes the transfer of skills easy.  The software also had numerous online tutorials, guides and help pages that were easy to use and navigate.   All of this made it extremely easy to develop a course around the software and give my students some valuable technical skills.

In the end the class was a huge success and I they are still using my materials and Paint.net to teach the class.  Although Paint.net has undergone over 2 years of revisions most have been additions, not major changes and most of the material required little or no change to support the new software.

Anyways, it is this and other positive experiences with OSS that have led me to use it more personally and professionally and I encourage other people to think twice about buying new software before exploring what OSS has to offer.  A handy site is Open-Source as Alternatives which lists alternatives for many types of software we normally pay for.  The site allows you to list commercial and alternative software by OS and by use.

It has been wonderful hearing all the feedback about how people are using OSS in their schools and personal lives.

Through these conversations, I am curious to know if people are using or exploring open source out of their own initiative or if people are encouraged to use open source by their school or workplace.

Many people have mentioned that their schools are making OSS (such as OpenOffice.org) available as it is more cost efficient, and many of you have mentioned that you are using several programs (such as GoogleDocs, Scratch and Prezi) in the classrooms.  This made me wonder: how supportive are schools in using open source and how much support is given to the teachers who are using them?

Some of us also mentioned that although we like to help, we do not want to be the “tech guy”.  I wonder if the “tech guys” are as fluent in working with OSS as we want them to be – and should we hold them responsible for learning OSS as part of their “tech support”?  With so much open source out there – and maybe with my lack of tech savvy skills – I do not want to be one of them. =)

So – my question is – is there enough support out there or all we doing this because we’re amazing METers?  I know I have strayed from our OSS vs PS conversation – but I think support is a factor that also determines the choice of choosing one over the other.

Hello Module 4 and Module 5 presenters.  If one of you read this in the immediate future, can you please give me instructions on how to provide the RSS feed from our NING site to this blog page?

Thanks in advance.

Erica Toombs