OOoCon 2005 - Koper

Introducing Open Source Software

- including OpenOffice.org -

into Slovenian Schools

Agenda

Introduction

OS project (Slovenia)

Some findings of our research, based on a research by Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (USA)

Some findings of our research, based on a study Free/Libre Open Source Software: Evidence from Germany, Sweeden and UK

Introducing OSS into ICT curriculum and analysis of the questionaire results

Q & A

Introduction

ICT is important in learning environments, but usually expensive.

Slogan of French Revolution – ideals, that are important part of the OSS movement:

Liberty: free to use, understand, modify, distribute SW

Equality: even 'poor' students can use the same SW at home and at school

Fraternity: cooperation and mutual help

Proponents of OSS emphasise economic/technological reasons

TCO

Better stability, reliability, security

OS project (1)

In the past, some teachers wanted to introduce OSS into educational processes on their own.

In the year 2003, Slovenian Ministry of Education started Open Source Project – 'OS Project'.

Expert group of enthusiastic teachers was formed to:

acquire quality and free didactic SW for education

offer to educational establishments OSS based on open standards

inspire the use of OSS and its future development

educate teachers so they could teach students about OSS

OS Project (2)

one of important ideas – 'Reference schools':

to act as a model and a guide to others

they are centers for exchanging knowledge in using OSS for their region

we have started a research about using OSS in education:

this kind of research was the first one in Slovenia

the aim was:

to answer: who, why, how...uses OSS in education

to get information about expirience of 'OSS users' in schools (primary, secondary)

Our research based on a similar research made by NREL

NREL:

Their research has been running in USA since 2002.

The purpose is to study the use of OSS in K12.

More info: http://www.netc.org/openoptions

Our research:

The questionaire was available at the website of the OS project: http://oko.edus.si from January – March2004.

67% of invited primary, secondary and music schools (public) participated.

I will sumarize only results that aply to use OSS on desktops – especially office suites.

Our research, based on a FLOSS (Free/Libre OSS – Evidence from Germany, Sweden and UK) study (1)

More info on FLOSS study: http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/

Methodology, time... was similar as in previous study, but username/password were required.

Valid questionnaires represented 19% of target population.

Results for OSS on desktops and clients:

The most frequently used desktop OSS is OpenOffice.org office suite – it is already being used by nearly one third of the participants and another 31% plan to use it. A very similar ratio is for Mozilla browser.

Our research, based on a FLOSS (Free/Libre OSS – Evidence from Germany, Sweden and UK) study (2)

According to this study, the most important OSS characteristics that influence the decision to use it are: price, security and stabilitiy.

Other interesting findings:

The main motive for using OSS in education is the desire of educational establishments to become more independent of the policies and licences of certain SW producers – 60% of the participants agree with this statement.

Only 13% of the participants agree with the claim that OSS is not needed in teaching process because the existing CSS fulfills all their needs.

Our research, based on a FLOSS (Free/Libre OSS – Evidence from Germany, Sweden and UK) study (3)

Over a third of participants says that they are willing to use OSS but do not have the proper knowledge.

One of the final questions was:'Which are, in your opinion, the main obstacles preventing the use of OSS in education?'

81% of participants agree that teachers and school administrators are unable to use OSS because they have not been trained well enough.

Introducing OSS into ICT curriculum and analysis of the questionaire results (1)

I teach courses in Business Informatics at the Business School in Brežice (Slovenia).

Each generation of my students not only hears something about OSS but also uses it in the classroom.

My observations:

For students MSOffice is a synonym for all office suites.

They simply don't know about other possibilities.

A very similar situation is regarding operating systems.

Introducing OSS into ICT curriculum and analysis of the questionaire results (2)

We (the teachers of ICT subjects) have a great opportunity to change this situation (nearly all of the future ICT users go through somekind of formal education).

Don't start with operating system (for ex. Linux), but – especially in business schools – with OpenOffice.org (uncomplicated installation, exploring on their own).

Introducing OSS into ICT curriculum and analysis of the questionaire results (3)

I dedicate to OSS at least six hours (among 70):

theoretically introduction on SW licensing

benefits/disadvantages connected with OSS

presentation about OpenOffice.org, made with Impress

show sources on Web – for ex. a book about OpenOffice.org in slovenian language, that can students download from the slovenian OpenOffice.org project website

Introducing OSS into ICT curriculum and analysis of the questionaire results (4)

Methodology of research:

The aim was to find out the attitude of my students towards OpenOffice.org.

56 students about 15 years old

Time: the last lession of my 'project', May 2004

Students previously had a basic knowledge of MSOffice package – they could compare both office suites.

They remained anonymus.

Thank you!

Q & A

John McCreesh

2004-07-03T20:12:10