(This is a copy of my post at Open Source in Public Eductaion-I hope that it is ok with everyone!)
(It is. ^_^ - Admin Aaron)
I have watched with great enthusiasm the debate that has raged for the last couple of years over whether to use the open source Open Office or the closed source Microsoft Office in a learning environment. The argument for Open Office is that it is free software, and that it promotes openness in technology. The argument for MS Office is that this is what is used in the “real world” and we need to train our students to be ready to succeed in that world. Well, here is my two cents on this convoluted topic.
I have personally and professionally used Open Office for many years. Since switching to Linux about 10 years ago, I feel that supporting open source software is essential in keeping with the spirit of open source. When I started teaching 8 years ago, I inherited classes that were learning MS Office, and a school system that was totally closed source in nature. One thing I have learned as a teacher is to do things simply. Since MS Office was the software of choice for my classes, as well as the productivity of the district, I decided to keep it.
I am not a firm believer in training high school students for the real world, but to help them learn in order to be an asset to the real world. To that end, I teach MS Office, but also teach Open Source alternatives. I expose my students to alternatives to everything they do, so that they can make informed decisions. If they choose MS Office, then great! If they choose Open Office, then great! My job is complete no matter which they choose.
The debate should not be one versus the other, but how one can supplement the other.
Thanks for reading!!
May 5th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I couldn’t agree more. It’s important, for “real world” success, to be creative, seek alternative solutions and use new tools to solve problems. It’s possible to be quite productive w/o MS products by the way!
May 5th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I worked hard to get Open Office accepted by my old school here in the UK. The head was keen but teachers just would not use it so long as they had a Microsoft alternative available. They felt that somehow it was just a cheat to use free stuff and it undervalued and disadvantaged our kids. This was in an inner city school in a pocket of deprivation.
How do you overcome this kind of resistance to the open source applications?
May 6th, 2008 at 5:08 am
To LindaH
Resistance is a part of life for Open Source. As you have pointed out, “free” equates to “cheap” so there are many who will not switch due to that. I have found that if you offer both solutions side by side, then a majority of the people will see that there is no “drop off in quality” with the Open Source software. Teachers are a funny bunch in that once they are set in their ways, they do not like to change. Students, however, are much better to teach new stuff to, since they are much more open to new ideas. My advice with the resistance? Show both, and let them make up their minds.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:09 am
To be honest? I’d count how many times each program crashes in a week of regular use.
As a side note, the MS Office suite can do one thing better than OpenOffice: Teach students to save their work early and often.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
This makes a lot of sense. I think Open Office will win out in the end though, as so many applications are going open source. This approach will also start to infect business and schools. Look at the success that Google has had by freeing up its applications.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
The best and probably only way to spread open source is for them to build products that out-perform the counter parts from M$. When the FOSS people are unable to do that, it’s not anyone else’s business to help them out. Doesn’t work that way. Open source and free software movement have been around for at least a decade. How much progress have they made? If their model is really superior to M$’ one as claimed, a decade is more than enough to get some results out.
Look at what Google has been doing. It was started by two students in a garage in 1998. M$ had its search engine in 1995. The Google folks built a much better one and just FIVE years later they beat M$’ search engine down and remains the best ever since. Also Google is NOT open source, not on its core search engine technology at least. Google neither went open source on its search engine nor asked help from outside for promotion. They are successful nonetheless.
So now perhaps it’s time for the FOSS people to think hard why they haven’t pulled a Google. Perhaps there’s sth wrong in their system. It’s true M$ is greedy and will remain so. But they also spend money hiring top professionals to build quality software. Is that an edge over FOSS? I think it is. After all, software developers have to get paid one way or another. When hunting for a job, they see on one hand proprietary software companies waving pay-check books, and on the other FOSS people going around ask for donation and volunteers. Chances are they go the former, which enable the former to possess a bigger & better talent pool, and thus produce better software than FOSS guys.
So in the end, it’s up to FOSS people to fix the issue. If they do, they wouldn’t need other people to help out. They would by default prevail the same way Google has been showing M$ up. Just my %2.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Interesting, although I’m not involved with software per se I happen to have installed open office on every computer I can. All of these computers already have MS office, and I have never seen open office being used. The option is there, unfortunately the teachers don’t use it.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:47 am
As a tech teacher I like exposing my students to as much as possible. I would like to have OpenOffice on the computers just to show there are options. Since I don’t think I can get it installed by the IT person, I might try GoogleDocs.