FOSS In Education

1
FOSS In Education Indian Context
Sai Sreekanth M sais72_at_yahoo.com December 01 2005
2
Primary Education in India
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Primary Education Context

• Prathams rapid assessment of learning outcomes,
  June-August 2004
• About 10 of students in age group 7-14 are out
  of school
• About 45 of students in Govt. Schools in age
  group 7-10 cannot read, 13 in age group 11-14
• About 60 of students in Govt. Schools in age
  group 11-14 cannot write, 25 in age group 11-14
• 75 of Govt. School students between ages 7-10
  cannot do simple arithmetic

4
Primary education context

• Increasing focus on what is thought at school
  rather than on are children in school
• Effective delivery of education is key
• Quality and quantity of teachers, education
  material, resources are very low
• Evidence shows that Computer Assisted Learning
  has improved learning

5
Primary education Govt. School Computerisation
in the country

• Several School Computerisation programs
• Vidyavahini from central govt, several state
  govt. initiatives (mahiti sindhu)
• Education content is largely curriculum content,
  quite pedantic, boring
• Most students use GIMP, office applications
• Learn how to use computers, learning outcomes
  have not been significantly impacted
• Near Zero funds for operating expenditure
• No working/usable internet connectivity

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Open Source in Schools
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Role of Open Source

• Open source not an ideological choice
• Affordability is a huge issue Most
  infrastructure is granted, copied
• Anything that is available is useful
• What is needed is Open Access, Open Content, Open
  Source, Open Minds??
• Humungous amount of free, open source
  applications that are relevant for effective
  primary education
• Open source addresses one part of the problem
• TCO of software alone is lower not free

8
Myths

• Open Source Software is difficult to use
• Evidence of usage in Bridge school, minority
  school and government schools in Kuppam
• No active teaching required
• Need trained resources
• Regional language content is essential
• Content suitable for local curriculum is
  essential and not available

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What works well in Schools

• Several applications do not need any active
  teaching
• Ktutor typing tutor program
• English learning tools Jumbles, hangman
• Math tools - Percentage exercises, Graph
  plotters,
• Chemistry chemical lab simulators, periodic
  tables, chemical bonds,
• Opensourcephysics.org
• Celestia for astronomy
• Geography GIS, maps and atlas tools
• Image processing, productivity tools (open office)

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Useful resources

• KDE Edutainment suite
• Celestia
• Edubuntu
• Wikipedia, archive.org,
• Gcompris, childsplay
• Anangramarama
• TuxMath Scrabble

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Needs in Education

• Education tools
• First Invest in tools than in curriculum content
• Do not have language constraint if done well
• E.g. Create a indic language hangman, jumbles,
  scrabble, crossword,
• Good tools for Indian language computing IMEs,
  Rendering
• Reference material such as dictionaries,
  thesaurus etc in Indian languages
• Indian content, books, literature
• English language learning content, tools

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Indian language content and applications

• APF content
• Unicef Sisu Samrakshak, Meena series
• Tata literacy project
• Content from education departments
• IGNOU, EMRC
• Archive.org, wikipedia, digitallibraries

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Needs in Education

• District/Taluk level Computer assisted education
  centres
• 20 to 40 seat computer centre with broadband
  connectivity
• Open to schools, students in the region
• Supported and run by industry
• Resource centre for schools in the region
• Distribute applications and content

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References

• www.iosn.net - foss in education primer
• www.pratham.org rapid assessment
• www.infodev.org/education - ICTs in education,
  knowns and unknowns, briefing notes
• www.edubuntu.org ubuntu distro for education
• www.freshmeat.com listing of open source
  software
• directory.fsf.org/ - directory of free software
• edu.kde.org kde edutainment project, several
  useful applications
• www.ofset.org/freeduc-cd - live CD for primary
  schools
• fsd.unesco.org/directory UNESCO free software
  directory
• www.asymptopia.org foss math applications
• http//fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Education -
  Specialised education distro for india