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The Benefit and Implications of Freeware Solutions in K-12 Educational Settings

Brian Farrell

University of British Columbia

December 6, 2010



THE BENEFIT AND IMPLICATIONS OF FREEWARE IN K-12 - FARRELL 2

Schools in the K-12 realm (that is schools that exist to teach students of

any age between kindergarten and grade twelve), like all other schools at any

level, exist to equip their students with the skills and knowledge that they will

need to be successful upon graduation and an ultimate progression into the

workforce. Accordingly, modern K-12 schools have long sought to ensure that

their students are confident users of technology by teaching the skills necessary

to ensure success with whatever software platforms their future graduates might

encounter. Due to developments in the sophistication and ready availability of

free software, or ‘freeware’, there now exist many software platforms that, while

not being identical to their paid counterparts, still serve as more than adequate

preparation in developing the sorts of technology-use skills that schools have

sought to instill. These new software platforms also have a tremendous benefit

in their inherent cost savings potential, which can allow schools to deploy funds

to other areas of need. Therefore, it can be seen that the advent of freeware has

greatly enhanced the ability of K-12 educational institutions to meaningfully

incorporate technology in instruction.

Software is evolving at a tremendous rate, and so some distinction does

need to be made in regard to the terminology surrounding these applications.

Freeware is any software that is free to its end users - that is, there is no cost

involved in legally acquiring and using the software in the specified environment.




This could mean a smaller or trial version of a larger suite of proprietary or paid

software, but generally should be seen to be an entirely functional software

solution that allows its users full usability. Open source, while occasionally also

being free to its users, is different in that it allows for the additional affordance of

users being able to modify the software to meet a specific need or to enhance its

overall performance. In this case, the developers have actively allowed anyone

to view and edit the actual source code of the software. There has been some

confusion between these two terms, and while they can often overlap and share

similarities, they should still be seen as distinct from one another. Not all free

software is open source, and vice versa. Unfortunately there has been some

confusion between these two terms, and the term open source is often used

quite liberally even in discussing software that does not strictly meet this

definition, such as Google Apps.

The possible motivation for developing freeware can vary from

developer to developer, and this is something that schools need to consider

when employing any software solution. Freeware is often created to encourage

end users to pay for other related services or tools, can be used to generate

advertising revenue, may be seemingly created out of altruism, or more

pessimistically out of a desire to grow brand loyalty. While it is important to

consider these motivators, schools need to remain focused on how a particular

tool can better equip their students with the skills necessary to be successful

upon graduation. Commercially available software offers similar ethical




questions, and so schools cannot let these sorts of considerations slow their

transitions to freeware where it has been identified as being suitable to their

needs.

Businesses and other organizations have long used a standard suite of

software applications, and so these same applications have also been en vogue

in schools. The rationale being that not only are these the same applications that

students are likely to encounter in the future, but their widespread use has also

served as a vote in favour of their superiority. The landscape of available

applications has changed significantly of late though, and the advent of free web-

based solutions is becoming more and more pervasive. Indeed, free and open

source solutions are increasingly being more and more recognized by business

and other organizations, including the U.S. government, which has implied that

open source solutions are an effective way of increasing growth and productivity

in a time of fiscal restraint (Williams Van Rooij, 2010). Private organizations

have increasingly seen freeware as an effective solution in growing business

while containing costs, and these same organizations will be looking for future

employees that are equipped with the skills necessary to work in a multi-platform

environment.

Many of these new freeware applications, such as Open Office, serve to

mirror their more established paid competitors, and therefore the transferability of

skills from a freeware application to a similar paid piece of software can often be

quite seamless. Open Office has the added advantage of also being an open-




platform, or open-source piece of software, and so its end users can actively

modify and update the software to suit their own personal needs. This sort of

advanced constructivist programming ability actually makes Open Office a more

powerful tool in a K-12 environment, as it offers students a potential skill set that

is far more advanced than what they might gain by using a proprietary software

platform such as Microsoft Office (Why Open Office, n.d.).

Schools represent a significant potential market for software developers,

and these same developers have not failed to take note of this fact. Google has

worked extensively to integrate their applications into educational settings, with

no cost to the end user. There are a variety of reasons why a large company like

Google would want to give away its product for free in this way, and educational

bodies do need to remain aware that they are trusting their technology needs to a

private corporation that may have its own interests in mind. Fundamentally

though, companies are generally happy to have schools assist them in

developing a large body of current and future users of their platforms, and

Google is no exception. Google has created an entire suite of applications that

can be used in educational environments, and many of these same programs are

being implemented outside of education in corporate or other large organizational

bodies. Since Google’s applications are all web-based, they provide the added

benefit of not having to redeploy software or upgrades across a large fleet of

computers, further freeing up schools to use their technology human resources in

more effective ways (Google Apps for Education, n.d.).




While companies like Google have excelled in offering free web-based

software for end users in schools, the incredible affordances offered by the

internet have meant that virtually anyone can now author, modify, and make

available software and web-based applications. This changing landscape means

that the best tool available for schools a few months from now is often

unpredictable and might be quite different than what is available today. By

aligning itself with freeware solutions, a school does not have to justify a waste of

large investments in any one particular piece of software or its associated long-

term service contract, and therefore can be more flexible and adaptable in

exploring new technologies. This rapidly evolving landscape is exactly what

students will encounter in the future, and so it is imperative that schools shed

some of their bureaucratic policies and procedures in favour of a constantly

evolving and continuously improving model.

The reality of schools that teach students in the range from kindergarten

to grade twelve, while having differences in grade levels served, student body,

funding levels available, or curriculum offered, is that they are still generally

similar in their level of bureaucracy and administration. The current state of

public or privately funded school systems is that they are subject to a great deal

of oversight and higher level management. This means at a minimum an

administrative staff and a board of directors, but can also broaden to include

elected public officials who bring strong concerns around public opinion and a

school’s larger public image. The result of this high degree of bureaucratic




management is often the formulation of multiple levels of policies and procedures

around any major structural or programming decisions.

“Dominant educational institutions – from Socratic dialogical circles, to

medieval monasteries and universities, to the industrial-era school – donot have outstanding track records engaging with new

communications technologies. This is in part because curriculum and

teaching tend to be defined in terms of mastery of and engagement with

dominant modes of information, whether of spoken language and gesture,

inscription and print, or visual image. Simply, the domination of pedagogy

by mode of information may prove harder to displace than any particular

political or sociocultural ideology” (Luke, 2003, p. 397).

This is a trend that has hampered schools in keeping up with advances in

technology, but one that can be overcome. Technology programs at any school

need to be constantly examined and revised, and should make every attempt to

stay in line with best practices that are developing in the private sector and

advanced educational environments (i.e. post-secondary institutions) that

students may encounter in the future.

Some technology administrators have expressed hesitation in adopting

freeware or open source solutions in their schools, citing the lack of support, and

questionable longevity among other reasons (Van Rooij, 2007). What should be

immediately obvious to these same administrators though is that they will

experience significant cost savings by not having to deploy commercial software

across multiple machines, and therefore will have a larger budgetary pool from

which to fund their own in-house support needs. The issue of questioning the

longevity of any freeware solution is valid, but it could be said that the same

could also be true of a proprietary solution. Software companies come and go




regularly, and there can be no absolute certainty about whether a particular piece

of software will exist in several years time or not. This issue is really no different

between freeware and commercial software though, as the market dynamics for

either of these industries is subject to flux and the sway of the larger market. The

fact that one of the very largest technology companies in existence today

(Google) offers the majority of its products as freeware should convince any

skeptic about the potential longevity of this type of software.

Monetary concerns are what often drive schools to initially pursue

freeware solutions, and it is fairly obvious why this provides an inherent benefit to

any school. Further than just allowing schools to save money though, freeware

provides a larger social benefit to students in any school community. Since the

software that they are using is free, it is easier for students to install this same

software on computers at home, allowing them to complete assignments in a

more flexible way. For those students who do not have computer access at

school, the use of web-based freeware means that students can access and

work on assignments from any computer terminal, whether it be in a shared

space at their school, or in a community facility such as a public library.

“...when teachers design courses that teach particular computer skills,

basing these courses on particular proprietary products makes those

applications an obligatory point of passage (Latour, 1987), that is, arequirement for being a full participant in the learning community.

Teaching students to use a particular program, especially an expensive

one for a specialized task adds significant value to that particular program.

Consequently, the deep discounts that software companies give schools

on virtually all software packages is not a function of their altruism, but

good business sense” (Pfaffman, 2008, p.27).




This same model of pursing freeware wherever feasible can be pursued

for administrative and organizational software being used by schools to track

attendance, register students, or in relaying course information outside of the

classroom. Moodle, a web-based learning management system, offers many of

the same affordances of its paid competitors, and has the added benefit of being

highly customizable to a sophisticated user. Employing a tool such as this would

further serve as a positive example to students about the power of freeware and

further free up resources to be allocated more effectively elsewhere.

By using freeware, schools can also model social justice and collective

socialization skills that are needed by their students. The increasing

development of cloud computing and online applications has created an evolving

social construct, and students need to know how to act in this new environment.

By adopting freeware, a school can send a strong positive message to its

student body that it values the collective sharing of knowledge for the

development of a greater good. This shift could also spark conversations with

students about respect for copyright and proper recognition of creative works,

further enhancing their level of information literacy.

This is not to say that schools need to pursue freeware solutions

exclusively in order to be successful. There are many models that combine free

and proprietary software that certainly could be pursued, particularly for those

applications where fewer freeware options are currently available. However




these software mixes need to be assessed regularly, and should focus on the

skills that they aim to equip students with in a backward design model. There still

exist some areas where complex functions can only be carried out effectively

using sophisticated proprietary software, but these need to be clearly identified

and regularly re-assessed by looking at emerging freeware solutions and larger

trends in organizations outside of education (i.e. the environments that students

will strive to join upon graduating).

Simply stated, the software market and options available to today’s users

is expanding and evolving at such a rapid rate that it would be incredibly naïve to

assume that the commercial software solution pursued today will remain the

dominant tool in even a few years time. The current bureaucratic process of

software selection and deployment is simply not adequate in meeting the needs

of learners, and so more efficient and adaptable models need to be pursued.

Schools need to pursue solutions that are flexible and adaptable, and freeware

offers them a way of doing so at an incredibly diminished cost. By focusing on

the interface and usability skills that will be required of their students rather than

the mastery of one specific software product, schools can better equip their

students to be successful upon graduation.




References

Google. (2010). Google Apps for Education. Retrieved from

http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/

Luke, C. (2003). Pedagogy, Connectivity, Multimodality, and Interdisciplinarity.

Reading Research Quarterly , 38(3), 397-403.

OpenOffice.org (2010). Open Office. Retrieved from http://why.openoffice.org

Pfaffman, J. (2008). Transforming High School Classrooms with Free/Open

Source Software: "It's Time for an Open Source Software Revolution".

High School Journal , 91(3), 25-31. Retrieved from ERIC database.

Riehle, D. (2007), “The Economic Motivation of Open Source Software:

Stakeholder Perspectives”. IEEE Computer , vol. 40, no. 4 (April 2007).

Van Rooij, S. (2007). Perceptions of Open Source Versus Commercial Software:

Is Higher Education Still on the Fence? Journal of Research on




Technology in Education , 39 (4), 433-453. Retrieved from Professional

Development Collection database.

Williams van Rooij, S. (2010). The Role of Organizational Sub-Cultures in Higher

Education Adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) for

Teaching/Learning. Online Submission , Retrieved from ERIC database.

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