Saving Money Saving Money with Open Sourcewith Open Source

Open SourceOpen Source SchoolsSchools

Miles Berry, David Willmot, Miles Berry, David Willmot, Alan Bell, Paul HaighAlan Bell, Paul Haigh

Saving moneyMiles Berry, Roehampton University

“Dear Chief Secretary,

I'm afraid there is no money.

Kind regards - and good luck!

Liam”

Liam Byrne

O Brave New World

• Becta

• Harnessing Technology Grant

• BSF

“When we decided to do a microprocessor on our own, I made two great decisions - I gave them two things which National, Intel and Motorola had never given their design teams: the first was no money; the second was no people. The only way they could do it was to keep it really simple.”

Hermann Hausser

“Gentlemen, we have no money, therefore we must think.”

Ernest Rutherford

Open source politics

Ofsted“Compare performance with others to see where improvements could be made.”

The vast majority of schools have invested heavily in computer networks, running expensive commercial operating systems and standard ‘office’ suites of software. In these schools, the annual licensing costs for each networked computer are eating up a significant proportion of the ICT budget, restricting further expansion… Open source operating systems and software are now a reliable and cost-effective solution, enabling the few schools that choose this route to achieve excellent value for money. A few schools have used open source software for establishing a virtual learning environment, enabling them to obtain several years’ worth of development with no licensing costs.

Ofsted

‘‘Challenge why and how a service is being provided.”

All the schools in the sample had chosen to purchase a package of ‘office’ software that is standard in the business world. On the one hand, this has the benefit of introducing students to software they are likely to encounter in the future; on the other, it may actually be hindering the development of their skills. … In the small number of schools that had deliberately chosen to provide a mixture of operating systems, students met a greater variety of software and were better equipped to cope with rapidly changing technologies.

Becta

CC by-nc Socceraholic

Free to run the programFree to run the program

CC by-nc-sa Sarah Parrott

Free for allFree for all

cc-by-nc-sa thomas.merton

SustainabilitySustainability

cc-by-sa bdesham

InteroperabilityInteroperability

cc by-nc Destinys Agent

Straightforward SupportStraightforward Support

cc-by-nc-sa Grant Mitchell

Empowered techiesEmpowered techies

CC by-nc Maggie T

Free to improve Free to improve the programthe program

cc-by-nc bre pettis

Fit for purposeFit for purpose

cc-by-nc Cambodia Trust

Helping one anotherHelping one another

cc-by-nc-nd xserve

Avoid lock-inAvoid lock-in

cc-by-nc smudge9000

LAMPLAMP

CC by-nc-sa fatboyke (luc)

Freedom and ControlFreedom and Control

InkscapeDavid Willmot, Blackfen School for Girls

Using Inkscape

Joomla! Moodle & More

Paul Haigh, Notre Dame High School

What kind of a school is Notre Dame?

• Outstanding Catholic comprehensive school 1400 11-18 year olds

• Comprehensive intake 5% FSM 20% on SEN register (9% SA 7% SA+)

• As we draw children from all over the city don’t have the ‘post code skew’ (positive or negative) of other city schools but are truly comprehensive

• Technology College since 1995

• Ex-grant maintained

• Hub of the Hallam CLC (City Learning Centre)

• Also have Leading Edge status and Second Specialism (Humanities)

• National Support School

• Entrepreneurial, innovative and risk taking

What do we use?• JoomlaJoomla based web site as a portal- log in integrated with

MicroSoft Windows Active Directory usernames/ passwords

• Includes features like flipping book flipping book e-magazine

• Exchange Server/ Outlook email for all staff and students

• Integration with IP telephony IP telephony giving features like web access to voice mail

• Management Information System: Serco Facility CMIS

• VLE MoodleMoodle (with a link to MIS) and MaharaMahara e-portfolios

• Gleamtech web access Gleamtech web access to ‘my documents’ and all shared directories such as curriculum resources, staff admin folders with key word search tool search tool (without need for tagging)

.

Ubuntu and EdubuntuAlan Bell, The Open Learning Centre

Freedom all the way down

“Our aim is to put together a system that contains all the best free software

available in education and make it easy to install and maintain”

What is Edubuntu?

A collection of great applications

A firm foundation on which they are based

A community of educators

The Applications

(just a few of them)

The FoundationsEdubuntu is built on Ubuntu which provides:

Package management

Automatic updates

Networking

Integration with Active Directory

Terminal Services

Access to thousands of general purpose applications

Community

Global community of educators working with and working on Edubuntu

Communication via mailing lists and weekly real time meetings on IRC

Developer summit every six months

Web Live

Free trial on the web

http://edubuntu.org/vmmanager

Virtual cloud based desktop

Lasts for two hours

Where can we take it?

Edubuntu is a global project

It is open to contributions

We can adapt it to the UK environment

Translate to English converting -ize to -ise

National Curriculum

Thin ClientsThin Clients

Portable Kit

Open Source Schools

cc-by-nc-sa MrUsh

To find out more…

opensourceschools.org.uk

@mberry, @dwillmot20, @paulhaigh, @alanbelltolc

admin@opensourceschools.org.uk

School Leaders Conference, 12th April

Techie Unconference, Summer