Tech hungry schools should look to Linux (Via Moving at the Speed of Creativity.) Wesley Freyer: “That being said, I think most school districts are being fiscally irresponsible today if they are not moving towards open source computing solutions, at least for some of their campuses and instructional applications.”
I can report some related good news. For my presentation about open source software at the CUE conference this past week, I prepared 40 handouts thinking I’d be lucky to get 20 participants. By the time I started speaking I had about 80 people in the room! The facilitator went back for 20 more handouts twice! At the end of the session, participants approached me with specific questions about applications such as Open Office, and about Linux. Better yet, the evals revealed a crowd that left the room jazzed about getting started with open source software! I suppose the humor I added to the presentation paid off. I did not expect to feel so successful about this session, but I’m thrilled that perhaps the open source movement might finally be picking up some grass roots momentum in schools.
Thursday evening at the conference, my webcast interview with Chris Walsh was also a success, as was the open source pavilion (in the exhibit hall) run by my fellow interviewee, Steve Hargadon.