Free Software in Schools

Im student of art and design here in Caracas Venezuela and we use in our lab GNU/LINUX Canaima and Ubuntu. I know they aren't free but is a good start.

Cool!

I try to load the computers I have charge with, with as much free software as I am allowed. Most installations have GIMP, Mozilla Firefox (I know, not quite free, but what they stand for as far as the web is concerned cannot be denied, plus you gotta remember this is Windows we are talking about), VLC Player.

Up until recently all staff used Thunderbird for their e-mail client.

Other places I've introduced free software: Our typing students are now using Tux Typing to learn on in the Keyboarding class.

FreeCad is installed on the STEM computer which has a 3D printer attached to it.

Some systems have Marble on them, Stellarium.

There really are so many great programs for education, and I wish educators would realize it. The money that could be saved, and the freeing of minds from the box the proprietaries put people in would be tremendous.

Education is owned by Pearson Education, Microsoft, Apple, and Google unfortunately, but we as operatives of free software, whether your more Richard Stallman leaning or not, should at least push hard to get as much free software in our schools as possible.

For a while I had lost my excitement with technology, because it seemed that we were moving more away from a user-oriented way of doing things to where the company making the software or service basically is telling you how you should do your computing. I used to like making my software do for me what I wanted it to do, and more and more that was getting harder to do. Until of course, I really dove head first into GNU/Linux and Free Software. It was like I was back sitting in front of the TV watching Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton on The ScreenSavers and Call for Help, back when I just ate up everything because it was new and fresh.

Anyways, I am rambling on... You get the point... lol.

Peace to you all,
grimlok

Unfortunately over here, my Digital Photography class (I'm required to take an elective credit to graduate) at my high school, I've told the teacher about GIMP since the computers did not have Adobe Photoshop on them while he was waiting for the school district to buy licenses for these brand new computers. However, the school ended up installing Photoshop on the computers, so now I'm forced to use it while I am at school. :( I do, however, also practice the same skills taught to us in class at home, but instead trying to learn how to do them in GIMP.

Sometimes when I take my computer to school to do schoolwork, I also show off all the free software on my computer to a few friends, and some of them don't really seem to be interested, however there are also some that like the idea.

By the way, if any of you are curious, I'm currently living here in the United States, so that probably explains why our school computers run Windows.

My shool started using Mandriva when I was a 4th grader (I'm in 10th grade now) and replaced it with Ubuntu Jaunty the year after that and with Edubuntu Precise last year. They introduced me to GNU/Linux (which in turn brought me to Free Software).

Sadly, Windows was never removed, and now that IT has been removed from the new Indonesian curriculum (a move that seems to be as popular as F1's DRS) only the 12th graders (the only ones still on the old curriculum, at least in my school) use Ubuntu (well, Edubuntu to be exact). When my class went into the computer lab for another subject (albeit one taught by a teacher that would've been an IT teacher were it not for the change in the curriculum) he asked us to boot into Windows instead, despite Ubuntu showing up when we got to GRUB.

All I can do is shake my head, and say,"It's a shame."