Tennessee Open Source Education Foundation

The OpenEducationDisc and The OpenDisc

2008-05-21T19:09:00.001-05:00

The OpenDisc and TheOpenEducationDisc are available for free download.

Programs are included for office productivity, internet, photo-editing, instant messaging, drawing, multi-media, games, mind-mapping, and more. The programs have been carefully selected for quality, ease of us, stability, and appropriateness for home and small office users. All programs install and uninstall cleanly. The disc is intended as an introduction into the exciting world of FLOSS.

All the programs are distributed under an OSI-approved Open Source License and therefore can be installed on many computers, not just yours but your friends and your families also. The programs can even be modified with the freely available source code. The disc can be freely copied and handed out.

Last week, the latest version (08.05) of the OpenEducationDisc was released. The OpenEducationDisc is an extension of the the OpenDisc with additional programs deemed especially useful for students and for teachers. This version includes updated versions of all included programs and has added some newer programs from the previous disc.

To learn more, visit the OpenDisc website -- http://theopendisc.com/ --

Software Fredom Day 2007 Press Release

2007-07-18T11:36:00.000-05:00

The 3007 press release for the International Software Freedom Day (SFD2007) is now online:

http://softwarefreedomday.org/PressReleases/18072007

Help spread the word!

Nonprofit Technology Resources - Philadelphia, PA

2007-04-10T15:11:00.000-05:00

Today I found this great fifteen minute video about Nonprofit Technology Resources in Philadelphia. It shows how older computers and volunteers can be of tremendous value to their communities.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=667323382051391450&hl=en

Quanta to Sell $200 Laptop Computers

2007-04-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

Quanta, the company manufacturing the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project's XO laptops, plans to begin selling low-cost budget mobile computers for $200 later this year.

Read more here

Microsoft Windows ousted at California school district

2007-03-29T02:56:00.000-05:00

...
By this summer, all 5,000 students and 250 teachers will be working off of a Linux-based thin client running OpenOffice.org, and the majority of the district's servers will be running Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
...

Click To Read Full Article

First OLPC Laptops Arrive in Rwanda

2007-02-21T14:35:00.000-06:00

The first laptops produced by One Laptop Per Child have arrived in Rwanda.

"Rwanda wants to transform into a knowledge-based economy, hence the need to provide schools throughout the country with computers," Rwandan president Paul Kagame said.

Read More...

FLOSS, FOSS, OSS, Linux, Libre, LUG, Today

2007-02-19T10:55:00.000-06:00

I prefer FLOSS over FOSS or OSS. Here is why:

FLOSS, FOSS, or OSS

Also, I recommend Free Software Movement users switch from Linux User Groups to Libre User Groups to encompass the whole FLOSS Pie and here is why:

Libre or Linux

Finally FLOSS Today is one way I contribute to the Free Software Movement by increasing public awareness of FLOSS. Another is by creating a gbz.

Half a Million PIrates, Well, Maybe

2007-02-16T15:55:00.000-06:00

Microsoft's anti-piracy tool has marked more than one in every five copies of Windows as bogus, the Redmond, Wash., developer said Tuesday, while more than half a million users may have been mistakenly pegged as pirates.

As it beats the drum about the danger of pirated software, particularly Windows, prior to the release of Vista, Microsoft released some figures from its Windows Genuine Advantage program. WGA uses software downloaded to the PC to authenticate Windows XP before allowing a user to retrieve automatic security updates and other software.

Read the full article here

Follow Microsoft adventures at BadVista.org

Russian Schools Switching to LInux

2007-02-12T18:49:00.000-06:00

Russian Schools to Switch to Linux After Microsoft Piracy Case

Linux is the clear winner out of a dispute between the Russian legal authorities and schools over who should carry the can over the use of pirated Windows software, The Inquirer magazine reports.

Read the complete new report here

The interesting item in the article to me is the fact that teachers are opposed to the change. Change is often good and learning LInux is beneficial. Linux is more a life-enhancing experience that an operating system.

Bill Gates, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pirated Windows

2007-02-05T19:12:00.000-06:00

Apparently a Russian school principal purchased (unknowingly) some pirated copies of MS Windows for use in his school. He now faces five years in jail and 266,000 rubles ($10,000) of fines if convicted.

Mikhail Gorbachev has contacted Bill Gates and has asked him to intervene.

Russia, China, and India are considered the leading countries for counterfeited and pirated software and have been asked to crack down on pirated software.

Unfortunately they are cracking down on unsuspecting users and not the pirates.

Too bad this principal did not know about Free/Libre Open Source Software.

Read the full article here

Open Source for Home Schoolers

2007-01-31T09:36:00.000-06:00

While promoting Open Source and Education through this blog and other means, including my personal blog, for some time now, I recently discovered that I have been ignoring a very broad segment of our population - the home schoolers. Home schoolers have a unique opportunity to make use of Open Source Software since they do not have to deal with school district bureaucrats.

Noticing a shortage of Open Source resources for home schooling, I have created a portal for home schoolers who wish to learn more about Open Source and find support for using Open Source. The site is Open Source for Home Schoolers and is still in early stages of development.

Visit Open Source for Home Schoolers regularly and watch for updates.

Comments On Educating Children

2007-01-02T21:05:00.000-06:00

This comment was in response to the criticism of the layout of the One Laptop Per Child prototype. I agree that we need to stop training and start educating kids!

"In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint," Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. "I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools."

Read the entire article at Low-Cost Laptop Could Transform Learning

More classrooms migrating to Linux desktops

2006-12-18T19:56:00.000-06:00

School districts worldwide are increasingly examining the benefits of utilizing open-source software on servers and desktops. The Plano, Texas, school district is a recent example of this trend, according to an article published on eSchoolNews.com.

"Within five years, Associate Superintendent for Technology and Academic Services Jim Hirsch predicts, not a single desktop in the 52,000-student school system in metropolitan Dallas will carry the image of a proprietary school software program. Gone will be the familiar Microsoft applications and desktop icons that over the years have become synonymous with document creation," writes senior editor Corey Murray.

"Economics and advancements in technology are fueling this latest trend in school software, proponents of the movement say -- but it's also about customization, and the desire to employ a variety of solutions as users see fit," Murray continues.

To read the entire eSchoolNews.com article, go here.

Ubuntu Local Community Team In Tennessee

2006-11-30T14:30:00.000-06:00

Michael Berger, a Linux/Unix System Engineer based in Knoxville, is organizing a Ubuntu Local Community Team (LoCo) in order to advocate and educate Linux users for the entire state of Tennessee about Ubuntu Linux and the Ubuntu "way." The focus will be on all derivatives of Ubuntu, including Edubuntu.

Edubuntu is the "Linux for Young Human Beings."

This is a great opportunity for educators and other interested individuals to come together and discuss how Ubuntu can positively impact their schools.

Visit the Tennessee Ubuntu Team wiki page to learn more by Clicking Here!

Information Technology for Non-Profit Organizations

2006-09-20T16:54:00.000-05:00

A new Squidoo project of mine is "Information Technology for Non-Profit Organizations" and will be a Squidoo lens into the specialized world of IT for NPOs.

In "Information Technology (IT) for NonProfit Organisations (NPOs)" my goal is to promote both Free(Libre)Open Source Software and The Freely Project to as much of the general public as possible and to increase public awareness of these programs.

My technology website GBZ Technology focus will begin moving more to the NPO world.

Check out the new project my clicking here.

SFD2006 successful, SFD2007 shaping up

2006-09-19T19:12:00.000-05:00

The local Software Freedom Day 2006 was quite successful. There will be a Software Freedom Day 2007.

Several requests were made to host a regular Open Souce discussion group to share knowledge and experience.

Are we educating or training?

2006-09-02T10:23:00.000-05:00

It is appropriate for a business to standardize on a hardware or software platform, but multi-platform computing is ideal in an educational environment. If we want children to learn concepts and not products, we should teach them using diverse platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux) and diverse software (MS Office, Open Office, Abiword, Apple Works(?)). Teaching concepts is education; teaching products is training.

Software Freedom Day 2006

2006-08-29T10:52:00.000-05:00

Software Freedom Day is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software. Local teams from all over the world are organising events on 16 September 2006.

Learn more at: SoftwareFreedomDay.org

Top Ten Reasons to use Ubuntu

2006-08-15T10:52:00.000-05:00

by Jon Barnhardt

Now that I am officially “switched”, I will outline the reasons why Ubuntu rises to the top of other Linux variants available.

1 Hardware Recognition: I would have to say that Ubuntu is by far the best Linux variant available today for hardware recognition. I have installed Dapper Drake (the latest Ubuntu release) on almost 10 different PC’s with completely different hardware configurations and I cannot remember any hardware that was not recognized. I have also installed Ubuntu in a few virtual environments without any problems....

Click here to see all 10 reasons

The Open CD Project

2006-08-13T15:57:00.000-05:00

TheOpenCD project aims to introduce users of MS-Windows to the benefits of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). We include only the highest quality programs, which have been carefully tested for stability and which we consider appropriate for a broad audience. We provide a description and screen-shots of each program, so you can get an idea of what it does before installing. All these applications install and un-install cleanly, so you can be comfortable testing them with the knowledge that they will not adversely affect your system. The programs on the disc are all distributed under an Open Source License (OSI approved), which allows you to freely use and distribute them. You may even change the programs using the source code, which we make available, and distribute your own modified versions, provided you then in turn make the source code available, and give appropriate credit to past contributors.

Click Here To Learn More About TheOpenCD Project

Imagine A World

2006-08-12T11:48:00.000-05:00

"Imagine a world where computer software is:

available at little or no cost
stable, i.e. doesn't cause your computer to crash
allowed to be copied and shared with friends and colleagues
not susceptible to common viruses

This world exists and actually has for a long time! Open source software (OSS) offers all the above, and more. OSS is released under a license that allows users to copy (and modify) and freely distribute the software to others. Proprietary software vendors have labelled this behaviour piracy and touted it as immoral and in many cases illegal, but in the open source community this behaviour is encouraged and has lead to the creation of high quality, robust and secure software.

Open source software provides alternatives for almost all software available in the proprietary world, including:

Office productivity suites: word processors, spreadsheets, presentation applications
Operating systems
Web browsers
Email clients
A range of graphical desktops
Graphics manipulation programs and multimedia tools
Games
Web, mail, database servers
A whole lot more..."

Excerpted from the Go OpenSource Campaignwebsite

Networking With del.icio.us

2006-08-11T09:20:00.000-05:00

del.icio.us announced a new feature to add to your site or blog called your network badge which allows you to invite others to join your netowrk.

Many of you have been using your network to keep up with the interesting things that other people are bookmarking. Many of you are also starting to notice that you have “fans” – people who like your bookmarks and have added you to their networks. This feature of del.icio.us is getting popular enough now that we wanted to make it easier for you to grow your network and to tell the world how connected you are.

Adding the network badge is pretty simple by adding the javascript code to your sites that allow scripts. It is a pretty good idea and a great way to incorporate the social aspect of a site like del.icio.us

To see an example, check the Hot Links section on N3GBZ.com

On del.icio.us I am n3gbz

Feel free to click here to add me to your network

Update To Last Post:: Correction

2006-08-07T17:49:00.000-05:00

Apparently there has been a misunderstanding somewhere along the way. There are no formal commitments yet by any of the four countries to purchase the laptops. I apologize for circulating incorrect information.

Click Here To Read More

Four Million Laptops Ordered

2006-08-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

A spokesperson for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program revealed July 31 that the countries of Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand have each tendered orders for 1 million Linux laptops through the U.S.-based program.

That's 4 million AMD processors, 4 million new Linux users, 4 million Red Hat distros, etc. A lot of winners here!

Click To Read More

Brandon Elementary transformed by K12LTSP

2006-07-20T08:13:00.000-05:00

Two parent volunteers at an Atlanta district school have revolutionized technology use there by replacing Windows workstations with Linux on thin clients, using K12LTSP

Having Linux on the desktop has been a shot in the arm for the school in many ways. Howard and Fragakis estimate that installing used hardware with a cost-free operating system saved Brandon Elementary 90% of what it would have cost to install Windows XP PCs, and that doesn't include savings on operational and support costs. But the biggest benefit can't be counted in dollars.

"It was really nice to have desktops that were simply up, and issues being resolved in moments." The two have received "stacks" of thank you notes from teachers and students for the luxury of having computers that "just work."

Tina Gasperson reports in this article in Newsforge