Those of us using OS X haven’t had the easiest time with OpenOffice.org. Running that open source office suite has always required additional (but free) software that isn’t usually installed by default on OS X systems. Once installed, the software never really fit in with the rest of my system since it wasn’t a native “Aqua” application. Thanks to NeoOffice 2.0 I finally have a native Aqua version of OpenOffice.org for my PowerBook. MS Word and Excel import and export work great too. Give it a try and you may find that it does the job for you. There must be a lot of computer labs in schools where this software would come in very handy.
Tag Archives: Open source
Site@School CMS
My district is evaluating options for a new system to maintain our Web pages. We had a demo of SchoolCenter a couple days ago and it didn’t look too bad. I found their templates to be pretty unattractive, but they’re probably better than most schools’ Web pages. While poking around I discovered an open source alternative called Site@School. I haven’t tried it, and I’m not sure if it would scale up to an entire district, but you can’t beat the price. I found some good examples on their Websites using Site@School page.
Minnebar: Mark McCahill on virtual worlds
Mark McCahill is from the University of Minnesota and is one of the architects of the Croquet Project, an open source peer-to-peer system for building virtual worlds like those found in World of Warcraft and Second Life. Those of you who’ve been around the Internet block a few times might remember one of Mark’s first projects, the University of Minnesota’s Gopher hypertext system.
This is a recording of Mark’s talk from the Minnebar conference entitled “Building Synthetic Worlds.” He hints at it in his talk, but there is great potential here for learning environments. Can you imagine meeting for a professional development session somewhere in a virtual world?
Download: STP-Minnebar-MarkMcCahill (20.5 MB, 44:32)
Paul Nelson: K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project
Paul Nelson is Technology Director at Riverdale High School in Portland, OR and co-creator of the K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project. K-12 LTSP is a really cool way to take older machines and breathe new life into them by connecting them to a powerful server that takes over the bulk of the computing tasks. For standard Web browsing and Office-like applications, schools can save a bunch of money using thin clients vs. full PCs.
Our podcast should be a pretty good introduction to Linux, open source, and thin client computing. We mention RedHat and Edubuntu, two Linux distributions of particular interest to schools, and the K-12 Linux in School Project which seeks to promote free and open source software in educational settings.
Download: STP-PaulNelson (16.9 MB, 36:35)
Open source astronomy application
I discovered Stellarium recently and suggest anyone teaching science add it to their toolbelt. From the project FAQ:
Stellarium is an open source desktop planetarium for Linux/Unix, Windows and MacOSX. It renders the skies in realtime using OpenGL, which means the skies will look exactly like what you see with your eyes, binoculars, or a small telescope. Stellarium is very simple to use, which is one of its biggest advantages: it can easily be used by beginners.
I love the fact that it’s open source and cross-platform. There’s no reason not to download it and try it out, but if you want a bit of a preview you can check out the screenshots. Just beautiful.
Open source Mac software
There is a bunch of open source software available for Apple’s OS X operating system. Thanks to Open Source Mac it’s now a lot easier to find. Many of the apps have obvious educational uses and other are just for fun. The list is growing so bookmark it and check back occasionally to find new entries.
Technorati Tags: macosx | open source |
Martin Dougiamas: Moodle CMS
Moodle is the biggest open source course management system in the world. It competes head-to-head with Blackboard on features and crushes the commercial competition on price. I’ve posted about the use of Moodle in my school district in the past, and anyone who’s read any of those posts knows that I’m a huge fan. I thought it would be cool to go to the source and ask Martin Dougiamas, Moodle founder and project leader, a bit more about the project. I think you’ll enjoy this podcast very much!
I continue to be impressed by Skype. Martin’s in Perth, Western Australia, and our conversation from (literally) halfway around the world sounds like we’re sitting in the same room. Is Skype worth $1.6 billion? eBay thinks so. Premature or not, VoIP is going to be huge.
Download: STP-MartinDougiamas (13.1 MB, 28:20)
NSBA: Roundtable on accessible Web sites
I got to facilitate a roundtable discussion on accessible Web design today. The lack of an Internet connection in the room prevented us from showing some live sites, but I promised to post some links here. I showed a bit of my presentation on the topic from last year’s TIES conference. There are a number of useful links on that presentation—which was built using Eric Meyer’s S5 system—including some book recommendations. One that isn’t there is for Eric Meyer on CSS, an excellent project-based book on the subject. Designing With Web Standards by Zeldman is also excellent.
We ended up discussing content management systems a fair bit and their usefullness for building standards-compliant, manageable, and accessible sites. There are a number of education-specific content management systems exhibiting here in the vendor hall, and I recommended some other open source options including Plone, Drupal, and Joomla! (formerly Mambo). My previous post on the topic might be useful too. Readers interested in accessible Web design, and universal design more broadly, might be interested in my recent podcast with Earle Harrison which touched on many Web issues.
We also talked about the challenges associated with using parent or student volunteers as Web site builders and the time crunch that school Webmasters often feel. No magic bullets, unfortunately, but I think most walked away with something new to chew on.
If anyone from the session has any questions or feedback, feel free to post a comment.