I saw this a while back, but was happy to be reminded of this great resource list focused on “Free and Open Source Software for E-Learning” through my SchoolForge subscription. Many of these sites may be familiar to readers of this blog, but it’s a great compilation of some excellent resources.
open thinking
rants & resources from an open educator
So to all you Open Sourcers….
Yesterday I was tired of the Internet Explorer antics on my computer in my classroom. I decided it was time for a little mozilla. I attmpted to download Mozilla and was BOMBARDED by “you do not administer this computer so you cant download anything that actually works” messages. I talked to the “administrator” of power and she quickly responded with “well we dont DOWNLOAD anything at this school, it is too scary you know the viruses and such” So while here I am trying to follow the good example Alec sets with Open source software and things that “work” I have setbacks like that. Any ideas of how to deal with this, since our school just purchased 24 new computers all equipped with “working” Windows xp?
If you have CD-ROM drives in the computers and a reasonable amount of memory (256 MB minimum, but 512 is really much more functional in my experience), throw in a live linux distribution CD such as knoppix or ubuntu live. You must be able to boot off the CD-ROM to do this.
The great advantage of this if anyone is concerned is that the live linux CDs don’t touch the computer’s hard drive, so you are not doing anything that can harm or alter the contents of the hard drive (unless you really know what you are doing and are especially malicious).