Whether you are a Luddite (an opponent of technological change), or a Digital Native (a person born since the advent of digital information and communication technologies), or a Digital Immigrant (a person attempting to learn the language and culture of Digital Natives), Saturday, Sept. 15, was an important day. It was designated “Software Freedom Day.”

Like most designated holidays, the actual day is not as important as the reason for its special designation.

Software Freedom Day is an event coordinated by Software Freedom International, a nonprofit company based in New Hampshire. The group’s vision is “to empower all people to freely connect, create and share in a digital world that is participatory, transparent, and sustainable.” How can this be? Most people think, “Software isn’t free. It’s a commercial enterprise that funds billionaires. Think of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.” Think again.

Free and Open Source Software is functional software that is created collaboratively. It is distributed freely – free as in “free lunch” and free as in “freedoms of speech, association, privacy, education, and government.”

What does this have to do with education? Plenty! The vision of SFI could easily be the vision of educational institutions. It’s inclusive – “all” means all, no matter your capability, current skill level or socioeconomic level. The people who are active participants in FOSS are diverse by any definition. Furthermore, FOSS development facilitates collaborative intelligence. Isn’t that what education should be about? SFI also calls for the process to be participatory, transparent and sustainable. Again, this is what education should be about.

Free and Open Source Software makes it easier to teach concepts instead of products. Most people would agree that it would be more effective to teach science students the ideas of balance and motion so they could apply the concepts to their real lives of seesawing, monkey bars, biking and skiing than teaching those same students a limited definition of balance and motion confined to the restraints of the textbook and test. FOSS accomplishes this in the digital world. Using a FOSS product like Open Office for word processing, spreadsheets, databases and presentations teaches flexibility in applying ideas across situations.

Economically, FOSS makes sense for schools, where resources are limited. Instead of using funds for yearly license renewals and new software that needs the latest and most expensive new hardware to operate, funds can be applied toward professional development to increase effective integration of technology into the curriculum, inexpensive hardware to increase accessibility, and hiring additional teachers. The cost of software becomes a moot point and teachers gain access to a wide variety of educational software.

FOSS equivalents are available for many commercial educational products. These may not look or work identically, but the functionality is similar, and sometimes improved. For example, there are several common commercial typing programs such as “Mavis Beacon,” “Type to Learn,” “Read, Write, Type,” and “Jump Start Typing.” FOSS offers titles such as “Ktouch,” “Tux Type,” “Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor,” and “Type Fast,” among others.

Many of our students want or need to learn programming. Yes, learning how to use commercial programming software like Visual Basic can be valuable, but the everyday work of programmers involves reading, analyzing and modifying existing code to accomplish specific tasks. Since FOSS code is freely available for modification, students can examine professional quality projects and modify them to meet specific local needs, or just to experiment. This is education that is authentic and engaging, as well as teaching process, skills and content. Some forward-thinking teachers already have their classes contributing to real, live software projects (such as the SchoolTool) that are freely available to everyone.

There are pockets of FOSS use in our schools in Greater Bangor. Glenburn and Hermon, the former Union 34, is notable for its early adoption of FOSS for all their schools. The Asa C. Adams School of Orono is in the process of becoming a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school using FOSS. Orono High School has a FOSS-based lab for its students. Union 90 (Alton, Bradley, Greenbush, Milford) uses FOSS-developed products as tools for online professional development and for their Student Information System.

Even though these schools did not formally celebrate Software Freedom Day, they demonstrate every day that they offer their students both a “free lunch” and an improved educational experience through the application of basic human freedoms to the world of software.

If you want to learn more about Free and Open Source Software in education, check out these sites: http://fossed.blogspot.com/ www.softwarefreedomday.org www.theopencd.org/

Don’t forget to write. E-mail me at conversationswithateacher@gmail.com. What do you think of technology in the classroom? Students: Are teachers using technology effectively? Teachers: Are students using technology to increase their learning? Parents: What are your thoughts about technology at school? Or you can write about any educational topic … Who knows? Your thoughts may be the start of a new topic for this column.