If Open Source Doesn't Succeed, Don't Blame the Teachers

by Lisa Hoover - Jan. 27, 2009Comments (9)

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We talk a lot at OStatic about open source solutions in the classroom. In fact, just yesterday Kristin pointed to a recent article from the BBC discussing the strengths of open source software and the complexities associated with deploying it in an educational environment.

According to the BBC, "Good teachers will always be looking to move forward but they are so busy that they are often conservative."

Datamation's Matt Hartley has a completely different take on why open source can't get a foothold in American classrooms, and he claims it's largely because teachers and school IT professionals are "misinformation junkies."

In a rather vitriolic rant against the nation's teachers and school IT departments, Hartley roundly dismisses the fact that there are plenty of educators who openly advocate open source in the classroom. Instead, he complains, "Seems to me that [it] is not just individuals in the proprietary software realm who have no idea how open source software works. Apparently the group of misinformation junkies now includes teachers as well."

Then Hartley turns on IT professionals and claims "The problem is that Linux users themselves are seen as a rogue element in a world maintained by Microsoft certified administrators. These admins, often working off of their 'vast Linux experience' derived from a twenty minute [sic] adventure into some random Linux distro from a few years ago, are choosing to contribute to the misinformation already in existence."

Perhaps Hartley needs to get to the root of the issue here, instead of lopping off the first head he sees. In general, IT and hardware decisions are made at the district level and, in some cases, higher. The poor soul in the high school server room has no more input about the platforms being used than my great-aunt Fanny. The teachers? Even less. It's the suit-wearing administrators sitting in air-conditioned offices who drop in for a meeting between rounds of golf that make the decisions that are foisted on local schools.

When school administrators are handed incentive-laden hardware and software proposals from slick marketing folks promising to put a laptop in the hands of every student, it's not surprising that Microsoft and Apple win the race almost every time. So, before anyone blames IT admins or teachers for a lack of experience or willingness to use open source solutions, it's important to make sure accusations are flung in the right direction.

Hartley goes on to say, "With the current educational budget that U.S. schools have at their disposal, it seems like there must be plenty of money to spend on software and hardware upgrades!"

Does Hartley read the newspaper? Every single school district in the nation is struggling with horrific budget cuts that slicing core educational necessities from classrooms. Teachers are being let go, and entire subjects are being eliminated from curricula across the country. Perhaps not enough is being done to educate students on the benefits of open source software, but it is most certainly not because a surplus of money is being funneled elsewhere.

In the end Hartley concludes that the best thing to do is encourage students to explore open source software on their own time, perhaps offering extra school credit as an incentive. On that, we completely agree. Hartley loses me again, however, when he suggests "teachers and the school’s Microsoft trained [sic] IT staff consider studying up on the subject of Linux before trying to pass futile judgments over it."

Perhaps Mr. Hartley could do a little studying himself before passing futile judgements in kind.


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9 Comments
 

QUOTE: Hartley loses me again, however, when he suggests "teachers and the school’s Microsoft trained [sic] IT staff consider studying up on the subject of Linux before trying to pass futile judgments over it."


Perhaps Mr. Hartley could do a little studying himself before passing futile judgements in kind. UNQUOTE


I'm finding it hard to understand why you DON'T think that IT staff and teachers should study up on the subject before passing futile judgments? Surely they should - especially IT staff!


It makes sense to know why you're choosing what you're choosing. It makes complete sense to know exactly what choices you have. Given the current financial crisis, I would expect good employees would be exploring what avenues they have in cutting down expenditure and maximizing productivity.


Surely you don't disagree.


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Why schools should exclusively use free software

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html


It's a matter of education, not convenience.


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Anon -- You're right, I don't disagree that IT staff should study up on all available options. I'm especially frustrated that it's not happening at the district at state level where it can do the most good.


My point was that Hartley seems to have passed judgment on a situation -- and, more importantly, an entire group of professionals, without doing much research of is own.


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I think you missed the sarcasm in the quote "With the current educational budget that U.S. schools have at their disposal, it seems like there must be plenty of money to spend on software and hardware upgrades".


If you read the tenor of the entire article and read that quote in context it was clear he was being facetious. He is advocating more FOSS, not less. From that standpoint, he was juxtaposing the needless waste of licensing fees against the dire straights our educational system is in.


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I am an IT person in a school district and I would transition over to Linux if our teachers and staff were not so needy. I find at my district teachers drive all of the IT departments decisions. If they want something or think that they should be able to do some weird off the wall function with any technology then we have to make it happen even if the technology isn't there yet. Granted I have learned a great many new technologies. The point is I do not think this school district is an isolated environment. Teachers all over have more say than they think, they just do not realize it because their mentalities are the same as the grades that they teach.


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Have been teaching linux exclusively in high school since 2000. The problem is know nothing, computer illiterate 'decision makers' and so called 'leaders', are brain washed, bribed, etc. into buying MS junk. I am constantly fighting to continue to use and teach linux, because of the FUD campaigns of MSCE types, MS marketing FUD, etc. I have never been asked for input, because they know I will suggest a move to linux. That's not what they want to hear. They prefer the 'yes, let's use this MS windoze junk, that is reviewed and recommended in our 'educational leadership' journals, courtesy of glitzy ads by MS, etc.


Worship any linux teacher in a school, because they are fighting for freedom against great odds...they are freedom fighters of the Rebel Alliance fighting against the overwhelming marketing of FUD, etc. by the Dark Empire... ;-) Help them by insisting that school boards/administrators, at least provide and encourage students to receive education in Open Source technologies, etc., so that they will be able to use their skills anywhere, anytime, now and in the future. Call your school board today and find out how much in taxes is being sent to MS for meaningless "Software Assurance" contracts, etc. Ask about 'special deals' given to 'decision makers'. You may be surprised at what you will find...:-)


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I understand the author's frustrations at feeling that she & a whole category of professionals, IT & teaching, have been maligned, with no apparent justification, as "misinformation junkies." While unfair & certainly not true of every individual teacher or school IT staffer, the general thrust of the argument that many, if not most, teachers, school IT staffs, & administrators as well, should be held responsible for propagating & enforcing a pro-Microsoft, anti-open source bias, in my opinion, withstands all contrary challenges. Are there "studies" or "research" which support this. Maybe, maybe not. But annectdotal evidence from open-source advocates who are also parents, teachers, & taxpayers cannot so easily be dismissed with either the defensiveness or the disdain unfortunately characteristic of far too many educators' evasion of their fundamental responsibility to EDUCATE, rather than merely TRAIN, their students.

In the classroom as in all aspects of life, attitudes are infectious. If a student learns, whether by direction or by osmosis, that computing solutions can be had only by purchasing (leasing, really) pre-packaged, pre-approved, products the "quality" of which rests more on market statistics than on technical performance, then what becomes of that student's natural curiosity to DISCOVER HOW a computer really works, HOW one is programmed, whether networking is physics or magic, HOW the same "box" can function as typewriter, television, music player, radio, graphing calculator, slide projector, encyclopedia, drafting table, post office, telephone, alarm clock, open stacks library, planetarium, etc, etc, etc? It should never be the case that a science teacher's bias works to encourage blind obedience & to suppress curiosity & discovery, but a perfunctory embrace of all things Microsoft to the exclusion of open-source alternatives does just that.

The clear (to anyone with the common-sense vision to see it) advantage of the open-source platform in the classroom lies not just in its cost differential ( which is HUGE), but moreso in it's ability to provide the student with a COMPLETE computing environment, a laboratory-in-a-box. Program source code is there for the LEARNING & TEACHING. New (to the student) programs can be coded, compiled, tested, debugged, deployed, and shared as a series of teaching/learning exercises. Over the course of a semester a joy-stick game jockey or a point-and-click chatter-box gossip can be taught the joys & challenges of actual software development. This can be done AT ANY GRADE LEVEL. Try that with any Microsoft platform at any price. Can't be done.

If today's educators see it as their charge to prepare a new generation of students to compete & excel in a global market place, it cannot be merely as consumers of whatever products the Indian & Chinese software developers & engineers cast in their direction. It must be as equally competent developers, engineers, & scientists. In twenty years they won't care whose fault caused the squander of their most precious learning opportunity. They will be mad as hell, if they're not too dumbed-down notice or care.


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I think it is over simplistic to blame all adminstrators - I know one of each and they are interested in learning more about technology and would definitely consider Linux but no one listens to what they say in this matter, yes, even one an administrator. The 2 biggest things holding technology back in schools is that you are scraping the bottom of the barrel for the most part because of how little they are paid. The teacher I know has a bachelors in a hard science and could easily make double if she worked for a private company or even make much more in another part of the government. The other things that holds teachers and administrators back is that the district won't spend any money on technical training or even give them time off to learn the technology. Most their software is developed by these ESDs who can make a fortune with their exclusive contracts and custom applications they design which are very hard to use and don't work very well. The sad thing is that there is still a lot of waste, but even with the teachers being paid slave wages, salaries are still the biggest part of the budget. 60% of our state's budget goes to teaching salaries. Until we can get businesses to start paying even a little taxes, our society is going to turn into a 3rd world country. I just watched on CNN about how we are dumping huge amounts of untreated sewage in the rivers and most our sewage plants, roads, and water pipes are at the end of their life and it will cost 2.2 trillion to fix it and if we wait any longer we will have breakouts of water borne diseases. And the Republicans call spending money on this as pork barrel. If the Republicans don't want pork to be added on, they can make sure they don't ask for anything for their district in exchange for their votes. And the Democrats would be wise to cut pork out of these bills bailing our corporations, because if they end up putting us much deeper in debt on programs that don't help the economy, we will get someone as reactionary as Bush again next term. For all those who think that Obama is so bad, thank Bush for creating the situation in which he was easily elected.


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It's no news that students can access information at the click of a button. With the Internet, students learn the most up-to-date classroom material from industry experts, news Web sites, and online encyclopedias and journals. However, in most school districts, these resources aren't in classrooms. Instead, they're still in textbooks -- and in many cases, they're dated to the mid-20th century. It wont be advisable if one still live with no internet. Read more click: http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/04/08/major-crisis-today-in...


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