FOSS and U.S. K-12 Education

Background: U.S. educational budgets and particularly educational technology budgets are under siege at the local, state and national level. An increasing number of educators are beginning to explore the use of FOSS solutions in classrooms, driven largely by these budgetary constraints and the desire to start to close the digital divide between students with independent access to computer resources and those that do not have such resources. At the same time, there is a growing recognition that the fundamental model of educating students requires some deep review. In response to this realization, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is revising its National Educational Technology Standards (NETS). These standards are used all over the U.S. and essentially function as the national framework for technology literacy since most states base their local standards on the ISTE model. The new generation of NETS is designed to foster 21st century skills in the areas of Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, Problem Solving, Digital Citizenship and several others. ( http://www.iste.org/NETS/ )

But what has not yet been recognized by the U.S. educational community is the opportunity to use the Free and Open Software creation process itself to teach students the skills outlined in the ISTE standards. When the students move beyond simply using FOSS tools and started to participate in the creation and improvement in this tools and materials, these students will:

 “ apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes.” {NETS 1a}
 “ develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures.” {NETS 2c}
 “identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation.” {NETS 4a}
 “demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.” {NETS 5c}

The National Center for Open Source and Education ( http://www.ncose.org/ ) is currently developing materials for classroom teachers to make it easier for teachers and students to engage with FOSS projects. This curriculum and the projects it contains will naturally use FOSS tools but more importantly, it will demonstrate how the collaborative creation process itself of FOSS software and materials teaches the very skills outlined in the new ISTE standards.

Presentation: This presentation will be in three parts. The first section will be an overview of the new ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS). The second part of the presentation will introduce the new project underway at the National Center for Open Source and Education (NCOSE) to develop curriculum matched again these ISTE standard. The final part of the talk will be an open discussion of how to coordinate the NCOSE curriculum with other similar projects and teams in other countries for the mutual benefits of everyone.

http://fkft.eu/2008/papers/patten.pdf