We are reaching an exciting time for Open Source in UK education as government interest is increasing and many teachers, support and management staff are using Open Source to greater effect in schools, colleges and universities. Open Source projects like Moodle, Firefox and Open Office are mature offering many features that are high quality, open, low cost, completely avoid vendor lock-in and are community supported. All ideal attributes for educational use.
For many years schoolforge.org.uk has been the community whose mission is to:
bring together individuals and organisations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for UK schools and colleges.
Schoolforge.org.uk Mission statement
As Richard Rothwell our chairman has just said:
With the introduction of many FOSS laptops and devices, and the slow and painful conversion of government agencies, Schoolforge.org.uk is in a remarkable position. We have been recognised by the Becta as the defacto voice for the open source movement in UK schools education. Many changes will happen over the next few months, and we will be able to contribute to the direction of these changes.
Richard Rothwell, chair Schoolforge-UK
So if you are at all interested or involved in Open Source and Free software please do join the mailing list and be part of the future of ICT in Education. Richard points out that;
The group is at http://groups.google.com/group/sf-uk-discuss/about, and is open to anyone to join. This will help us in many ways, not the least because we will be able to better reflect the community we serve.
Keywords: education, Open Source