LinuxFest Northwest 2019: The Current State of Free and Open Source Software in Public Education
Channel: linuxfestnorthwest
Date: 30/04/2019

Presented by: Haxoc 

For people to use free software, it must be ingrained at a young age, within the education system. The presentation will highlight the following points: - Students – students’ awareness of open source, are we using it for school and do we care enough to ask for a change? - Staff – does the staff care enough about open source that they are willing to change how they teach? Decision making procedures in choosing software solutions within public school district. - General usage – current usage, what programs and systems are used in the present, in classes, extracurriculars etc. Cloud services and its effects on how the school operates will also be examined, including usage of Google services, in particular Google Drive, Classroom, and Gmail as well as social implications of those who choose not to use common Google services. Even in the robotics team, a place you would expect to find the highest percentage of free software usage among high school students, most members still use Windows, probably because FIRST, a non‑profit organization, does not develop the software used to control the robot for Linux and because SolidWorks, that sponsors the CAD, is only available for Windows.