[iDC] Open software for education

[Jon Ippolito]

Thanks for your roundup of new educational software from Germany, Trebor.

>people using it met several supposedly amazing
 
>features that project designers envisioned with complete disinterest.
I'm still bullish on new teaching applications, if only because the old ones (PowerPoint, Blackboard, WebCT) are so bad. That said, I would have been surprised if throwing a million Euros at Metacoon *had* made it catch fire overnight--not because
Metacoon sucks (I can't tell from the site) but because open software tends to operate by catchment rather than capital.

As Joline Blais defines the term, "catchment" means accumulating a critical mass that then spreads evenly over the landscape. Catchment can work slowly, even imperceptibly, making tiny inroads that can eventually result in deep paradigm shifts.

In one example, Margaretha Haughwout did an interesting sociological study of The Pool in which she documented cases of resistance to open software from vocationally oriented students:

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_4/haughwout/

Reservations voiced by unappreciative users can be discouraging to any software developer. However, Haughwout also found that the more time students spent in The Pool, the more open their attitudes toward sharing became, as measured by the license
terms they chose to enforce for their creations over time. This is the essence of catchment.

For anyone interested in test-driving open software Content Management Systems, OpenSourceCMS is a promising resource:

"This site was created with one goal in mind[:] To give you the opportunity to "try out" some of the best php/mysql based free and open source software systems in the world. You are welcome to be the administrator of any CMS system here, allowing
you to decide which system best suits your needs.

"The administrator username and password is given for every system and each system is deleted and re-installed every two hours. This allows you to to add and delete content, change the way things look, basically be the admin of any CMS system here
without fear of breaking anything."

http://opensourcecms.com/

You can test-drive a hundred or so CMS tools on the site. The e-learning tools include ATutor, Claroline, Docebo, Dokeos, Interact, Moodle, and SiteAtSchool.

jon
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