50 Open Source Apps Transforming Education
While some educators have been quick to grasp the potential and promise of open source software, many others have been hesitant to stray from the comfortable zone of commercial applications. Yet that’s changing.
More teachers and institutions are now participating with organizations like SchoolForge, the Open Source Education Foundation, and Open Source Schools. These educators are beginning to see that the open source philosophy has the power to transform education in several key ways.
First, schools can use open source apps to replace costly commercial software and free up resources for other purposes. For example, openSIS performs the same tasks as closed-source school administration programs (scheduling, grades, report cards, attendance, etc.) while reducing total cost of ownership up to 75 percent.
Second, open source applications are changing the ways students and teachers interact, as applications like Moodle make eLearning simple an affordable. Some institutions, notably MIT and UC Berkeley, have taken the concept of open source distance learning one step further. As members of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, they've made the content of some courses available for free, so that anyone in the world can benefit from their expertise.
Finally, open-source software gives educators more options than ever before. Today, instructors have dozens, if not hundreds, of options for free and open source applications that help them present lessons on everything from learning the ABCs to modeling the complex interactions of molecules during biochemical processes.
The list below provides just a small sampling of the open source applications available to help educators teach and inspire their students.
