<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> <meta http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 3.1 (Win32)"> <style type="text/css">  </style> “Karen Cator is the Director of the Office of Educational Technology <pre>for the US Department of Education. She is very interested in the idea of open source, but she has questions. "How do we invest in open source?" "How do we know if open source is effective?" "How is the model sustainable?" How do we figure out what Karen's goals are, and position open source as the best tool to help her achieve those goals? If I should get another meeting with Karen, what should I say when I get into her office besides "open source is awesome"?” </pre> I think it's a positive thing that Karen Cator is now the office of educational technology director. Her questions are valid and need answers. Let me take a stab here at putting together some ideas that may respond to her questions or raise new ones. How do we invest in open source? Identify some funding that can be used for projects in K-12 schools that rely on open source software. This is clearly this first step to making anything significant happen. This is also a good way to develop some working models. Perhaps various models should be explored. One model would include full open source from operating system forward. Another model might consider open-source products on proprietary OS's. We need to get to the point that we can take schools where they are and help them to move forward. It is unrealistic to think that schools will discard all products currently in use and move to new, different products. How do we determine if open source software is effective? In my opinion this is the wrong question. Do we ask “is Microsoft software effective?” “Is Apple software effective?” No. We tend to look at achievement levels after students have used various types of software. Our experience in Indiana showed little difference between proprietary software and open-source software. (Although we ran out of time to fully document this information before the program was substantially changed.)  The biggest challenge is ACCESS.  We found that the average high school student averaged 30-45 minutes per WEEK using technology in schools.  At that usage level it would be hard to determine if brushing teeth was effective, let alone the more difficult issue of technology. Perhaps the question should be, how do we determine if technology is effective? How do we gauge the effectiveness of software compared to its price? Would we be better off taking the money we spend for software and hardware and putting it into additional personnel? Should we look at the types of software that we are using? The fact that a school project has technology does not necessarily mean that it is successful or desirable. Is the model sustainable? This is a difficult one on several levels. I am hoping that her main concern is sustaining the model that is established for K-12 schools. The ultimate model should consider everything: hardware costs, software costs, professional development costs, and implementation practice. I am not certain that we are looking at these things now as we implement systems in schools. Although it is a good idea and we should be doing this, the question needs to be be more broadly applied to technology used throughout K-12 education. I think it will be reasonably simple to put together some basic strategic guidelines for developing open source projects in K-12 schools. Some discussion on this would be helpful and this may be a great starting point to get us going to provide guidance and leadership for people like Greg D. who may come in contact with Ms. Cator again. I think would also be good to contact the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SEDTA) and include them in regular mailings from this group. Dr. Mary Ann Wolfe is the executive director of the organization. <div class="moz-signature">-- Mike Huffman <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:mhuffman@comcast.net">mhuffman@comcast.net</a></div> </body> </html>