European Commission

Socrates Programme

Action MINERVA

2002/2003

Project FREEDOM

1. Summary of the proposed project/network activities

The project essentially concerns education.

The project doesn't aim to produce educational software.

The project wants to show how free software can be used in education.

It wants to show that schools and public educational institutes need not have their choice restricted to proprietary software, and can consider alternative solutions unhindered by heavy financial costs.

The final purpose of the project is the production of tools to facilitate the adoption of free software and encourage a new open-minded attitude to free software in education.

1. Objective and methods of the proposed project/network activities

Introduction of the education to the new technologies for the development of the electronic commerce through free software (GNU/Linux) that offers a highly formative environment both for students and for teachers. All subjects will be involved, mainly computer science, English, law, economy and mathematics.

The institute coordinator is a vocational institute for commerce and tourism, with a mainly female student body. This project wants to promote equal opportunity, also giving to female students the possibility to access to the new technologies, generally taught in universities and schools of computer science, with a largely male-dominated student body .

Many different software solutions have been used in many educational institutes. The European network of schools involved in the FREEDOM project will use the appropriate software, with localised versions in the language of the country, in order to evaluate their usability in various national, cultural contexts.

Usually most free software is made by skilled developers who produce them for the institute where they work. The participants of the FREEDOM project will test these products in various contexts, and eventually ask for modifications of existing software to adapt them closer to the needs of their students.

Some parts of the modifications can be carried out by the students or the teachers themselves, like modifying texts of the user interface (usually the English interface is well documented, and the localised interface can be improved by suggestions of end users. Mechanisms to introduce modifications can be carried out by students with the help of their teachers. Such direct modifications are impossible with proprietary software, and the free software policy enables schools to avoid the constraints implicit in copyrighted technologies).

Other more technical modifications can be carried out by software service societies. The particular licence policy of free software prohibits the introduction of software traps or non-standard formats in the overall project which would enslave the future users to the society which has worked on part of the software.

The cooperation of linguistically skilled, computer science skilled, communication skilled students and teachers gives everybody the opportunity to learn useful recent technologies, ordinarily taught to a predominantly masculine student body such as one finds in more specialised technological establishments.

As many adaptations are to be made inside schools, on a non-profit basis, adaptations for disabled people can be taken into account. Tools usable by blind or visually disabled people can be preferred over other technologies. How many educational products are usable in a Braille environment nowadays ? Most forms of free software frequently use open-standard coding, which can be read with non-specialised tools having as an interface a voice synthesizer or a Braille terminal.

1. Envisaged outputs/products and impact

This will happen through the creation, the production and the exchange of educational material such as transparencies, leaflets, examples of lessons, CD ROM and lectures for teachers etc.

These tools consist of:

1. Teaching examples with the use of free software and open exchange formats : e.g. the use of PostgreSQL, OpenOffice, Koffice, AbiSuite, Apache, and educational wikis, Wims, etc.

2. The production of free documentation: books, leaflets for students and teachers; These documents will be released under the FDL, Free Document Licence, allowing copying, modification, and redistribution as long as authors are cited.

3. The creation of CD-ROM with "free documentation" easy to get by whoever;

4. The creation of a website containing these experiences so that they can be diffused all over Europe.

A common web site will be created where each partner will have a dedicated space to their own experience, which can be consulted by other schools in Europe, downloading material useful for practical classroom situations.

The people who will benefit will be the students, teachers, parents of the schools of the project. The target groups are: for the Institute "F. Besta," 60 students from 16 to 18 and four teachers; the Lycée Marguerite Filhol, 150 students and three teachers, the 2^nd Liceum of Tricala: two teachers and 50 pupils, the Institute TEMPO Training Centre, 20 students and 3 teachers; the Lycée Jean Bart: one teacher and students from various classes.

Other scheduled results: lectures and seminars for teachers and for the diffusion of the project and of its results.

Creation of a formation open to students in their original cursus, and to already working people, enabling them to install computer environments like LANs, optimised for the use of free software technologies in educative institutes. This formation will lead to a certificate (FSE, IFTS, etc.).

Expected impact of the net:

The contribution is integrative in the construction of a common model under the direction of the institute coordinator and there will be lectures, seminars and training courses in order to provide working models to other schools in the same country and in other countries.

1. Partnership contribution and composition

The coordinator school will give its own contribution based on experience in education in this field using free software and also it will act as a reference point (web server, computing facilities such as hardware and software).

The French schools will provide:

Lycée Jean Bart (Dunkerque, France)

A web server including a Wims system to teach sciences and distribute interactive exercises (see an example at http://boltz.univ-littoral.fr/wims, choose your language), which can gather contributions of similar servers installed inside LANs of associated schools.

The opportunity to assign small software productions to students in computer science (postgraduate), inside their cursus.

Regular feedback about the use of the set of free software which are to be chosen by the FREEDOM partners.

Lycée Marguerite Filhol (Fumel - France)

A computerised languages classroom equipped with a Linux-based network server, as well as, additional resource rooms for student research using Linux work-stations where free software can be tested in actual teaching situations with the particular aim of producing language-training applications based on existing open-source software.

The Greek school will:

Create teaching examples with the use of free software.

Participate in testing of the software itself as well as the teaching examples created with it.

Create documentation/report of the experiments and results in class.

Report of performance issues related to the existing infrastructure and hardware available in the school.

Provide user interface evaluation of the tested free software.

Participate in the creation of the CD-ROM material.

Produce leaflets for students and teachers.

Participate in the creation of the project web site content.

The Czech training centre will:

Make the summary of suitable educational free software available in the Czech Republic.

Organise seminars for teachers.

Participate on developing CD-ROM.

Create web sites.

1. Monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation will consist of the following objectives:

*1.- engaging students in more realistic and authentic learning tasks and situations by using free software. Providing students access to expert knowledge in their education

• Activities :

• creating connexions between schools and expert communities representing business, science and culture.

• *2.- inclusion, by successful classroom activities, of use of free software and ICT under appropriate pedagogical goals rather than merely providing access to technical tools.

  • Activities :

  • Facilitating discussion about new pedagogical possibilities of free software.

• *3 facilitating change in traditional curriculum with the help of the new resources provided by free software and online tools.

  • Activities :

• supporting development of local curriculum so that it would better correspond to the challenges of global information society.

1. Dissemination

The dissemination potential of the outputs and products described above will be wide since all the material produced will be in the common web site in the native languages of participating schools and it will be possible for European educational bodies, as well as those in other countries, to acquire materials, to have practical useful examples in order to create an environment of free software in education .

1. Planning of activities, timetable

The main operational steps we envisage in order to achieve the outputs and products and carry out the network activities described above will last three years:

1.- first year: preparation and planning with seminars for teachers, exchange of information among the students from the four countries.

2.- second year: experimentation and/or use free software in class. There will be the possibility to exchange students and teachers in order to practice and use the products realised.

3.- third year: creation of the website, containing the documentation, production of the CD-ROM etc.