Apologies for cross posting
PSC
Public Software for the Public Sector
www.public-software.in <http://www.public-software.in>
Public Education Software News
with support from UNESCO
Vol.1 No.3 October 2011
IN THIS ISSUE
Update from the Public Software Centre <#psc_update>
*
Knowledge Management and Knowledge Networking <#kmkn>
*
Public software in higher education <#PSinHigherEdu>
*
Presentation <#presentation>
*
Testimonials from public software users <#testimonial>
*
Resources of the month <#rotm>
*
Announcement <#announcement>
News <#news>
*
Phillipines House of Representatives introduces a <#news1>Bill
<#news1>promoting the development and use of FOSS. <#news1>
*
Bangalore University plans to use proprietary Jaws Screen Reading
software for visually impaired students. <#new2>
*
Free Software Movement of Karnataka protests against the
anti-piracy raids in Mysore. <#news3>
*
Punjab Government reverses its decision to use BOSS public software.
<#news4>
*
ELCOT to preload BOSS operating system in free laptop scheme for
school childen. <#news6>
UPDATE FROM THE PUBLIC SOFTWARE CENTRE
*Knowledge Management and Knowledge Networking:*
The Public Software Centre (PSC) conducted an advanced public software
workshop for NGOs in Bangalore. The objectives for this workshop were to
develop an organizational policy on public software, to learn advanced
Open Office features and introduce public software applications in
desktop publishing (Scribus) and poster making (Inkscape).
Please visit http://www.public-software.in/Advanced_PS_workshop for more
information on the workshop and details about public softwareÂ
applications.
PSC conducted a workshop for the American India Foundation on public
educational software applications. The participants also participated in
the Ubuntu Certification offered by IIT Mumbai, facilitated by the PSC
as part of our programmatic efforts in higher education.
*Public Software in higher education*
PSC has been working with IIT Mumbai on the 'Spoken Tutorial Project
<http://spoken-tutorial.org/>' and has prepared video based tutorials
for several public software applications and educational tools. These
include spoken tutorials in Geogebra, STEP, K Turtle, Libre Office
(alternative to MS Office), NetBeans, Drupal and Q-CAD (Alternative to
AutoCAD). Various institutions and individuals are participating in this
programme supported by MHRD, to create spoken tutorials in many public
software applications, to encourage their use. PSC is working with a few
engineering institutions to help them use these tutorials to adopt
public software in their institutions.
In addition, student workshops are also being conducted where learners
are being introduced to public software through spoken tutorials. As
part of these workshops, the learners are also awarded certification by
IIT Mumbai.
Back to the top <#issue>
PRESENTATION
Gurumurthy K made a Presentation
<http://www.public-software.in/sites/default/files/BIC_Public_Software_for_Public_Institutions_Sep_2011.pdf>
to IBSA Summit at Open World Forum <http://www.openworldforum.org/> on
22 September 2011 on the role and rationale of public software for
public institutions. This presentation was created through Record My
Desktop <http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net/about.php>, a public
software tool which can be used to create simple videos, combining audio
with the visual images of the desktop. Such a tool is useful to make
remote presentations and is very easy to learn.
Back to the top <#issue>
NEWS
The House of Representatives of the Republic of Phillipines has
introduced a Bill
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/34628484/HB-1011-Free-Open-Source-Software-FOSS-Act-of-2010%20%20>
promoting the development and use of FOSS. The proposed Bill says,
“Unlike proprietary software, FOSS is cheap, flexible and
development-friendly, interoperable, and safeâ€. Read more here:
http://www.s
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/34628484/HB-1011-Free-Open-Source-Software-FOSS-Act-of-2010>cribd.com/doc/34628484/HB-1011-Free-Open-Source-Software-FOSS-Act-of-2010
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/34628484/HB-1011-Free-Open-Source-Software-FOSS-Act-of-2010>
Bangalore University is planning to use proprietary Jaws Screen Reading
software for visually impaired students
<http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article2483818.ece>.
Public software activists have written to the University suggesting that
teaching visually impaired students expensive proprietary software is
ethically wrong since they will be introduced to a world which they
cannot afford to be a part of. On the other hand teaching public
software alternative (ORCA screen reader <http://live.gnome.org/Orca>)
will help them use it after the program as well, in fact they can get a
copy of ORCA during the program for their use and for sharing . Read
more here
<http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article2483818.ece>.
The Free Software Movement of Karnataka has protested
<http://www.deccanherald.com/content/194640/raids-send-software-vendors-tizzy.html%20>
against the anti-piracy raids conducted by the representatives of IT
companies in Mysore. According to FSMK Jayakumar, “It is yet another
example of IT giants, in pursuit of enormous profit, seeking to use
every opportunity even at the cost of livelihood of common man, to
monopolise the produce and derive profit.†Read about some public
software alternatives <http://www.public-software.in/ps-applications>
for small scale vendors.
Punjab Government reverses its September 2008 decision to use BOSS a
free and open source software in favour of expensive proprietary option.
Read more here
<http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/PUBLICATIONS/HT/HC/2011/09/15/ArticleHtmls/ht-SPECIAL-No-BOSS-15092011001020.shtml?Mode=1>.
ELCOT to preload BOSS operating system in free laptop scheme for school
childen. Along with this the Minister for IT mentioned that “online
educational content made available by the Tamil Nadu Textbook
Corporation will also be preloaded in the laptops. In addition to this,
Tamil Unicode fonts with keyboard interface will be preloaded...†Read
more here <http://www.thehindu.com/education/issues/article2423376.ece>
<http://www.thehindu.com/education/issues/article2423376.ece>
Back to the top <#issue>
TESTIMONIAL
Sudhakar Bhandari, American India Foundation.
Post the Mysore Subject Teacher Forum workshop in the month of July'11,
I am regular user of Ubuntu. I was a regular user of proprietary
software from 1996, but compared to proprietary software, Ubuntu is very
handy and useful to us. Read the reasons here
<http://public-software.in/sudhakar_aif>
Back to the top <#issue>
RESOURCES OF THE MONTH
Geogebra is an interactive computer aided mathematical tool that
connects Geometry, Algebra, Statistics and Calculus. Many animations can
be made to deepen understanding of mathematical concepts. These are some
of the animations/lessons created keeping in mind the Karnataka
mathematics syllabus and attempting to integrate usage of these tools
with the regular chalk and talk teaching method for different topics.
http://rmsa.karnatakaeducation.org.in/?q=node/157. Recently, NCERT along
with the International Geogebra Insititute (IGI) have established
Geogebra Institute of NCERT
<http://wiki.geogebra.org/en/GeoGebra_Institute_of_NCERT_India> for
academic collaboration in technology intervention in Mathematics
Education. This provides an opportunity for Karnataka teachers to
participate in the design and creation of resources in Geogebra at
national level.
Public software posters are now available in Hindi
(http://www.public-software.in/hindi)
Back to the top <#issue>
ANNOUNCEMENT
The PSC is conducting Student workshops for all colleges (engineering,
polytechnic, others) on Ubuntu and SCILAB at no cost. Students will
receive, on successful completion, certification by IIT Mumbai. If
colleges would like their students to undergo these workshops as well as
if institutions would like to migrate to public software, PSC can be
contacted at [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>.
Back to the top <#issue>
What is Public software
<http://public-software.in/PSwiki/index.php/Main_Page>
FAQs on Public software
<http://public-software.in/PSwiki/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions>
Public software alternatives to proprietary software
<http://public-software.in/FOSS-applications>
Public software - Education tools
<http://public-software.in/PS-educational-tools>
Posters on Public Software <http://www.public-software.in/posters>
Back to the top <#issue>
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<http://www.public-software.in/> Follow us on Twitter @publicsoftware
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