[smc-discuss] [OT] Free software for schools

[Sebin Jacob]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Aishwarya Madineni
Date: Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 3:19 PM
Subject: Free software for schools



 The open-source SchoolTool project, conceived in Cape Town by the visionary
South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2000, is now available in version 1.0
under the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

http://www.theghanaianjournal.com/2009/06/24/free-software-for-schools/


*Free software for schools *


The open-source SchoolTool project, conceived in Cape Town by the visionary
South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2000, is now available in version 1.0
under the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Ubuntu is developed and promoted by Shuttleworth’s software company
Canonical Ltd, while SchoolTool now has its own dedicated US-based
development team.

Shuttleworth has long been an advocate of greater access to open-source
educational materials in schools, both in South Africa and abroad.

In 2008 he was the mastermind behind the Cape Town Open Education
Declaration, an initiative that aims to make free learning material more
readily available online.

To date the declaration has signatures from 1832 individuals and 190
organisations from every continent.

The May 2009 announcement of the release of version 1.0 of the SchoolTool
suite followed the successful testing of 1.0 beta in October 2008.

**Relevant to any school**

The web-based SchoolTool 1.0 is an administration application for primary
and secondary schools. It incorporates a number of modules developed to ease
the running of a school, while striving to attain a global standard. It is
designed to be relevant to any school, whether in a developed or developing
nation.

SchoolTool offers management tools including student demographics, report
generation, course marks, attendance, and parent or other contact
management.

The difference between it and learning management systems such as Moodle is
that SchoolTool is specifically designed to track student information such
as grades and attendance, whereas others manage curricula and learning
materials.

The built-in calendar server can maintain calendars and timetables for each
student and teacher, as well as each class, team or other group within the
school. In addition, it co-ordinates the reservation and use of shared
resources such as meeting rooms and equipment.

Since the calendar is web-based anyone can use it, although individual
records are private and group schedules are accessible only to the group.

**Worldwide use**

The SchoolTool project manager is former English teacher Tom Hoffman from
Providence, Rhode Island. The worldwide adoption of SchoolTool, said
Hoffman, must be driven locally as the development team does not have the
resources to do so itself.

To make this possible Hoffman plans to enlist the resourcefulness and
co-operation of the international open-source community to promote
SchoolTool in their own regions.

Localisation is made easier with Canonical’s open-source project host
Launchpad.net, which offers a translation service called Rosetta that allows
any user to translate SchoolTool into their own spoken language.
Translations from the community are encouraged. SchoolTool is already fully
or partially available in a number of languages, with Afrikaans one of those
in the pipeline.

One of the great advantages of SchoolTool is that it can be installed in
varying scenarios. It is equally applicable to schools that have easy access
to computers and communications technology, and to rural schools that don’t
possess even a single computer.

According to the SchoolTool development team, the greater number of schools
around the world fit the latter scenario. In these cases the server is
hosted offsite. The school calendar and course information would be captured
before the start of the school year, and much of the student-related
record-keeping would be done on paper for later data capturing, preferably
on a daily basis.

**Customisable**

SchoolTool is completely customisable for individual schools, states or
provinces and can be used on any scale. Schools can use SchoolTool as their
primary student information system or as a complement to other systems. An
individual teacher can install the programme on their desktop or laptop
computer and use it to manage their classes.

There are three major components to the suite — SchoolTool calendar and
SchoolBell, diary and resource management tools; CanDo, a skills tracking
programme for teachers; and the student information system.

SchoolTool is designed to be run as one server process for one school.
However, more than one school can be managed on the same physical server
simply by running more server processes.

**Years in development**

The SchoolTool project got off to a good start in 2000 when the Shuttleworth
Foundation recruited a team of experts to develop the concept on the Java
software platform.

Shuttleworth terminated it in 2002 because he didn’t think it was going in
the right direction, but a year later SchoolTool was reborn in the Python
programming language, using the open-source Zope application platform.

The following year, 2004, saw the establishment of Canonical and the launch
of Ubuntu Linux as well as Edubuntu, a version of Ubuntu expressly designed
for use in schools and classrooms. In 2005 the development team released
version 1.0 of the calendar server SchoolBell, and version 0.11 of
SchoolTool.

Since 2006 the team has been working on evolving SchoolTool from the
primarily calendar-oriented application it started off as, to a more
comprehensive student information tool.



Aishwarya Madineni

IT for Change
Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities
http://Public-Software.in
www.ITforChange.net
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*IT for Change is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with United Nations’
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