Modern English Teacher - Webwatch Column

Webwatch Column - Open Source

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, they say. But there can be in the software world. There is a whole host of free software, including OpenSource software, that you can use in your school to improve the resources available to teachers and students – at no cost, or low cost.

OpenSource vs. Shareware vs. Freeware
If you haven’t come across OpenSource software before, a quick definition is in order.

Freeware means it’s free, no strings attached; you can use it as you like and copy it around the school without infringing copyright.

Shareware, as you probably know, is free to download and try out. Some programs work forever, some stop working after 30 days – and if you want to keep using the software you need to pay for it. Officially you can only copy it in a school setting according to the license restrictions, which will usually require payment.

OpenSource is a different concept. It’s not only free to download, use and copy, but you have permission to access the source code (the underlying master programming code) and change it to meet your needs, and even pass on your changes to other people in the marketplace. In some cases you can even re-sell the software to other people and make a profit, without passing money back to the original writers.

It is popular in the US , where it grew out of the concept of Public Domain, a designation of copyright-free use of materials including academic content. It stems from the legal funding structures of universities, which must release certain newly created material (e.g. some inventions, materials and software) into the Public Domain if the project was funded by government grants.

OpenSource software was originally focused on small application software, but has grown enormously in the last few years as a result of the introduction of Linux, an operating system that is a rival to Windows, and is now used in business and government.

If you are setting up a PC lab in your school you can save a lot of money by using OpenSource software instead of Microsoft’s expensive software, and still provide the services that most students and teachers need. In some cases, the cost savings could make the difference between affording a PC lab and dismissing the idea as out of reach.

Operating systems
If your school is short of money, then stop using Windows. It adds at least £50-£80 to the cost of each PC, and can be replaced by Linux, which is free. Linux is a version of Unix, which has been around since the 1950s, so it is very stable. In its basic version it is very techie-oriented and difficult to install and use. But most packaged distributions of Linux come with a simple set-up system and a graphic interface that looks very much like Windows – but cheaper or free.

You have the option of downloading the whole system (usually free) or buying prepackaged CDs with extra features. These ‘distros’, as they are called, cost from $19 upwards, but the operating system, once purchased, can usually be copied to other machines in the school without paying extra fees. So using Linux can save a very large amount of money for a school setting up a PC lab.

What can you do with it? Well, it must be emphasised that Windows-based programs (e.g. Hot Potatoes) will not work on a Linux machine, unless the Linux system also includes a Windows emulator. But every Linux system comes with a web browser and email program, and Office-compatible word processors, media players, etc, are available for Linux – often free. Thus, a Linux machine is a perfect solution for a cheap PC lab that offers web browsing, email, and word processing. And if you used Hot Potatoes to create webbased materials, they should work under Linux, via the normal web browser.

Office suites and word processors
Sun Microsystems are keen to reduce Microsoft’s monopoly on software, and so the company is offering its own rival version of the Office suite of word processor, etc, at low cost or no charge at all for downloading.

In fact they have two separate suites – OpenOffice and StarOffice. These office suites are slightly different, but based on the same core system, bought from StarOffice in Germany . OpenOffice is free, while StarOffice is inexpensive (c. $79 for home users, free to educational users) and adds extra features such as a database. StarOffice is only available on CD.

The OpenOffice download is often available on the free CD-ROMs on the front of PC magazines, or it can be downloaded from: www.openoffice.org/ product. Be careful if you use a dialup connection – the download is 74 megabytes and can take a while.

Once installed, OpenOffice functions just like MS Office, and has a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation package, PDF creator, and a very simple database tool. OpenOffice can open MS Office files and save them in the same format, so should be compatible with any other work you do in school or at home. StarOffice adds a full database and other utilities.

Resources
What else do you need to beef up your PC lab and provide support for teachers and students? Here are some suggestions to help you provide a rich PC lab service to your colleagues and students for almost nothing.

Databases
There are not so many free databases available, as it is a niche market. For techies, there are free SQL-based databases such as MySQL and Firebird – but these are not for casual users. A better bet for educational and home use is AZZCardfile. This nifty and very visual database is free to download and use, and it only costs £12 to register it and remove the nag screens. More at: www.azzcardfile.com.

Free utilities for your PCs
If your own PC or your PC lab machines have not yet got virus protection and firewalls, your security is at risk. There is no need to spend a fortune – the AVG anti-virus program is free (www.grisoft.com) and ZoneAlarm has a free basic version of its famous firewall, available at www.zonelabs.com You also need to sweep your PCs for Spyware and malicious programs – try Spybot at www.spybot.info, and Adaware at www.adaware.com

To use media materials, you have free media players in Windows and Linux, but many people like to add different programs to give more media-related features: _
to play and convert MP3 audio – WinAmp (www.winamp.com)
_to edit and display photos and graphics – Gimp (see Webwatch) _to make photo slideshows – Irfanview (www.irfanview.com)

If you ever need any other type of program, search the catalogues at www.shareware.com and there is certain to be something available for free download.

Study materials
The more difficult task is finding free educational software that is relevant to the language teaching classroom. There are a number of sites offering educational software, but they must be used selectively. Some of the material is age-specific and curriculum-specific, e.g. designed for US K-12 curricula, and often several years old.

There is an increasing amount of free Reading texts to use (see MET January 2003), either as plain text or as E-books that can be downloaded for free.Visit Project Gutenberg at www.thalasson.com/ gtn/gtnletA.htm for a huge collection of out-of-copyright literary texts (e.g. the complete work of Dickens) for use in school.

There are a number of free dictionaries, including online versions of all the major publishers’ dictionaries. Visit www.thefreedictionary. com/, www.freedict.com, www.freelang.net or http://wordweb.info/ free/. Each has online lookup and some provide a downloadable dictionary your students could use.

In some areas it’s easier to find online tools rather than downloadable ones. A very useful tool for lexical development is an online Concordancer, and you can download one from GlossaNet at: http://glossa.fltr.ucl.ac.be/introduction. html. A trial version of an inexpensive program, Concordance, can be downloaded from www.rjcw.freeserve. co.uk/. New text corpora (banks of text to be searched for concordances) are also available – try Corpus Wizard at www2d.biglobe.ne.jp/~htakashi/

Some of your students would find the online Grammar sources helpful. You can direct them to www.edufind.com/english/ grammar/index.cfm for the Online Grammar reference, and similar tools at: www.hiway.co.uk/~ei/ english/index.html and http://esl.about.com/od/englishgrammar/.

The free resources available are increasing every day, and there is a rapid growth worldwide in the acceptance and use (even in corporate networks) of the OpenSource software that could save your school money.

Michael Carrier