A Modest (Tech) Proposal · Feb 21, 04:35 PM
Validity. Every new initiative, technology, idea, and requirement needs to prove that it is valid in order to succeed. Well, I think I’ve come up with an idea that would add validity to a number of Edmonds School District initiatives and requirements, including:
- Fields of Study
- Culminating Project
- The Tech Levy
- Tech education in general
The idea is this: Require every student to demonstrate fluency in one or two software programs/platform that relate to their Field of Study. This fluency could be demonstrated in both course work and Culminating Project (either in the project or portfolio presentation)
Ideally, the software packages would be professional level applications that the student could expect to see ‘in real life’. For example, if a student’s FOS is in art/communication, the student could learn to use
- Photoshop or GIMP (raster graphics)
- Illustrator or Inkscape (vector graphics)
- InDesign or Scribus (publishing/layout)
Or in science/natural resources it could be Mathematica, Educational Global Climate Modeling (EdGCM), R (Statistical Computing Platform), Grass GIS etc.
But what about software costs? The beautiful thing here is that many, many fields have free/open source programs that are solid contenders in their fields or actually ARE the standard. GIMP and Inkscape, for example lag only slightly behind, if at all, their commercial counterparts.
I think that this is an initiative that we could start encouraging as early as next year. Between now and then people could work to compile a list of supported software in each FOS area, and free programs could be made available through the STTs and their Deep Freeze system. The initiate could also be tied to our student tech standards. In fact, since the standards currently end at 8th grade, a box could be added for 9-12 that focused on using software for college and the real world and FOS specific applications. Adding this initiative, in a non-binding fashion, to the Culminating Project Guidebook would also help.
Requirement of this would, of course, wait until the next tech levy when we had the resources to better support it.
So, what do people think? Does this idea carry water? Would it be helpful if I presented a full list of free software programs that covers all of the FOSs?
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— buwtezo Apr 1, 05:51 AM #