On Making Software Accessible

I’ve been listening to the NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) podcasts available free via iTunes. David Thornburg, leading thinker and educator, spoke in a presentation titled, “Open Minds, Open Education, and a View of Open Culture.” The focus was on 1:1 programs for students and open source software.

The quote that jumped out at me was near the beginning:

“Singe platform software is anti-child.”

Pow. Ouch. Absolutely right. I’ll be the first to admit I have a personal preference for some software apps that are on one platform but not another (e.g. Visual Communicator and iLife). However, anytime a piece of software, be it Windows-only, Mac-only or even Linux-only, is used with students, it will prevent the home use of that software by the student if they have another platform at home.

To that end, open source, cross-platform software solutions that students can download and use at home for free will do more to break down the walls of technology than pretty much any other technique we can try. In the best case scenario, time using technology in a class setting is far less than in a home setting (unless in a 1 to 1 program). If the software is accessible anywhere, the benefits go up dramatically.

This year we are installing many more software programs that are open source cross platform (OSCP?). Two examples are OpenOffice, much like the Microsoft Office suite, and GIMP, which is very similar to Photoshop. I plan to make a concentrated effort to help our students realize the power of these accessible programs.


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2 responses to “On Making Software Accessible”

  1. Steve Avatar

    In the past few weeks I have been tossing around the same ideas. I love my Mac, its apps, and the Adobe software I use so much, but I promote open source.

    I’ve made a resolution to wean myself off these–particularly the Adobe software and work toward GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, etc. The best way to help students to realize the power of these programs is to model their use.

    At least my kids are listening. They are saving their bakery pay with the intent of purchasing cheap laptops and run Linux on them!

  2. […] do not have it at home to use. This relates exactly to the post I wrote a few months ago about making software accesible. A solution in this case would to use an open source solution, such as Cmap. Using Cmap would break […]