[education-wg] List of Education FOSS projects

[Tom Hoffman]

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:46 AM, Don Davis <dondavis at reglue.org> wrote:

> I thought of this because I was contemplating how easy it might be to code a
> FOSS program for communication with special needs students.
>
> In special education, there is a program that uses simple stick figures to
> communicate with special needs students. Each license is $400-$800.
> Rewriting a FOSS implementation of this should not be hard. The largest yet
> easiest part would be creating a large library of copyleft images available
> for use in the program. 12 year olds on Gimp could do this. A group of 12-15
> teenagers could crank out a lot of images in a one week half day summer
> school project. (The images could also be used in ESL classrooms.)

Random observation:  This topic -- software for communication with
special needs students -- comes up with some regularity on lists
regarding FOSS in schools.  On more than one occasion I've followed up
with a response that says "OK, well, first can you tell us exactly
what this software needs to do?"  And I can't recall ever getting a
useful response.

Just a reminder of how collaboration between teachers and developers
is hard, if you don't start with someone who already understands the
problem and the means of getting to a solution.

--Tom