Free and Open Source Educational Software

Website Overview: OSWINS DVD is a collection of Free and Open Source software for educational use that run on Windows. The educational software varies from mathematics to music, from science to graphics, from programming to educational games and includes office tools, business software, network tools and security software. The aim of this website is to make finding the software easier by categorising them by Key Learning Areas used in Education in Australia.  Under each category there are links to useful websites that provide information or free resources.

How to use this website: Files can be accessed using the category index below or accessed via the file tree structure on the CD/DVD image using a file or web browser.  Many of the applications are self extracting archives which install the software.  Some applications are packaged into archives which have to be opened first before installing.  The symbol down loadable from iso indicates you can download the software directly from the CD/DVD and the symbol home page for software indicates the home site for the software. The symbol next folder indicates that files are located in another folder and the symbol back to another CD indicates that files are located on another CD. Tools to create archives and extract files are located in the misc tools folder.  README.html is printer friendly version of this document.

Table of Contents: Key Learning Areas

Download: You can download the OSWINS DVD (or two CDs - OSWINS CD and OSWEDU CD), or MACOSX CD or OSLINUX CD from http://os.cqu.edu.au/pub/iso or faster from mirror at http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/adios/iso.

The OSWINS DVD was designed to be about 1.4GBytes so that it could fit onto a pocket size DVD or USB drive.  The OS-school-DVD is a combination of several CDs and/or DVDs namely the OSWINS-DVD and the ADIOS-DVD. These are described at http://os.cqu.edu.au/oswinsdvd and http://os.cqu.edu.au/adios and you can download the latest copies of these CD and DVDs from http://os.cqu.edu.au/pub/iso. For further information about educational software visit the Centre for OpenSource Development taxonomy web site at http://os.cqu.edu.au/cosd.

Disclaimer and License: This CD/DVD is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Please refer to each package for its software license. The Licenses used on this CD/DVD include:

If you connect to the Internet remember to use a firewall (such as ZoneAlarm for Windows), anti-virus software (such as Avast) and anti-spyware software (such as Winpooch for Windows). You should find a security solution that best suites your personal requirements. Read the security section.

Try software first: The ADIOS CD/DVDs (included on the OS School DVD) can be used to demonstrate open source software without the need to install. To do this you reboot your computer from the DVD and it will start Linux (requires 512MB of RAM). It may take a few minutes due to the size of the image. Alternatively install QEMU software and then run Linux within Windows (requires 1GB or RAM, for more information see ADIOS-README.txt). The default Linux image runs in RAM and from CD/DVD and does not use the hard disc drive. Linux will start the KDE or XFCE desktop, this will allow you to run hundreds of applications such as Leocad (toy bricks in 3D), Blender (3D modelling, animation and rendering) and Kstars (planetarium). The Live Linux CD/DVD component also provides non Linux users exposure to software which is not available on Windows. For more informations about what is on the ADIOS CD/DVDs see adioscds.html or visit the ADIOS web site at http://os.cqu.edu.au/adios for other themed CD/DVD versions of ADIOS.

Updates and Feedback: Please join egroup for update information http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/opensource_education/. If you have any comments or know of software or sites that you think should be included on this list, please email the Author or fill in the Feedback form. 

Index of Free and Open Source Software

Freeware Copyright 2007-2009 GNU General Public License 
OSWINS DVD was built by Neville Richter - http://os.cqu.edu.au/oswinsdvd 

The Arts - Free and Open Source Educational Software

Definitions

  • "The arts is a broad subdivision of culture, composed of many expressive disciplines. In modern usage, it is a term broader than "art", which usually means the visual arts (comprising fine art, decorative art, and crafts). The arts encompasses visual arts, performing arts, language arts, and the culinary arts."
    - Wikipedia Arts 22 October 2008

Art

Painting and Drawing

Photography

Multimedia

Music

Dance

Drama

English - Free and Open Source Educational Software

English is the study of language and literature. More educational resources are available via the list of Web Sites. To set the mood, here is a poem on how best to live life, the Desiderata.

Quotes

  • "What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand." - Confucius
  • "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." - Gandhi
  • "You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way." - Marvin Minsky
  • "You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives." - Clay P. Bedford
  • "Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master." - Leonardo da Vinci.

Vocabulary Education

Online Books

Mind Map

Educational Tools

Graphics - Free and Open Source Educational Software

Definitions

  • "Computer graphics are graphics created by computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of pictorial data by a computer."
    - Wikipedia Computer Graphics 22 October 2008
  • "A personal computer game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine. Computer games have evolved from the simple graphics and gameplay of early titles like Spacewar!, to a wide range of more visually advanced titles."
    - Wikipedia Personal Computer Games 22 October 2008

Graphics

Computer Games

Game Engines

Health - Free and Open Source Educational Software

Definitions

  • "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." - as defined by the World Health Organization http://www.who.int/en/
    - Wikipedia Health 22 October 2008
  • "Physical fitness, a general state of good health, usually as a result of exercise and nutrition"
    - Wikipedia Health 22 October 2008
  • "Proper nutrition requires the proper ingestion and equally important, the absorption of vitamins, minerals, and fuel in the form of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats."
    - Wikipedia Diet(nutrition) 24 May 2009

Health and Fitness

Nutrition & Diet

Health Care

Five steps to happiness

  • Connect
    Developing relationships with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours will enrich your life and bring you support
  • Be active
    Sports, hobbies such as gardening or dancing, or just a daily stroll will make you feel good and maintain mobility and fitness
  • Be curious
    Noting the beauty of everyday moments as well as the unusual and reflecting on them helps you to appreciate what matters to you
  • Learn
    Fixing a bike, learning an instrument, cooking – the challenge and satisfaction brings fun and confidence
  • Give
    Helping friends and strangers links your happiness to a wider community and is very rewarding

    Source: Foresight report (The Mental Capital and Wellbeing report, published by Foresight, part of the UK Government Office for Science), by Mark Henderon, Science Editor, The Times 22 October 2008

Languages - Free and Open Source Educational Software

Definitions

  • "A language is a dynamic set of visual, auditory, or tactile symbols of communication and the elements used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon. Language is considered to be an exclusively human mode of communication; although other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language."
    - Wikipedia Language 22 October 2008

Languages

Japanese

German

Spanish

Portuguese (Brazil)

Mathematics - Free and Open Source Educational Software

Quotes

  • "The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics." - Socrates
  • "Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects. Thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchanged. Content to them is irrelevant: they are interested in form only." - Henri Poincare
  • "I will not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all." - Sir Isaac Newton
  • "So far as the theories of mathematics are about reality, they are not certain; so far as they are certain, they are not about reality." - Albert Einstein
  • "The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers." - Scott Adams

Calculators

Graphs

Computational Tools

Math Games

Algebra

Trigonometry, Calculus & Statistics Courses

Mathematic Tutorials

Programming - Free and Open Source Educational Software

Quotes

  • "[A]nd then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match." - Bill Bryson
  • "Beta. Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it's released. Beta is Latin for 'still doesn't work'." - Author Unknown
  • "Version 1 of any software is full of bugs. Version 2 fixes all the bugs and is great. Version 3 adds all the things users ask for, but hides all the great stuff in Version 2." - Fred Blechman
  • "Writing the first 90 percent of a computer program takes 90 percent of the time. The remaining ten percent also takes 90 percent of the time and the final touches also take 90 percent of the time." - N.J. Rubenking
  • "Good code is its own best documentation. As you're about to add a comment, ask yourself, 'How can I improve the code so that this comment isn't needed?'" - Steve McConnell

Programmers typically use tools such as editors to create the source code, compilers or translators to convert the source code to executable binary code, link loaders to connect this to various libraries called from within the program. In addition programmers typically use tools such as version control systems, debuggers, makefiles, reformatting tools, preprocessors, profilers, Integrated Development Environments, Graphical User Interfaces builders and Unified Modelling Language tools. Programmers may need to know the ASCII table, use regular expressions, master programming editors and development envionments, write prototypes using scripting languages or shells and work within a project and with other programmers in a team. - Neville Richter

Here are two simple demos of using jquery within web pages fisheye.html and carousel.html the source html code can be viewed within the web browser and the javascript files are located within this folder in fisheye_files and carousel_files - see examples at http://sorgalla.com/jcarousel/ and see examples at http://malsup.com/jquery/.

Here is a simple alert pop up <a href onMouseOver="alert('hello world'); return true;">click here</a> click here .

Programming Languages

Editors

  • Notepad++ - source code editor and replacement for Notepad - supports Ada, ASCII, ASP, Assembler, AutoIt, batch file, C#, C++, Caml, CMake, CSS, Diff, doxygen, Haskell, HTML, ini file, InnoSetup, Java, Javascript, KiXtart, Lisp, Lua, makefile, Matlab, Objective-C, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Postscript, Properties, Python, RC file, Ruby, Scheme, Smalltalk, SQL, TCL, TeX, VB/VBS, Verilog, VHDL, XML, YAML (Windows) http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm (GPL)
  • SciTe - text and program editor with automatic syntax styling supports ADA, Assembler, C, C++, C#, CSS, Fortran, HTML, Java, Javascript, Lisp, Matlab, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Shell, SQL, TCL, VB, XML, YAML (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://www.scintilla.org/ (GPL)
  • Pfe - simple powerful editor (Windows) http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/steveb/cpaap/pfe/default.htm (Free)
  • WinVi - Windows version of "vi" Unix editor (Windows) http://www.winvi.de/en (GPL)
  • Vi - Unix editor - VIM X11 version uses full GUI interface (MacOSX, Linux) http://www.gnu.org/vi (GPL)
  • CSSED - CSS editor supports HTML, XML, Java, Javascript, JSP, PHP, C, C++, Python, Perl, SQL, Shell - multi-purpose text editor written in Java (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://cssed.sourceforge.net/ (GPL)
  • jEdit - programmers text editor written in Java (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://www.jedit.org/ (GPL)
  • ConTEXT - small text editor, developed for programmers with language specific highlighting (Windows) http://www.context.cx (GPL)
  • Crimson Editor - text and source program editor with syntax highlighting for HTML, C/C++, Perl, Java, Matlab and LaTeX (Windows) http://www.crimsoneditor.com/ (GPL)
  • For web authoring using WYSIWYG editors see Networking Web Tools

Software Development

Science - Free and Open Source Educational Software

More useful tools for science are available in mathematics, graphics and engineering.

Quotes

  • "The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living." - Henri Poincaré
  • "The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions." - Claude Lévi-Strauss
  • "My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists as all." - Stephen Hawking
  • "Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another." - Plato
  • "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program." - Larry Niven

Chemistry

Physics

Biology

Geology

Astronomy

Weather

Society - Free and Open Source Educational Software

The Study of Society and the Environment

Definitions

  • "A society is a population of humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive culture and/or institutions. More broadly, a society is an economic, social and industrial infrastructure in which a varied multitude of people or peoples are a part. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups."
    - Wikipedia Society 22 October 2008
  • "The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a term that encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof."
    - Wikipedia Natural Environment 22 October 2008

History

australia_01.png (4312 bytes) Geography

Government Sites

Environment

Desktop Tools - Free and Open Source Educational Software

This small collection of desktop tools can be extended by examining the tools in office tools, networking, security, business, mathematics, graphics and the arts.

Quotes

  • This guy calls in to complain that he gets an "Access Denied" message every time he logs in. It turned out he was typing his username and password in capital letters.
    Tech Support: "Ok, let's try once more, but use lower case letters."
    Customer: "Uh, I only have capital letters on my keyboard."

More Office Tools

More Communications

More Misc Tools

Office Tools - Free and Open Source Educational Software

This collection of office tools can be extended by examining the tools in networking, security, business, mathematics, graphics and the arts.

Free Office Suites

  • OpenOffice - includes Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Base - developed by Sun Microsystems
  • Koffice - includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, vector drawing, database and project management
  • GnomeOffice - includes AbiWord, Gnumeric, Evolution and Gnome-DB data access

Office Tools

Communications

Misc Tools

More Maths Tools

Business - Free and Open Source Educational Software

More useful business tools are available in office tools, networking, mathematics and graphics.

Quotes

  • "It doesn't matter how many times you fail. It doesn't matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because... All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are." - Mark Cuban
  • "Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results." - Scott Adams
  • "The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows." - Aristotle Onassis
  • "The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax." - Albert Einstein

Personal Finance and Accounting Software

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software

  • Dolibarr - ERP and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for small to mediam companies - simple to install, use and develop - lots of features for management of bank accounts, stock, invoices, orders, payments and shipping (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://www.dolibarr.org/ (GPL)
  • OpenERP (TinyERP) - web based ERP, CRM and Point-of-Sale for small to medium business, fast to implement, hundreds of modules, widely used (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://openerp.com/ (GPL)
  • Adempiere - ERP Bazaar for Open Source Developers a fork from Compiere with CRM, shopfloor, point of sale, financial accounting, supply chain and business applications (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://adempiere.red1.org/ (GPL)
  • Compiere - integrated ERP and CRM solution - includes point-of-sale software, web store, inventory management, automated accounting, order processing - requires Java Runtime Environment (platform independent) http://www.compiere.org (GPL)
  • ERP5 - ERP based on Zope application server - features include accounting, payroll, budget, data management, trade, material requirements planning, CRM, project planning and doument management systems (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://www.erp5.com/ (GPL)
  • gnuEnterprise - suite of enterprise wide business tools in development including ERP, human resources, accounting, CRM, project management, e-commerce, and support for multiple currencies (Windows, Linux) http://www.gnuenterprise.org/ (GPL)
  • LedgerSMB - web based accounting, ERP and Point-Of-Sale software for small medium business (SMB) using PostgreSQL database (platform independent) http://www.ledgersmb.org/ (GPL)
  • OFBiz - The Apache Open for Business Project that can be used OOTB (out-of-the-box) - includes ERP, CRM, E-Business, E-Commerce, SCM, MRP and CMMS/EAM - requires Tomcat and Java Runtime Environment (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://ofbiz.apache.org/ (Apache License)
  • openbravo - Integrated web-based open source ERP Enterprise Management System (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://www.openbravo.com/ (Openbravo Public License)
  • OpenTaps - ERP, CRM, online store, accounting, finance, inventory (platform independent) http://www.opentaps.org (GPL)
  • PostBooks - Integrated ERP, CRM and accounting for small to midsized businesses, graphical client, PostgreSQL database, multi-language support (platform independent) http://postbooks.sourceforge.net/ (Common Public Attribution License)
  • webERP - Integrated double entry accounting and ERP system with multi-language support, sales analysis, flexible pricing and pdf reports (Windows, MacOSX, Linux) http://www.weberp.org/ (GPL)

    Customer Relationship Managment (CRM)

  • sugarCRM - web based CRM (platform independent) http://sourceforge.net/projects/sugarcrm/ (Free community edition, SugarCRM License)
  • vtigercrm - CRM built over WAMP/LAMP modified sugarCRM software (platform independent) http://www.vtiger.com/ (GPL)
  • Also see ERP entries above that include CRM.

Point of Sale

Data Mining

Workflow and Business Processes

Definitions

  • "Accountancy or accounting is the system of recording, verifying, and reporting of the value of assets, liabilities, income, and expenses in the books of account (ledger) to which debit and credit entries (recognizing transactions) are chronologically posted to record changes in value (see bookkeeping). Such financial information is primarily used by lenders, managers, investors, tax authorities, and other decision makers to make resource allocation decisions between and within companies, organizations, and public agencies."
    - Wikipedia Accountancy 30 April 2009
  • "Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; information about customers and customer interactions can be entered, stored and accessed by employees in different company departments. Typical CRM goals are to improve services provided to customers, and to use customer contact information for targeted marketing."
    - Wikipedia Customer relationship management 30 April 2009
  • "Data mining is the process of extracting hidden patterns from data. As more data is gathered, with the amount of data doubling every three years, data mining is becoming an increasingly important tool to transform this data into information. It is commonly used in a wide range of profiling practices, such as marketing, surveillance, fraud detection and scientific discovery."
    - Wikipedia Data mining 30 April 2009
  • "Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a company-wide computer software system used to manage and coordinate all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data stores."
    - Wikipedia Enterprise resource planning 30 April 2009
  • "A workflow is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, work of a simple or complex mechanism, work of a group of persons, work of an organization of staff, or machines. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work, segregated in workshare, work split or whatever types of ordering."
    - Wikipedia Workflow 30 April 2009

Engineering - Free and Open Source Educational Software

Engineering software includes analysis and design tools, such as finite element methods and graphical display of results. More useful tools for engineering are available in mathematics, graphics, astronomy, geology, chemistry and physics.

Quotes

  • "Scientists investigate that which already is; Engineers create that which has never been.” - Albert Einstein
  • “Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.” - Scott Adams

Electrical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Civil Engineering

Definitions

  • "Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with the application of physical science (e.g. chemistry and physics), with mathematics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms. In addition to producing useful materials, modern chemical engineering is also concerned with pioneering valuable new materials and techniques - such as nanotechnology, fuel cells and biomedical engineering."
    - Wikipedia Chemical Engineering 24 May 2009
  • "Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings."
    - Wikipedia Civil Engineering 24 May 2009
  • "Electrical engineering, sometimes referred to as electrical and electronic engineering, is a field of engineering that deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical power supply. It now covers a range of subtopics including power, electronics, control systems, signal processing and telecommunications."
    - Wikipedia Electical Engineering 24 May 2009
  • "Mechanical Engineering is an engineering discipline that involves the application of principles of physics for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. Mechanical engineering is one of the oldest and broadest engineering disciplines."
    - Wikipedia Mechanical Engineering 24 May 2009

Networking - Free and Open Source Educational Software

More useful networking tools are available in communications, security, programming and graphics, also checkout web sites on Computer Technology.

Definitions

  • "A computer network, also referred to as just a network, consists of two or more computers, and typically other devices as well (such as printers, external hard drives, modems and routers), that are linked together so that they can communicate with each other and thereby exchange commands and share data, hardware and other resources."
    - The Linux Information Project 22 October 2008
  • "Network management means deploying and coordinating resources in order to plan, operate, administer, analyse, evaluate, design, and expand communication networks to meet service-level objectives at all times, at a reasonable cost, and with optimum capacity." - Kornel Terplan
  • "The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of concepts and policies for managing information technology (IT) infrastructure, development and operations."
    - Wikipedia Network Management 22 October 2008

Systems Administration involves the configuration, monitoring and control of services that run on computer systems, which are connected on a network, while providing a quality of service to end users. Network Management involves monitoring and control of the resources on the network to provide an adequate quality of service to end users, in an efficient and effective operation for systems, typically using a central console and with minimal change to the systems being managed. - Neville Richter

Remote Access

Web Tools

Network Management

Operating Systems

Web CMS - Free and Open Source Educational Software

More useful networking tools are available in desktop, programming, graphics, business, networking and security.

Definitions

  • "A content management system (CMS) is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion. CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators' manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio files, video files, electronic documents, and Web content."
    - Wikipedia Content Management System 22 October 2008
  • "A Learning Management System (LMS) is software for delivering, tracking and managing training. LMSs range from simple systems for managing training records to software for distributing courses over the Internet and offering features for online collaboration. "
    - Wikipedia Learning Management System 22 October 2008

Content Management Systems

Security - Free and Open Source Educational Software

All computer systems connecting to the Internet should maintain a firewall, anti-virus software and anti-spyware software. You should apply the latest updates and patches and keep up-to-date with security by reading information from the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team web site at http://www.auscert.org.au/.

Other useful sites include US Government CERT http://www.us-cert.gov/, Canadian CERT http://www.ewa-canada.com/, Carnegie Mellon Univerity CERT http://www.cert.org/ and Open Source CERT http://ocert.org/.

Definitions

  • "A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user."
  • "Spyware is computer software that is installed surreptitiously on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's informed consent."
  • "Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages."
  • "A firewall is an integrated collection of security measures designed to prevent unauthorized electronic access to a networked computer system. It is also a device or set of devices configured to permit, deny, encrypt, decrypt, or proxy all computer traffic between different security domains based upon a set of rules and other criteria."
    - Wikipedia 22 October 2008

Security of systems typically require authentication systems such as login name and password, access control lists for controlling who has access to each resource, auditing to record a trail of who accessed what and when in a log file, certificates which are electronic keys used to connect client systems to servers, firewalls to restrict access into trusted networks, virus scanners, email filters, virtual private networks, secure tunnels, trusted systems, and more. - Neville Richter

Security

Web Sites - Free and Open Source Educational Software

Free and Open Source Sites

Open Source Kids Sites

About - Free and Open Source Educational Software

The World of Free and Open Source Software

On the OS school DVD you will find a collection of Free and Open Source software for educational use that run on various platforms such as Windows, MacOSX and Linux. The aim of this website is to make finding the software easier by categorising them by Key Learning Areas used in Education in Australia.  In addition, under each category, links to useful websites that provide information or free resources are listed.

Run or Install software

  • Search catalog and install open source educational software for platform
    OR
  • Boot ADIOS live DVD to run educational software (requires 512MB of RAM)
    OR
  • Run DVD from QEMU virtual machine within Windows (requires 1GB of RAM)
    install accelerator Kqemu before running to acquire reasonable performance
    Note: Themed CD versions run faster and require less RAM and are online.

Reasons to use Open Source software:

  • Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for school and students;
  • Open Source comes with Source Code that allows users to customise the software;
  • Often uses GNU General Public License http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
    more free licenses are available at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category;
  • Professional Product developed by companies, government departments, universities
    for example Sun Microsystems (provides OpenOffice, Java and VirtualBox), Mozilla (provides FireFox, Thunderbird and Sunbird), and Apple (provides iTunes, Safari and QuickTime);
  • Rapid development cycle - end users report problems directly back to developer;
  • Works well on older hardware as software is often built with performance criteria; and
  • Greater learning of concepts rather than products.

Open Source Software could save you!

The number of free and open source software packages available for Windows, MacOSX and Linux is growing everyday. But the best thing about this software is that it is written by professional programmers and many companies and governments are in fact funding the development of free and open source software. So the quality of the software has improved to a point where many of the packages are now preferred to the commercial alternatives.

CQU has setup a Centre for OpenSource Development, which maintains a web site at http://os.cqu.edu.au. The objective of the Centre is to support students and staff with free and open source solutions. Most people have already used open source software maybe without even knowing it. For example, more than 60% of web servers are running the open source Apache web server. Many people already use the Firefox web browser for its features such as tabs and extensions. There are many more excellent applications like OpenOffice (wordprocessor, spreadsheet, presentation and database), InkScape (vector drawing package), Xine (movie player) and Blender (3D graphics). Blender is a 3D modeler, animation and rendering tool, which has been used to create animated films and develop characters for games.

The Centre provides information on free and open source software and provides manuals and reference guides on how to use open source software. A taxonomy of free and open source software for users in the areas of Information Technology, Business, Education, Engineering and Health has been created to help users quickly find a suitable software package. Themed compilation CDs of free and open source software for Windows, MacOSX and Linux have been created for download at http://os.cqu.edu.au/pub/iso or faster from mirror at http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/adios/iso. In addition bootable Linux CDs and DVDs have been developed to demonstrate various open source software tools for engineering, business, education, software development and network administration.

If you are a Windows user and would like to add more applications to your current operating system then free and open source software does this for you at no cost. Most software has been built for multiple platforms because the source code is also freely available. The license used by the majority of open source software is the GNU General Public License which basically states that you can use the software and modify the software as long as you don't make money selling it. So people make money selling their expertise in configuring, using, maintaining and training others to use the software.

Currently the centre is developing software for bootable Linux CDs and DVDs to demonstrate free and open source software in the fields of Information Technology, Business, Education, Engineering and Health at http://os.cqu.edu.au/adios. The centre is developing open source software for education to aid children with speech difficulties as well as help children learn to speak at http://os.cqu.edu.au/helpmespeak. The centre is investigating the development of e-commerce web sites using content management systems such as drupal at http://os.cqu.edu.au/open/projects. The centre is also creating documentation and course materials which are available at http://os.cqu.edu.au/courses.

The OpenSource Development web site has people downloading open source solutions every day. The web site provides online manuals, guides and books which are regularly accessed from people around the world. As well as ISO images of live Linux systems and educational collections of open source software. In summary free and open source software is the future in many countries and you will benefit from the availability of this software philosophy.

Freeware Copyright 2007-2009 GNU General Public License 
OSWINS DVD was built by Neville Richter - http://os.cqu.edu.au/oswinsdvd