Thai Educators Network

Thailand Educators Network had a great deal for educators, administrators and school owners interested in reducing software costs, as we welcomed David Bucknell, Founder, OpenSourceSchools.org, ITeachNet.org, Web4you.in.th and co-founder of Schoolforge.net.

Explaining what public domain is and what is proprietary and explaining the General Public License vs. the Berkley UNIX License and with such an array of jargon flowing, he made the presentation in a clear, succinct, and understandable manner.

As he took us through the world of Open source, he simultaneously showed us the viability of these platforms for schools, how to ensure their usefulness and the importance of making a technology plan for sustainable and effective growth. For example, he has a nice collection of acronyms, F.I.T., Fits into Teaching, T.E.E. Total Educational effect, F.L.Y.

For Learning Youths, to use on assessing whether or not the programs you would be choosing are effective for your school, your student body and your schools mission statement. While this was a technology presentation, David made it abundantly clear that people come first.

When making a technology plan, he emphasized the importance of a yearly approach that would sustain growth and encourage student interaction and planning.  With an affinity for penguins, David took us through the world of open source software, showing us the difference between Free Source, Free ware and shareware.