CHS students trained with FOSS as alternatives

Engaging Students with FOSS.

TESDA has recently given 50 scholarship slots in computer hardware servicing NC II to our school, the Asian Academy of Business and Computers. This was part of the 175 recently given slots of Pangulong Gloria Scholarships courtesy of TESDA.

Previously, we held an assessemnt on PC operations NC II around October of last year, we used open office and mozzila firefox as part of the test pakage for our students. Most of them (90 %) had passed the assessment and were declared “competent” (TESDA uses the term COMPETENT instead of passing).

Last Month (April) we also held assessments for our students in Computer Hardware servicing NC II every weekend. 94% (67 students) were declared competent in this category.

Currently our 2 classes of Computer Hardware servicing NC II are being trained to be both familiar with proprietary and FOSS software.

Touching on the merits of FOSS,most students were surprised how come LINUX and other FOSS Operating systems never have viruses.

Running on their third to fourth week, most students are still having their doubts as to the workability of linux. Perhaps after they have done installing and maintaing the computers they will have as projects.. they may realize that indeed Linux and other FOSS products are good technical alternatives to proprietary software.

Our trainors, linux Guru Brian De Vivar and hardware guy John Lopez are both doing their stuff in training these students to learn to use better alternatives like Ubuntu Linux and Mandriva Linux.

Unlike other Computer Hardware servicing students from other schools, our graduates will be both familiar with proprietary and FOSS.

G.ho.st visits AABC

As anybody would say... it a dream for every person to have his own computer. However not everybody can purchase one.

Yesterday, October 21, G.Ho.st visited Asian Academy of Business and computers and delivered a walk in lecture/seminar on Virtual computing by using G.ho.st as your own virtual desktop.

browser based and basing on the concept, "No virus, Flash drive free ready to use desktops anywhere, anytime"; G.ho.st caught the attention and interest of our students. both from the second year and first year technical students.

The mere idea that you have a ready desktop anywhere itrigues and challenged the students, who ended up eventually asking in the open forum what apps they could use and how to sign up.

Although the seminar room was jampacked and filled to the max; students really appreciated the lecture given by Gener Luis Morada, country representative of G.ho.st and actually requested that in time, perhaps Gene can demonstrate the other utility tools of g.ho.st.

After the walk in seminar, I had a discussion with Gene and Bryan, our linux teacher about the possibility if G.ho.st can have web-based programming apps that we can use for instruction purposes as well as the possibility of collaboration in educational projects. Also commenting on the need for hardware, I asked if G.host would eventually have lighter versions that would enable p2 and p3 desktops to run g.ho.st and help a lot of public and private schools in the country.

You can see the pictures below:

What weve done so far?

Foss in AABC has a long way to go.

From starting in Open Office, mozilla firefox, GIMP, Blender and Foxit, AABC has gone quite some distance in trying to go .

Since we've installed Linux on our classrooms,faculty room and administrative offices Ubuntu (versions 6.10,7.04 and 8.04) and Ubuntustudio (multimedia room). And so far our students are adjusting relatively well.

We were quite lucky that we have open source buffs in our IT department. Sir Dennis Jorolan, our animation guru and Sir Brian de Vivar , our PhPMySQL guru.

Our teachers also have been undergoing in house trainings in open office, Google Docs (for document collaboration among students and faculty , Blogger (for faculty who would post lectures and advnace assignments). Though blogging among teachers still has to be reminded (of which takes time).

Were still trying to master Open base and hopefully well also be able to implement that. weve been actively trying to put FOSSpective into our students.

Among the significant things we think we were able to do outside of our regular students was our short courses among them the introduction of Blender as a 3d animation tool, introducing Open source tools in our COffice Shipboard office productivity course for seafarers and our webdesign courses.


This is just the start of our journey. We hope to do more

FOSS Films a requirement in IT education

I recently realized the value utilizing film as a way of popularizing open source, recently we hired a new teacher Mr. Brian De Vivar, another Open source advocate and Ubuntu buff.

When he had to accept another training session in C-office (shipboard office productivity suite for seafarers) which conflicted with his computer fundamentals class, i subbed in his class period. and trying to introduce the concept of open source, I let the students watch "Codebreakers" a documentary of the Free software movement.

I soon realized that it raised a lot of questions from our students. (we have been using open source for quite some time now and Open office/gimp/blender being some of our mainstays).

when the film viewwing was over i gave them time to write reaction paper which was never submitted in time. This also gave Mr. De Vivar time to watch the movie and another one "revolution OS". he later required his students to watch this other film and other students as well.

so our present crop of IT students realized that indeed, theres a new and big world out there with open source.

and so our journey to FOSS continues.

for those who havent seen the movie....

watch them!!!!