Gnowgi » FOSS

Free Software for Science and Mathematics Education

gnowgi — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:54:49 +0000

Last three days (12th – 14th of November 2009) our Centre invited teachers and students from around Mumbai to share our work with the public (Vigyan Vividha). During this program the team members of gnowledge.org lab demonstrated several free software applications that can be used for science and mathematics education. We did demonstrations of several of them to hundreds of visitors. Though we showed several applications, our focus was on the following selected applications.

Phoenix (Computer Interfaced Science Experiments)
Step (An interactive physics simulator, part of KDE-EDU package)
GeoGebra (A dynamic Geometry and Algebra Platform)
KTurtle (A simple turtle graphics program using LOGO for children)
Inkscape (An advanced vector (SVG) graphics editor)
Stellarium (A planetarium for your computer)

Many of them are well known, except Step. I want to therefore say few words about it. This program will have a great role to play for physics education. An excellent platform for learning as well as teaching. If you are a physics teacher or an educator, consider using Step. Though the program needs several finishing touches (sometimes eats up resources while simulating complex systems), the author (Vladimir Kuznetsov) is ambitious and did a fantastic job. Once this program is improved, it will be a classic tool for education in the high school and college level physics.

Geogebra also gives the same experience for mathematics.

These are all free software for education. I encourage teachers to use them in the classroom, and students who own a PC must install GNU/Linux on their PCs and enjoy these applications among several others.

IFOSSLR in Indian Press

gnowgi — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:55:42 +0000

The International Free and Open Source Software Law Review (IFOSSLR) launched recently has been reported in the Indian press prominently by the Hindu. Hope some of the legal experts in India take notice of this.

Read here: the journal on free open source law launched.

FOSSCOMM: Free and Open Source COMMunity in India

gnowgi — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:27:12 +0000

FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) activists are getting together to promote the awareness, influence Govt policy, defend the software freedom, bring in changes in IT education curriculum, work towards free information infrastructure. Read the principles that brought together several groups into action.

The network is taking shape at http://fosscomm.in. One of the first tasks the network will be working is to get the open standards policy document for eGovernance in India approved without yielding to those groups who promote the interests of proprietary software groups (like NASSCOM, MAIT, who are influencing the Indian Govt to make room for RAND and multiple standards). Currently, the apex committee does not contain members who represent the FOSS community. Therefore one of the immediate objectives of the new network of FOSS advocates is to request the Govt to include FOSS representatives in the apex body.