FOSS in education (Kerala)

[Frederick Noronha]

FREE AND OPEN SOURCE IN EDUCATION : A few projects have carried on.  These have been applied in fields like school education too.  In Kerala, the KITE (IT@Schools Project, or Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education) has been making its dent, since it was set up in 2001. You might not read about it in the headlines, but individuals like Tony Antony, who was with the project, explains how it goes about popularising FOSS among  school students.

"You get the same results (using FOSS) and more benefits also.  It's more user friendly than Windows," says he.  "We use GeoGebra for teaching Math.  We use Marble Maps [https://marble.kde.org/] for the Social Sciences. Stellarium Astronomy Software to map the sky.  KGeography, and many other interactive softwares and educational packages are there," says he.  "GCompris has been customised to Malayalam too.  PhET (interactive simulations for physics, chemistry, earth sciences, biology and math) helps us to conduct scientific experiments interactively.  There are Malayalam typing tools as well. Everything can be learnt with free software.  In an easy and affordable manner.  Besides, the software updates at no cost." https://youtu.be/H9rdIl3rPgI