Open Source in Web Design Curriculum Development - BU Spring Course

(above L to R; Merwyn Jones, Dillon Hannan , Will Brigham.Missing Anastasia Khizenko.)

The local BOCES and area High School technology teams are using Adobe to teach their Web Design Class across the Southern Tier. These classes are very popular. However, license charges have recently increased significantly. The high schools now have to make some difficult curriculum vs. cost decisions. The curriculum that the HS and BOCES follow is available on-line. The LTC will be leading a team of students (Dillon Hannan and Anastasia Khizenko) to work with BOCES and the local HS teachers, to move the curriculum to Open Source. This course is focused on researching and identifying Open Source products that would replace the Adobe products. They would then develop a new curriculum for BOCES to use with the districts. This project will also provide HS students with an opportunity to come up to speed on Open Source applications that they will use in college and the future. Some of the products we will be providing Open Source alternatives to are: Dreamweaver, Frontpage, golive, Flash, photoshop, etc

At the end of the 2007 spring semester, we have selected KompoZer, GIMP, Scribus, and Inkscape as the Open Source products to build the course around. For the Fall 2007 semester, we will be building a new curriculum.

Dillon Hannan: "I have expanded my horizons in the field of Open Source applications, compared to how little I knew about the subject matter before I did any research on the topic. I personally have used a handful of Open Source software such as web browsers like Mozilla Firefox and anti virus software such as AVG. To learn and understand that there is a cost free equivalent for almost all commercially available software out there was astonishing to me. At this day and age with technology changing so rapidly, many times Open Source applications can outperform their proprietary software."

Anastasia Khizenko:"Throughout this course I learned that there are many open source products available to the general public. I learned that open source applications are very similar to their proprietary equals and provide the same functionality at low or no cost. Open source software is a great alternative for many users including high school teachers and students, as it provides enhanced ability for schools to meet their budgets without sacrificing functions, and also gives students the ability to freely download the software at no cost and work with it at home! During this course I gained many valuable skills and learned how to easily build and manage a web-site with KompoZer."