Free Software at Warrington School

Abstract

The case study describes the use of free software in a primary school in New Zealand, a country noted for innovation in education. The school's general philosophy revolves around well-being, child-centred learning, family and community orientation and sustainability. These principles underpinned the decision for the school to adopt free software and become one of the pioneers of open learning in New Zealand.

Warrington School
Warrington is a small semi-rural seaside village which sits on the edge of Blueskin Bay about 25km north of Dunedin. The pristine white sands of Warrington Beach are a child's stroll from the school, an easy 20 minute drive from central Dunedin.

The school currently (2010) has 50+ pupils, five teachers and a supportive community. The school has developed good links with the local Playcentre, surf life saving club and neighbouring schools.

Warrington School has the "Well Being" of all, as the key to its strategic management systems. Its unofficial logo 'WWW' stands for Warrington Well-being Way/Te Ara Oraka O Okahau which is also the name of the main pathway entering the school: designed to become a forest of native, edible and aesthetically pleasing plants.

Pupils are encouraged to care for themselves, for others and the environment through an envirethical curriculum.

The School prides itself on being child centred and family friendly. The School community through the Board of Trustees supports the teachers in their continual development of using child focussed and current educational pedagogy that is developed from free thinking.

Creating a supportive learning environment, encouraging reflective thought and action, enhancing the relevance of new learning, facilitating new learning, making connections to prior learning and experience, provide sufficient opportunities to learn, teaching as inquiry. Progressive education - attending to the whole child, community, collaboration, social justice, intrinsic motivation, deep understanding, active learning, taking children seriously.

Warrington School encourages children to enjoy their childhood, ask questions of their world, seek their own answers and to have freedom to learn.

Three diverse multi-level classrooms cater to all children.

Enrollment incorporates three levels - senior, middle and junior - depending on numbers. The Junior classes provide lots of structure and emphasise literacy and numeracy through creative teaching approaches. Middle school children begin to take more responsibility for their own learning through directed programmes of work. Senior pupils are aiming to become independent learners using various strategies to gain understanding and knowledge of the wider world. The subjects covered include: Maths strands, visual and oral language, music and art, maori, PE/Health, Social Science, Reading, EOTC, problem solving, handwriting, spelling, written language, science, technology, dance and drama, physical education/health, environmental education, and reading.

Year 7/8 pupils have a separate programme with options including: technology sessions at Dunedin North Intermediate (extra fees apply), second language learning, extra IT time, Camp on Quarantine Island and a bike camp at Sutton (21 and 73km from Dunedin respectively).

The Principal shares responsibilities for classroom teaching and is supported by six additional staff members with roles including face-to-face teacher, teacher aide, secretary, secretary-temp, cleaner and specialist Tikanga Maori tutor.

The staff of Warrington School are noted for their friendly, cheerful dispositions and enjoyment of working with children. The staff have personal development/teaching goals aligned with the philosophy of the school.

Education in New Zealand
Warrington school is an example in this respect. Its innovative approach to education, its emphasis on social justice and sustainability, and use of free software are accepted in the community and approved by the Ministry of Education.

Warrington School was one the first schools in New Zealand to adopt an open education policy.

Open Education in Warrington School
Warrington School's open education initiative is hosted on WikiEducator under the New Zealand Schools OER Portal. Its vision and broad modus operandum are stated as:

Empowering our community of parents, teachers and pupils through open education

Hinana ki uta, hinana ki tai
 * Transparency - hoping that our ideas will be copied, our mistakes avoided and advice freely offered for our continued improvement
 * A belief that everything we do should be open
 * Actively sharing the things that we and our colleagues create
 * Working collaboratively with others who share our goals
 * Continual learning and improving
 * A school that is thinking globally
 * Search the innermost lands, search the outermost tides

Whakatauki/Proverb

A good idea of their open educational activities may be obtained by perusing Warrington School on WikiEducator. See for example the free resources, curriculum and educational projects tabs. One particularly inspiring area is the Envirethical tab which presents resources for educators to adapt in activities orientated towards social justice and sustainability. This "envirethic" permeates all of the school's intent and actions, including its use of free software.

Warrington School believes in using materials, resources and ideas that are open, preferring not to pay for copyright licences and are committed to:
 * 1) adhering to permissible educational use of all rights reserved materials under the principles of fair dealing,
 * 2) using materials which meet the requirements of the free cultural works definition namely Creative Commons Attribution, Copyleft license equivalents and the GPL, and
 * 3) inclusion (demonstrated by inviting participation in using and improving their resources on WikiEducator.

The above gives an indication of the context and general orientation of Warrington School. The next section outlines its approach in terms of general planning before delving into the details of free software implementation and drawing some conclusions.

Priorities and Planning
Warrington School is guided by a which defines (among other things) its vision, principles, values, key competencies, learning areas, effective pedagogy, various goals and methodology for achieving them.

The Board of Trustees, elected representatives from the school community, "is responsible to ensure that (a) the school is managed, organised, conducted, and administered for the purposes set out or deemed to be contained in this charter; and (b) the school, and its students and community, achieve the aims and objectives set out in the school charter".

The charter is essentially a three-year rolling plan reviewed and adjusted each year in the light of progress and change (in collaboration with the Board). Each year’s strategic goals are confirmed at the beginning of the year and plans are drawn up accordingly. The Board of Trustees collaborates in this process and ultimately approves the charter after "consultation with the community and consideration of obligations set down by the National Education Guidelines".

The table below indicates the priorities and objectives spanning 2010.

Roles and responsibilities are assigned to individual and groups of staff members who work together to make the school a success. Appropriate forms of documentation for each goal are provided in Annual Plans.

At the conclusion of the planning year results are reported against each target. School Management is responsible for developing, implementing and monitoring programmes and procedures directed towards achieving the targets. The Board does not require that those programmes and procedures be stated in the charter, but expects to be kept informed of related actions as the year progresses. The Education Standards Act (2001) stipulates three areas for goals and targets: student achievement, school performance, use of resources.

Rationale for free software adoption/migration


After using free software for several years, Warrington School's rationale for using free software (specifically referring to (GNU/Linux) includes:
 * The software has proven to be reliable, easy to use and install
 * It is cost-effective as the software is gratis and typically runs more effectively on older computers than non-free equivalents
 * Wringing as much life out of them as possible
 * We even run it on old computers donated to the school
 * The software fits readily in the New Zealand Curriculum
 * Schools should be allowed to choose their operating systems and software and should not be disadvantaged for doing so
 * 1) The Ministry of Education presently pays $62 per computer a year for proprietary software licences for schools choosing this software
 * 2) Official Information Act Question
 * By paying equal amounts to schools using Free software this money remains in New Zealand
 * Older computers are supported - saving money and the planet on account of extended life times of the machines
 * Our community of teachers, parents and children are empowered to install and run GNU/Linux software on computers
 * It allows the school and its community to alter the software for its own purpose and to share this with others
 * We recycle old computers donated to us for school use and give spare computers away to our community.

Implementation
This section picks up Warrington School's Ubuntu Journey in 2006 and follows a time-line to its current state of being almost entirely free of restricted software and leading in terms of open education at the school level in New Zealand.

Objectives

 * Educate students about computers
 * Installing GNU/Linux operating systems and applications onto school computers for individual or class needs
 * Using above skills to gain access to GNU/Linux computers at home if desired
 * Understanding licensing e.g. GPL, Creative Commons and proprietary/non-proprietary
 * Educate staff about computer use in education
 * Political decisions on where Ministry of Education money is spent
 * Encourage staff to use computers to enhance teaching and learning
 * Integration of computers into class programmes and the use of Open principles into their teaching
 * Opportunistically acquire and make the best use possible of available computers and software.

Needs emerged over time and were met over the years as outlined below.

Software in Use
Many of the applications that our pupils use are becoming industry standard e.g Gimp and Audacity, pupils are accessing on-line tutorials to get the most from each application.

Staff Training and Support
As mentioned previously, school staff set their own professional development goals aligned with the aspirations of the school. In terms of ICT the various abilities are regarded as important and surveyed from time to time. The survey may be used as a checklist of computer skills and associated practices for computer use in the classroom.

Skills and expertise are acquired through knowledge exchange among staff and pupils.

Current status

 * A focus on BBOSI People and creating a digitally independent community

Future prospects

 * Open Source - From Okahau to Otara
 * Trial the Pupil Cumulative Assessment Spreadsheet
 * Integrate it into Mahara ePortfolios
 * Create student exemplars linked to;
 * The NZ Curriculum
 * Open Standards materials
 * Share knowledge with a student trainee intern 2011
 * Kiwibuntu, Maoribuntu and Pacificabuntu

Lessons Learned
Libre software works for pupils, staff and community in terms of the quality of the software itself and the freedom to share and collaborate. The model is consistent with the aim of education: to share knowledge and produce productive citizens able and willing to contribute to society.

Deployment of free software solutions requires a certain amount of patience and perseverance at times, especially on older machines. The installation process takes time, and one has to learn how to configure the systems to meet specific requirements. The learning experience is ultimately very positive. The choices available, the ability to adapt systems to school needs and the freedom to enhance and share software with the community outweighs any advantages of pre-installed non-free operating systems and software.

Conclusion
Warrington School is an example of a school which has decided to adopt an open education and free software policy. Through transparency and a close relationship with the ministry of education it has been able to go ahead with a progressive educational philosophy and approach which strives for well-being, nurtures a sense of equality and a sustainability ethic. The ethics of Free software are consistent with this approach and its use has helped to reduce costs, make use of a variety of low spec. machines, minimise environmental impact and has enabled innovation in the classroom.

In these changing times, one might look forward to the pupils growing up to become progressive leaders with a strong sense of social justice, environmental ethics and the importance of freedom to enable society to participate and collaborate in solving future challenges.

Acknowledgements
The content for this case study is largely a repackaging of resources on WikiEducator about Warrington School. Nathan Parker, the school's Principal has been the visionary and primary contributor to those resources. Kim Tucker did some of the repackaging while working on Free Software Case Studies with the Free Technology Academy. Wayne Mackintosh introduced the parties and motivated for the inclusion of Warrington School as a great example of free software and open education in schools. He also contributed insights on open education and educational innovation in New Zealand.

External Links Etc.

 * Blog - Open Source Blag
 * Edtalk - eWaste
 * Ero report - Warrington School 18/02/2011
 * ERO report - Warrington School 04/11/2007
 * TV news - Gifting Open Source Computers
 * Software Could Save Millions
 * School switches to Linux, hopes to keep MS funds
 * School opts for free software