Free software in education and free software education
Free software is vital for education, and free software education is vital for a free society. For this reason, my colleague Devin Ulibarri and I visited Everett High School (EHS) last week and talked with approximately sixty cybersecurity and robotics students about free software. It was thrilling to meet all these students and to learn what interests them. The teens asked us questions like "Is it safe to use free software?" "What are examples of GNU software that is widely used?" and "How can a high school student or someone who is just starting college get involved with free software projects?" A special thanks goes to cybersecurity teacher Neil Plotnick for the opportunity to present to his students, and we would like to extend a special thanks to all the teachers out there who educate their students about, or by using, free software.
We want to encourage you to go down to schools in your area and teach them how to use free software and why it's important, so we put all the teaching materials we created for the EHS classroom visit onto the LibrePlanet wiki so that you may download and use them for your own lesson or presentation on free software. No matter if you are a teacher looking for materials for your classroom, a student planning on showing fellow students what free software is all about, or a free software activist going on a classroom visit, you might find these materials useful. Additionally, you are most welcome to add any presentations, lesson plans, or handouts about free software you create yourself! We also set up a page for teaching volunteers, where you can add yourself if you are interested in teaching others about free software.