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GNU Project renews focus on free software in education

By SD Times Newswire

January 30, 2012 — (Page 1 of 2)
The GNU Project today announced the relaunch of its worldwide volunteer-led effort to bring free software to educational institutions of all levels.

The new effort is based at http://www.gnu.org/education.

The newly formed GNU Education Team is being led by Dora Scilipoti, an Italian free software activist and teacher. Under her leadership, the Team has developed a list of specific goals to guide their work:
• Present cases of educational institutions around the world who are successfully using and teaching free software.
• Show examples of how free programs are being used by educational institutions to improve the learning and teaching processes.
• Publish articles on the various aspects involved in the use of free software by educational institutions.
• Maintain a dialogue with teachers, students and administrators of educational institutions to listen to their difficulties and provide support.
• Keep in contact with other groups around the world committed to the promotion of free software in education.

GNU and its host organization, the Free Software Foundation (FSF), emphasize that free software principles are a prerequisite for any educational environment that uses computers:

Educational institutions of all levels should use and teach free software because it is the only software that allows them to accomplish their essential missions: to disseminate human knowledge and to prepare students to be good members of their community. The source code and the methods of free software are part of human knowledge. On the contrary, proprietary software is secret, restricted knowledge, which is the opposite of the mission of educational institutions. Free software supports education, proprietary software forbids education.

In an article at http://fsf.org/blogs/community/gnu-education-website-relaunch, Scilipoti adds insights about the project's organizing philosophy, current contributors, and progress so far. Of her basic motivation for being involved, she says, "As a free software advocate and a teacher, I always felt that the GNU Project needed to address the subject specifically and in depth, for it is in the education field that its ethical principles find the most fertile ground for achieving the goal of building a better society."

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