IT@School GNU/Linux 18.04 - Kerala model of open source education
The Kerala State of India has done an excellent work by including open-source education in their curriculum. From 2006, the state is propagating the idea of open source technologies, by replacing many of the proprietary software used in public service sectors. This includes ORUMA Software used by state electricity board, free software migration in Khadi Board, and also the use of free software for IT operations of Kerala Legislative Assembly.
Open Source in Education
Kerala Govt. Education curriculum includes computer education from the primary school itself. From the beginning itself, students are taught the idea of free software and the need for it. Also, the curriculum teaches the use of open-source software for performing day-to-day activities such as painting, listening to music, watching movies, browsing the internet, preparing office documents ..etc. On 10th standard, students are also taken to the world of programming with the python scripting language.
The evolution of IT@Schoo GNU/Linux
The idea of developing a custom GNU/Linux distribution was evolved in mid of the 2000s. This concept became a reality in 2006 when the first version of IT@School GNU/Linux was released. This was based on Debian and included a set of applications for education. It was developed in collaboration with a private agency. Later, the IT@School wing of Kerala Education Department took control over this.
In 2008, the first batch completed their 10th standard IT practical, public exam in GNU/Linux. Later, there were multiple releases of IT@School with Ubuntu LTS base. The latest one in this series is IT@School 18.04.
Following section showcases some screenshots captured in IT@School 18.04
01 IT@School 18.04 Desktop
02 Application Menu
03 Places Menu
04 Nautilus File Manager
05 Terminal Emulator
06 Firefox Browser
07 GPeriodic
08 Xournal Note taking app
09 PySIO Game
10 JFraction Lab
11 Theeram Dictionary
12 Geography Learning assistant
13 KStars
14 TurtleBlocks - Interactive programming
15 Scratch Interactive programming
16 Timetable Generator
17 Avogadro - Modelling
18 Marble Virtual Globe
19 IT at School Guide
20 The Underlying System
21 Control Center
22 Backgrounds
23 System Menu
24 Shutdown confirmation