Open High is a school built entirely on open source

From the massive amount of technology in use to the curriculum, Open High is open source

By Source Seeker on Thu, 09/16/10 - 6:00pm.

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The term "open source" is being stretched pretty broad these days. Even the Tea Party wants a piece of it. But when a Utah high school named itself Open High, it deserved the moniker. Not only does the school rely heavily on open source technologies, but it is one of the first secondary education schools worldwide crafting an entirely open source curriculum to be shared freely with others. Meaning: you want to rip that page out of the textbook and give it someone else? Go on.

Because everything is open source, the school is eager to modify lessons to the individual student's needs, reports Mike Esser on Red Hat's OpenSource.com site. He blogs, "
Every student’s educational experience can be customized to best fit their needs, turning the one-size-fits-all, teach-to-the-middle education system on its head."

Open High School is a public charter school. After creating a boatload of open source educational materials, at the start of this school year, it released 10 semesters of creative commons licensed content at www.ocw.openhighschool.org.

As the parent of a high school kid, I think this video is inspiring. It's not just the influence of the open source technologies at Open High that I applaud, it is also how the concept of open source flavors the educational experience. Open source doesn't just mean sharing, it's about taking what you need, making it useful to yourself, and giving the raw stuff to others so they can do the same. It's a balance of giving/taking with plenty of self-reliance mixed in.

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