Always worth thinking about what “free” means. I think there is something in the idea of teachers exploring software, finding possibilities, testing & playing with pupils and evaluating. As opposed to using software designed for education by big tech.
You really should follow Ben. Reading his research strongly influenced the way I currently about EdTech. Quick adoption of new ‘free’ tools can be a dangerous path to tread. I have been guilty of this in the past. Beware of shiny digital buttons!
An inevitability of budgets? In the same way teacher time is not costed and seen as free so software that improves productivity not bought or upgraded, in my case Office 2012 or no easy cloud
Technician spends 5 hours making something that costs £10 to buy for another.
Teacher time is viewed as perpetually elastic. When they break, the shoulders shrug because the calculation is “This proves we challenged them!”
Very good point. ‘Free’ is undoubtably a broad spectrum where digital learning is concerned
Definitely part of it. But I think it’s also the culture of these digital tools. Free to use for teachers. And they offer and promise a lot. But, ethically, this is incredibly problematic. Says the man currently tweeting on an iPhone! Feels like there was more open source before
Personally I like open source & I like paying for software (hopefully I pay for FOSS by using, bug reporting & sharing). I’ve no problem tweeting from an iPhone I paid for. More problematic Is how I “pay for” twitter.
Swings and roundabouts, eh! I made the decision to buy my iPhone based on the fact that I’d invested in it for over a decade. Yet I also know Apple has used juvenile labour in China to make parts for it. And yet I still have one. So am I morally lazy or a victim of the market?