Conclusion
Perhaps the most compelling avenue for future research is for members of academia to implement the ideas suggested here and see how they work in a real-world context. There are issues inherent in using F/OSS over proprietary software. One salient issue is the level of frustration students might experience if they are used to a particular piece of proprietary software. For example, setting OpenOffice.Org as the word processor of choice in a classroom where most students have used some iteration of Word has the potential to alienate those students who are accustomed to Word; they may wonder why they have to learn new software to perform tasks they can already perform. Although OpenOffice Writer and Word share many features, they are not clones of each other, and learning OpenOffice Writer may require some time and effort. I willfully disclose that I do use OpenOffice, and composed the initial draft of this paper using the OpenOffice suite; my preference is due to my level of comfort with the software, having used it primarily for over three years, and the knowledge that I am empowered to participate in the improvement of the software if I so choose. Because the act of openly preferring F/OSS can be political as well as practical, it is important to execute it with fairness and transparency. Students who are accustomed to proprietary software should have accommodations that allow them to turn in papers using that software. One way in which teachers can accommodate students using different software platforms is by accepting a wide variety of file formats. Word 2007 now opens .odt files, the native files of OpenOffice, and the latest version of OpenOffice can view .doc and .docx files, the native files of Word and Word 2007, respectively. Although these compatibilities are not perfect, their existence demonstrates that acceptable file formats need not be limited for simplicity's sake. Educators should take care to discuss their software preferences in ways that do not suggest that the preferred software is a requirement for class assignments. They might achieve this by concentrating discussion of the software on tutorials and objective knowledge, rather than comparisons to other programs or extended features discussion. Discussing software preference with regard to fairness and transparency can inspire students to engage the possibilities and implications of different types of software models.
Adult and non-traditional students make up a vital part of the higher education student body and their needs often differ drastically from those of students who have proceeded to college directly from high school. Further research could illuminate the knowledge base and needs of these groups and provide guidance on teaching them the digital literacy they need. Earlier, I mentioned that many students in composition classes will have grown up surrounded by the technology that older generations perceive as new and intimidating. Many adult students are part of these older generations and may need additional help demystifying the technology that is commonplace to younger students. This additional help might range from more hands-on effort with software to a complete crash course in computing, which might be necessary for those who have not achieved basic typing skills. How might a digitally-oriented composition class address issues relevant to empowering adult and non-traditional students? What is the limit to which digitally-oriented composition classes can serve students who have no computing background whatsoever? While many of these issues are outside the scope of my study here, further research could illuminate these issues and go farther in addressing the digital divide.
What is clear is that technology use and sophistication is increasing at such a rate that many students are in danger of falling into a position behind the technology curve from which their future emergence will be difficult. To keep students ahead of the technology curve and help them to negotiate increasingly complex problems, educators should embrace free and open source programs and use them in the classroom to transmit aspects of functional and critical literacy.
It is not my position that free/open source software and proprietary software must play a zero-sum game, with only one or the other able to function in a hypothetical future world, but rather that members of the educational community should place greater emphasis on free and open source software as a means of teaching digital literacy to students. I have illustrated that programs such as OpenOffice, GIMP, and Audacity, and teaching tools such as Scratch and Alice are not “cheap knockoffs” of proprietary programs and software suites, but are viable means of teaching digital literacy in their own right. The use of free and open source software to teach digital literacy helps bring down the barrier to entry for the digital playground that students need to be able to play in to learn the skills that will help them succeed. Open source is not merely a model of software development, but also a model of creative expression. Exploring what F/OSS has to offer to the composition classroom is a way to help students bridge the digital literacy gap.
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