Beanbag

Open Source Schools is a recently relaunched website (http://opensourceschools.org.uk/) that evangelises the use of open source software in education.  I think this is important generally for education as an understanding of the free software available, with an honest assessment of its strengths and weaknesses, is important for everyone involved in education (teacher, pupil or parent).

The cost of software is often a barrier to use, particularly specialist tools, and the ability to download equivalent tools for free opens up opportunities to a much wider audience.  Many of the leading open source tools are now much more user friendly than they have been in the past and the learning curve to use them is much less steep than versions gone by (and the similarities with leading paid-for software as far as how to use the software are far greater these days so skills are interchangeable often).