I’ve spent years trying to bring open-source software into my community college classes, and it’s been a mixture of successes, failures, and challenges. I’ll share some of the early attempts, such as trying to run courses using Linux and scaring a few administrators in the process. How I was often told to teach a “real” language instead of PHP or Python, and how MySQL quietly became the workhorse of several of my courses. And now the MySQL class is one of the required classes for our new Bachelors of Data Analytics and Programming degree.
In this talk, I’ll walk through my history of promoting and using open source in the community college classroom, including some of the funny, and occasionally frustrating, conversations I’ve had with colleagues along the way. I’ll also look at how attitudes toward open source have changed over the years and share examples of how I use these tools in my courses today.
