I’ve just been browsing the new CoSN K-12 Open Technologies Leadership Initiative. The initiative is sponsored by Apple, IBM and the Wm. & Flora Hewlett Foundation to support the adoption and utilization of open technologies in K-12 education around the world.

I’m often asked at conferences and workshops if I can provide a link to sources of open source software for schools – and this looks like it could be a good starting place. From the front page:

The goal of this Web site is to help educators and technologists with the planning, evaluation, decision-making, and implementation processes associated with adopting Open Technologies in K-12. Initially, the site will focus on the fundamentals of the open technologies movement in education. Over time ??? with your help, we hope ??? the site???s content will grow in quantity, sophistication and direct relevance to you.

What I’d like to see developed over time are the discussion boards and sharing areas, where people in schools who have actually used and implemented these solutions can explain the process they went through and provide examples for others to learn from. I spent time looking through the lists of software in the resource links area – lots of good tools and applications to browse there – now it will be interesting to see how well the discussion forums develop to support this.