CARIMAC Encourages use of Open Source programs
KINGSTON, Jamaica — June 18, 2008 — Yesterday’s release of Firefox 3 set a new record for the most downloads in a single day. Though it is one of the most popular open source applications, Firefox is just one of 100,000 such programmes listed on SourceForge.net.
David Bain, multimedia lecturer at the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication (CARIMAC), advocates the use of open source applications. “Many of the traditional proprietary tools that you add to your computer such as Word and PowerPoint now have very compelling open source alternatives such as those offered by OpenOffice.org,” he said.
Bain has long encouraged and practised the use of open source applications. Through his leadership in the past two years CARIMAC has begun to embrace applications such as Moodle, Plone, Blender, Audacity and FreeMind to support various offline and online activities. “More and more, we’re seeing that open source software is an excellent solution for many of our common tasks”.
In the 26th annual summer school programme at CARIMAC, Bain will focus exclusively on the use of open source software such as Blender and Plone that do for free what commercial, proprietary software such as Maya and Sharepoint do for thousands of dollars.
Bain plans to demonstrate the application, benefits and relevance of open source software in three special short courses to be held at CARIMAC this June and July.
The courses in Website Design, 3-D Animation Modeling and Character Animation will incorporate Plone and Blender respectively. All three courses are open to teenagers and adults, and require no experience in these particular areas.
- Website Design (June 30 to July 18): provides the basic skills needed to create a user-friendly design and integrate cost-free content management systems.
- 3-D Animation Modeling (July 17 to July 19): involves basic 3-D animation, interactive programming and modeling.
- Character Animation (July 21 to July 28): refines 3-D modeling skills and focuses on facial animation and lip syncing.
For more information, visit http://summerschool.carimac.com
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