The JEDI courseware comes in two formats, PDF and OpenOffice.org.  The OpenOffice.org file format is very important because it allows teachers to freely modify the educational slides.  Although the courseware is free, individual modifications are encouraged to be plowed back into the project for possible integration to the courseware.  As it is, the JEDI courseware is no longer the sole contribution of faculty members and graduates of the University of the Philippines--it has received substantial input from other JEDI faculty members as well.  Right now, our top ten contributors are: Ms. Malou Camba, Ms. Kaye Ricamora, Ms. Larmie Santos-Feliscuzo, Ms. Cristy Nerves Logarta, Ms. Cherry Sta. Romana, Mr. Gilmore Baldevarona, Ms. Janice Guzman, Mr. Mark Anthony Gamboa, Mr. Joel Luces and Mr. Ramil Lumauag.
 
JEDI courseware is now essentially community-developed courseware but it has maintained its free nature.  The purely voluntary membership to the JEDI program is by institution only; so if you are a faculty member of a college or university, tell your dean to get in touch with JEDI's Ms. Hazel Cainglet ( jedi@sun.com.ph ) right away so she can give a list of all the documents needed by a school to be a JEDI member.
 
Why OpenOffice.org? Apart from the obvious reason that JEDI teaches Java (developed mainly by Sun Microsystems--a major contributor to the OpenOffice.org code base), OpenOffice.org is free.  Providing free courseware to everyone but requiring potential students to buy proprietary software before the course can be taught, used or modified simply does not make sense.   Besides, you can use any application that uses the OASIS OpenDocument format to view and/or edit the JEDI materials.
 
The full office suite from OpenOffice.org is ideal for education.  It provides all the basic functionalities needed for managing a class and more.  OpenOffice.org Writer is the word processor.  Thesis, reports, essays, exam questionnaires, etc. can easily be written using OpenOffice.org Writer.  How many students and faculty members use macros provided by your word processor?  I use Writer to edit documents together with my colleagues, but I use the rather cryptic LaTeX for my own documents.
 
In addition, you also get OpenOffice.org Calc, a full-feature spreadsheet program.  I use Calc to manage the grades of my students in UP.  Calc charts and graphs can easily be exported to Writer and/or the presentation software, Impress.
 
OpenOffice.org Impress provides features sufficient for delivering a class lecture or a conference presentation.  If you wish to upload your presentation on the Web, including the transitions, you can do so by saving the presentation as a Flash application.  Yes, the application is built-in.  Neat, huh?  I wish I can say that I use Impress for my presentations but I don't because I prefer using Apple's Keynote (hey! I'm an Apple Distinguished Educator, too!).  If you are using a Mac and can afford iWork, then get Keynote.  If not, go for OpenOffice.org.
 
Other OpenOffice.org applications bundled with the office suite are OpenOffice.org Math, Draw and Base.  OpenOffice.org Math provides a powerful tool that supports the creation of complex mathematical equations and formulae for your documents.  I am no mathematician so I do not use this application.  Besides, LaTeX does it for me.
 
OpenOffice.org Draw gives you a tool to create 2D and 3D graphic objects.  It also manages your clip-arts, diagrams (flowcharts, organization charts, network diagrams, etc.) as well as graphics from popular file formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and WMF.
 
Last, but not the least, of the OpenOffice.org packages is OpenOffice.org Base.  Openoffice.org Base is a basic database back-end for your application.  This allows full database integration with your reports done using Writer, or your computation done using Calc.  Query is done using the industry standard SQL.  Base also includes a Report Wizard and a Form Wizard, in addition to supporting more powerful database engines such as MySQL and Adabas D.
 
To summarize, OpenOffice.org Writer is to Microsoft Word, Calc is to  Excel, Impress is to Powerpoint, Base is to Access, Draw is to MS Paint, Math is to MS Word Math Equation editor (I think).
 
You might have heard Microsoft say that OpenOffice.org is "10 years behind" Microsoft's Office suite.  This is difficult to admit, but it is true.  The question, though, is this: what does that 10-year advantage give you besides additional features that you do not really use and the associated upgrade costs (unless you pirate it, you little devil you! hehe)?  How many teachers and students can live with the functionality provided by MS Office version 3.0 that was released in 1992?  How many teachers and students use Office 2003's tight integration with their InfoPath software?  Answer these questions and then see if OpenOffice.org's office suite is for you.
 
Incidentally, the OpenOffice.org office suite is bundled in the JEDI courseware CDs, as well as in the OpenSource CD distributed by the Philippine Open Source Initiative project (POSITIVE http:// positive.ph), and the office of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) Commissioner Emmanuel Lallana, PhD.  And for a more complete suite of open source solutions for education check out Edubuntu (http://www.edubuntu.org).
 
If you have questions on how to fully maximize Open Source tools for your school, visit my Website at http://rom.feria.name and leave a note there or on my blog.