Kids Educational Programs

[Dan Jenkins]

sean wrote:
> The school district has just setup Linux here at the local school, 
> Edubuntu was the flavor of choice.
>
> A few educational programs are in place for the kids and I am trying to 
> find recommendations for others to try to display to the teachers what 
> this setup can do for them.
> The school is K-5, so that might help with your responses.
>
> Some currently installed kids programs include GCompris, Tux Paint, 
> Childsplay, and part of the KDE Edutainment package. I have already 
> asked the district to install the complete KDE package.
>
> So what other valuable suggestion might some of you have here?
>   
In our experience:
TuxType
TuxMath
OpenOffice (possibly set to save as MS Word/Excel by default - subject 
to debate)
OpenClipArt (or equivalent)
OpenOffice Guides/Tutorials (there are several)
Scribus (for the 4th/5th grades)
Inkscape (for the 4th/5th grades)
Celestia / Stellarium (didn't really see these get much use though)

A couple we didn't get in use, but did sound interesting:
TuxWordSmith (if they do foreign languages)
TuxMathScrabble
Crossword Builder

A Wiki can be good (or bad, if either poorly supported or due to lack of 
interest). One for kids and one for teachers. At one place, we are 
trying to get traction going by getting them to implement their kids 
portfolio in a Wiki, rather than just folders. Possibly with a spot for 
kids blogging too. Moodle can be great, though we are still getting our 
feet wet with that.

If teachers are to use these, and the school has applications for 
attendance, grading, lunch count, etc., making these accessible to the 
teachers from Linux can be a very good thing, as we discussed push back 
in one situtation where they needed to have Windows systems for the 
applications in addition to the Linux systems.

Good luck.

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
*** Technical Support Excellence for over a Quarter Century