Kid's Software for Linux

Presented by Bill Kendrick

New Breed Software

bill@newbreedsoftware.com

Linux Users' Group of Davis meeting

December 2, 2003

Presentation Overview

Kinds of Kid's Software

Projects to create and promote Free and Open Source Kid's Software

Examples of Kid's Software for Linux
(and other Operating Systems!)

Linux Distributions for Kids

Kinds of Kid's Software

Entertainment

Video games

Games without educational value

Creativity

Painting

Music

Writing

'Edutainment'

Video games with educational value

Strictly Educational

Creativity Examples

Kid Pix

MusicAce

PrintShop

Applications which are more like fun tools,
rather than games with goals, levels and points

In real life, compare to: Crayons and paper, piano.

Video Game Examples

Pac-Man

Asteroids

Dig-Dug

Etc.

Beware of violent or adult-situation games, especially for popular video game consoles!

(Check ratings!)

In real life, compare to: Soccer, Hop-Scotch.

'Edutainment' Examples

Oregon Trail

Reader Rabbit

Tux Typing

Educational content meets video game interface

In real life, compare to: Crosswords.

Strictly Educational Examples

XPlanets

KStars

LOGO

GPeriodic

Not meant to be “fun” per se.

Not games, puzzles or toys.

In real life, compare to: Calculator, telescope.

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Tux4Kids

www.tux4kids.org

www.tux4kids.net

Develops and promotes 'edutainment' for various platforms, with Tux the Linux Penguin mascot

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

The KDE Edutainment Project

http://edu.kde.org/

Educational software for the K Desktop Env.

Primary focus is on schoolchildren aged 3 to 18

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Open Source Education Foundation (OSEF)

www.osef.org

Formed as non-profit to help Tucson AZ school

Designed “K12 Box” Linux-based PC system for school labs

Creates “Knoppix for Kids” bootable Linux CD

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Organization for Free Software in Education and Teaching

www.ofset.org

Goal is to promote the development of free software for the educational system and teaching

Rooted in France, but with founding members all over the world.

Creates “FreeDUC” bootable Linux CD

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Simple End User Linux / Educational (SEUL/edu)

http://www.seul.org/edu/

Dedicated to furthering the use of Linux and other open resources in education.

Covers all aspects of educational uses of Linux, by teachers, parents, and students.

Mailing list, software index, case studies...

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Schoolforge

www.schoolforge.net

Portal site (“foundry”) which unifies independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for primary and secondary education.

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Schoolforge News-Journal

www.opensourceschools.org

Slashdot-like news site for news on Open Source in schools

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Project Gutenberg

http://www.gutenberg.net

A repository of free electronic books (eBooks)

Started in 1971 by Michael Hart

He was given an operator's account with $100,000,000 of computer time the Materials Research Lab at the University of Illinois

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/

A project to create a complete and accurate free content encyclopedia.

Contains over 175,000 articles in English, plus articles in other languages

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

GOVIA is Ostensible Video, Imagery and Audio

http://govia.osef.org

An upcoming free (as in liberty) multimedia repository

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Debian Jr.

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/

An internal project to make Debian an OS that children of all ages will want to use

DebianEdu

http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianEdu

A project to improve Debian to make it the best distribution for educational use.

In a sense, collections of packages and task-packages.

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

K12Linux in Schools Project

www.k12os.org

Information, downloads and case studies on:

K12LTSP

www.k12ltsp.org

Linux Terminal Server Project (thin clients)

K12Linux

www.k12linux.org

Tutorials & guides for using Linux as a school server

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

Free Software in Education

http://www.gnu.org/education/

Free Software Foundation's (FSF) edu. promotion site

Includes software index

Projects to create Open Source Kid's Software

OpenWebSchool

http://www.openwebschool.de/index_en.html

Offers web-based “learning units” for students

Teachers can use and expand upon existing courses, in an Open Source fashion

Kid's Software for Linux

Tux Typing

http://tuxtype.sf.net/

Typing tutor from Tux4Kids

For Linux and Windows

Kid's Software for Linux

TuxMathScrabble

www.asymptopia.org

“Scrabble” style game, but with math formulas

Written in Python

Kid's Software for Linux

MathWar

webpages.charter.net/
stuffle/linux/software.html

Like the card game “War,” but with math operations

Kid's Software for Linux

Simultrans

www.simutrans.de

Economic and transport simulation game

For Linux, Windows & BeOS

Kid's Software for Linux

Senken

www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/
~tmartin/senken/

Buy the land, build the infrastructure, balance the books, and convince people to move in.

Has both goal-oriented and “just play” modes.

Kid's Software for Linux

KStars

http://edu.kde.org/kstars/

Graphical simulation of night sky

Includes over 125,000 stars,
13,000 deep-sky objects,
the planets, and thousands of comets and asteroids

KStars can control motorized telescopes!

KStars is scriptable via DCOP, and includes a script building tool

Kid's Software for Linux

3D Planetarium

http://3dplanetarium.seul.org/

Real-time animated solar system

Like a virtual telescope

Uses MesaGL and FLTK

For Linux, and soon Windows

Kid's Software for Linux

Celestia

www.shatters.net/celestia/

Similar to 3D Planetarium

Doesn't limit you to viewing from Earth

(More like a virtual space ship, than a virtual telescope)

For Linux, Windows and
Mac OS X

Kid's Software for Linux

Squeak

www.squeak.org

A highly-portable Smalltalk-80 implementation

Its virtual machine is written entirely in Smalltalk

Includes sound, music, graphics, network capabilities

Developed at Apple in 1996

www.squeakland.org

Lots of games & educational software written in Squeak

Kid's Software for Linux

GCompris

www.ofset.org/gcompris

Full featured educational application with various activities for children 3 to 10

Plug-in based; adding new features is easy

For Linux and Mac OS X

In french GCompris is pronounced

"j'ai compris" and means “I Have Understood”

Kid's Software for Linux

Childsplay

http://childsplay.sf.net

Similar to Gcompris

Based on Python and SDL

Also plug-in based

Kid's Software for Linux

PyTrail

sourceforge.net/projects/pytrail/

Based on “Oregon Trail”

Uses Python & PyGame

Development seems stalled!
(Why don't we help!?)

?

Kid's Software for Linux

Tux Paint

www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxpaint

Drawing/painting geared towards young kids

Translated to 30+ languages

Runs on Linux, BSD, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS

(How could I not mention it!?)

Kid's / Educational Linux Distros

Knoppix for Kids

http://www.osef.org/k4kids-mirrors.html

Knoppix with non-kid-friendly software removed/hidden

Mostly meant as a demo of Linux for parents and teachers, not as a Linux distro. for kids.

Kid's / Educational Linux Distros

FreeDUC

http://www.ofset.org/freeduc-cd/

Another Knoppix-based live Linux CD

Created by OFSET

Focused on schools

Kid's / Educational Linux Distros

Hailstorm BlueLinux

www.bluelinux.org

An installable Linux distro. focused on education

Seems to have stalled since May 2002!

Conclusion

Tons of organizations, projects and websites exist.

More and more software is being created.

Now is a perfect time to start examining Free & Open Source for

schools and children...

...especially since most of it is being made available for non-Free

operating systems (Windows and Mac)

Once critical mass is acheived, switching to a completely Open Source solution (Linux operating system) will be completely viable!

2003-11-30T01:05:53