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GPL Edutainment Software
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Apr 25, 2008 06:34 PM
from the number-munchers-2k8 dept.
from the number-munchers-2k8 dept.
haxot writes "I'm the technologist at a local library. In our lab, I've managed to get some recognition for tools such as GIMP and Open Office, and even such toys as Bomberman and BZFlag. Now I'm turning towards the children's computers, which are mostly filled with ancient, buggy, rather boring games that try to be interactive TV shows rather than something entertaining. I'm looking for good OSS games and education suites (preferably multi-platform — I want to be ready for an OS switch to Linux). I'm not picky about the license; I'd just like the software to actually have that 'neat' appeal. Some examples I've found already are Gcompris and Tux Paint. My focus is the 2-year-old to 8-year-old range, but I'm happy to hear teen-oriented suggestions too. Since it's a public library, however, I can't have any software on the computers that is risqué, gory, or violent."
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Media production for Linux (And OSX, And Windows) (Score:5, Informative)
Pencil, A traditional 2D Animation Software (Linux, OS X, Windows - GPL)
http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/ [les-stooges.org]
Newly discovered by me, simple, fun, and effective.
Blender, A 3D content creation suite (Linux, OS X, Windows - GPL)
http://www.blender.org/ [blender.org]
You can do video compositing, and sound, and a whole lot more.
Renoise, A music program based based on the design principles of the module tracker (Linux, OS X, Windows - Shareware)
http://www.renoise.com/ [renoise.com]
Love this app, very educational for anyone who wants to learn from the ground up. Optionally there's the less powerful MilkyTracker [milkytracker.net] which is GPL
Audacity, software for recording and editing sound (Linux, OS X, Windows - GPL)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
A sound editing workhorse.
Processing, a programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions (Linux, OS X, Windows - GPL)
http://processing.org/ [processing.org]
Probably for the gifted class, a very results oriented way to learn programming
Re:Media production for Linux (And OSX, And Window (Score:5, Funny)
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Edutainment - games (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.food-force.com/ [food-force.com] Made by the U.N. Free, MacOS X or Windows. (sorry no Linux afaik) Probably the best one in my list for the 6-8 years old.
http://www.tqworld.com/ [tqworld.com] - Tranquility. After years and years, this game has something no other game offers. Well suited for the youngsters. Free, but not open source.
http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/ [stopdisastersgame.org] U.N. too. Free and web-based. Excellent. Probably best for 8 years old (older ones of your range). Surprisingly informative.
http://www.stepmania.com/ [stepmania.com] Not sure that ones counts as edutainment, but it sure is good for the children! Open source and available for all platforms.
http://www.openttd.org/ [openttd.org] A railroad tycoon open source clone (gosh I'm getting old
For the curious ones, here's the other worthy (subjective) open source games I discovered with time. http://del.icio.us/Satri/game+opensource [del.icio.us]
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3D CAD (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Media production for Linux (And OSX, And Window (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Media production for Linux (And OSX, And Window (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Media production for Linux (And OSX, And Window (Score:4, Informative)
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Mindrover (Score:5, Informative)
There's a demo available online, I recommend at least trying it out: http://www.mindrover.com/ [mindrover.com]
Oh, and there's a Linux version too.
Take a look at MIT Scratch (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone else laugh at the last two sentences? (Score:5, Funny)
No gore, cuz it is a public library. Otherwise it'd be cool for the 2-8 year olds.
Going back to my youth (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer, I haven't actually tried the software in the links above.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
educational games suck (Score:4, Insightful)
There's just no motivation to be fun. Speaking from a proprietary standpoint, what factors does an educator look for when deciding which games to purchase? Cost and what the learning topics are. "Here's a game that teaches multiplication and is $10 cheaper than all the others." Fun doesn't fit into the equation. And it's not like many educators are test-driving these games either. Oh, and these are typically poorly written games too.
My point being, the educational games sector is filled with poorly made products that feature very little fun and are a pain to administer. Hopefully some open source options don't suffer from the same issues. Hopefully you'll be able to sort through the crap and find some good ones though.
Dope Wars (Score:5, Funny)
Physics and Software (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.vrlab.umu.se/research/phun/ [vrlab.umu.se]
Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.
http://www.alice.org/ [alice.org]
OpenDisc and OpenEducationDisc (Score:5, Informative)
KDE4 Education and Games (Score:4, Informative)
Edubuntu? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.edubuntu.org/UsingEdubuntu [edubuntu.org]
My daughter is 3-1/2 and loves the stuff on Linux. She was typing her name on TuxPaint before she turned three but we had to click on the icons for her to set it to text or other modes since the mouse was too big and unwieldy.
So I bought her a laptop mouse which is perfect for her small hand. Big mistake. She will now sneak into the computer and start up "Paint Penguins" (TuxPaint), draw something, print it and come show us.
If she's bored with that she plays "Running Penguins" (SuperTux) or "Bubble Penguins" (Frozen Bubbles) or steals my Blackberry to show where Nana lives on Google Maps.
If she finds my bank-account numbers I'm in trouble. But seriously, Linux has plenty of edutainment software available and Edubuntu packages it in one place. It it also designed for classroom (and therefore, I suppose, library) use with features like centralized-management (LTSP) and such.
For astronomy (Score:4, Informative)
Just get KDE (Score:4, Informative)
You don't really need individual suggestions, as most of the decent open-source educational programs out there are part of KDE. The latest version of KDE will hopefully be installable on Windows this year.
Just install the full package, and you'll have stuff like KLatin and KVerbos for learning languages, as well as star-gazing software, plus KTurtle, KTouch and a load more.
Edutainment? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please enough already - no more of this Hollywood style, flashy, 'make believe' stuff with specious vocabulary. There is a certain spark in the Human psyche that gets lit whenever a person truly gains comprehension or insight into something they did not know before. Especially with Children, in my humble opinion, what's need is to light that little flame. 'Edutainment' makes it seem like it's a bitter pill that must be sugar coated with oodles of artificial sweeteners to be palatable.
I say, leave them kids alone. Let them discover the joys of the Earth without the myopic view of Google Earth and look for the Stars in the night sky
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Re:hahaha (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Lemonade Stand (Score:5, Funny)
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