Software Suggestions for Elementary School Workstations? 114
krog asks: "I've recently signed a contract with a local middle school to replace their aged Apple /// cluster with a roomful of IBM Aptivas running Linux 7.3. Now surely I will be installing such ease-of-use tools as KDE3, Gnome, and screen, but I am looking for suggestions of other software to install. Anyone know of any good text editors/BASIC interpreters/shells/etc suitable for eight-year-old children?"
Re:Ms Word!! (Score:1)
Re:Ms Word!! (Score:4, Funny)
Yup. I'm with you. I can't begin to count the number of times that my eight year old has come to me in frustration because he can't input the maths he wants to using Word, his citations are completely fuxored and the o next to his W looks like it's a mile and a half away. Don't even get me started on his beefs concerning trying to get latin, cyrillic and kanji to display properly, neither of us has the time for that pandora's box.
Re:Ms Word!! (Score:1)
So you're saying either have 8 year olds use Emacs or have them use a program where they don't see what's going to be outputted?
For 8 year olds?
Give me a fucking break.
Re:Ms Word!! (Score:1)
What makes Emacs so much harder than Notepad? (Score:1)
So you're saying either have 8 year olds use Emacs
Problem where? How is Ctrl+W for cut, Alt+W for copy, Ctrl+Y for paste, Ctrl+X Ctrl+S for save, and Ctrl+S for find any harder to learn than Windows's shortcuts, other than they're not derived from the Macintosh brand UI standard?
Not BASIC (Score:3, Interesting)
Put something that won't damage them for life. Better than BASIC are:
-Logo
-Python
-one of those programmable robot fighting games where you write programs to control fighting robots.
-Even LISP would be better than BASIC
-Pascal
Re:Not BASIC (Score:1)
Re:Not BASIC (Score:5, Funny)
Damaging for life? really? (Score:2, Informative)
While you're at it, go to this forum [qb45.com] and try to explain to them how their favorite language reeks.
Here is a good version of BASIC that appears to be free. Requires Line numbers but is very interactive. i.e. It remembers variables that can be manipulated outside of a program. You can load a series of programs and GOTO a line number to continue with the same variable values, or just load 1 program with all your routines and GOTO them when you want them. Google Search for UBASIC [google.com] version 8.8 appears to be buggy but 8.74 is good.
Re:Damaging for life? really? (Score:1)
Re:Damaging for life? really? (Score:2)
Dijkstra hated not BASIC but GOTO (Score:4, Informative)
Are there really people out there who haven't heard of Dijkstra?
In his paper dissing goto statements [acm.org], Dijkstra didn't consider BASIC syntax harmful. He considered BASIC's distinctive "feature" at the time, namely overuse of goto, harmful. He considered languages without else, for, and while harmful. Guess what? Microsoft QBasic and most other semi-modern BASIC descendants have else, for, and while and rarely use goto.
Re:Not BASIC (Score:2, Funny)
Without BASIC, how else can you play fun pranks on the classroom TRS-80?
10 PRINT "MISS LIPPE SMELLS LIKE DOO ";
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Why not SmallTalk? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you read that too fast, read it again. He had 10 year olds writing programs used to make animation.
When I saw that it blew my mind. That's when I really realized that CS hasn't gone anywhere in decades. Hardware has gotten faster but programs haven't moved a Goddamn inch.
Re:Why not SmallTalk? (Score:1)
Yes BASIC (Score:1)
There just happens to be a boatload of example code for teaching that uses various primitive forms of BASIC.
My 11-year-old son found a book at the school library on programming adventure games that even DOS QBASIC was a bit too advanced for (QBASIC doesn't sort numbered statements). Ah, here it is: "How to Create Adventure Games" by Cristopher Lampton (long out of print). An excellent intro to programming, and a more fun result than many of the simpler programming tutorials.
For that matter, Inform [inform-fiction.org] would be great to have around at the middle-school level. It's got OO, it's got structure, sure it's got no techniques that can be applied to other software engineering, but the effort/fun ration is about as good as you can get.
My other son is a freshman in high school taking C++, and the students are all bummed they're not writing games. With Inform, you're gaming in a day or so.
Re:Yes BASIC (Score:1)
"Ah, here it is: "How to Create Adventure Games" by Cristopher Lampton (long out of print). An excellent intro to programming..."
I have taken the liberty of trimming your post, but you have pointed out the problem yourself. There is heaps of basic sample code buried in out of print books.
You need languages where there is extensive sample code available in current books or on the web.
Have you considered PHP? You can teach people with no background to do useful stuff in it very quickly.
When you were 8 you might have wanted to create a text adventure, but the 8 year olds of today will never have seen one. They want to create software that looks like software they use. GUI stuff is hard, but simple web stuff can be learned very quickly.
Linux/Red Hat (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand that "Red Hat" was implied there, but I still think that the not-so-minor distinction between one of the many Linux-using distros and the kernel itself should have been made, if not by the original story submitter, by the
Linux for 8 year olds (Score:2, Funny)
vi - With their small hands and weak retention, 8 year olds will never be able to master the keyboard spans that Emacs requires, nor memorize the lists of arcane commands.
Languages - You aren't seriously suggesting that the upcoming generation should use an interpreted language, are you? If so, say hello to 20 more years of code bloat. I think C (and definitely not the horror that is C++) would be the ideal astere first language for anyone, especially a young, impressionable mind.
Mathematica - There is no more suitable program for 8 year old math than mathematica. I mean, you installed Linux where they used to have Apple ]['s, right? So it sounds like you want to give them the big iron (heh, not THAT big iron). So don't try to give them "Blue Teaches Addition" or anything lame like that--go for the gusto and install the full professional version of Mathematica.
Re:Linux for 8 year olds (Score:1)
please no! (Score:4, Interesting)
vi - With their small hands and weak retention, 8 year olds will never be able to master the keyboard spans that Emacs requires, nor memorize the lists of arcane commands.
vi is a toy editor. It's cute, and handy for tight memory situations, but should be avoided by those wishing to get real work done. Emacs is much more feature-rich and robust, and is an industry standard. Its menus make those difficult-to-reach key commands unnecessary.
Languages - You aren't seriously suggesting that the upcoming generation should use an interpreted language, are you? If so, say hello to 20 more years of code bloat. I think C (and definitely not the horror that is C++) would be the ideal astere first language for anyone, especially a young, impressionable mind.
On the contrary, interpreted languages are a great way to learn programming without the complexity of Makefiles, command lines, objects, and debugging. I'd recommend the Mono [monolinux.com] project, which is a Linux port of Microsoft's C# language, as a good introduction to interpreted programming.
Mathematica - There is no more suitable program for 8 year old math than mathematica. I mean, you installed Linux where they used to have Apple ]['s, right? So it sounds like you want to give them the big iron (heh, not THAT big iron). So don't try to give them "Blue Teaches Addition" or anything lame like that--go for the gusto and install the full professional version of Mathematica.
Mathematica might help in college, but what about after graduation? Nobody in the Real World uses Mathematica. MatLab is the only sane choice here.
Mathematica vs. Matlab (Score:1)
And if the kids are supposed to learn how to code, give them a well-designed language, instead of that awful crap called Matlab. Say, LISP. Or Perl! And BASH.
Re:please no! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, emacs is available for every *nix, but vi is included with every *nix. So, which one is "industry standard", again?
Its menus make those difficult-to-reach key commands unnecessary.
vi has front-ends, too.
Re:please no! (Score:1)
For the love of good no (Score:1)
the flame-wars of legends
Re:Linux for 8 year olds (Score:1)
Re:Linux for 8 year olds (Score:1)
Please moderate this up as "Funny".
Thank you, and have a nice day.
Ease of use? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, I know what I'm talking about - I've been working in K12 IT for over 4 years now.
Re:Ease of use? (Score:2)
Then by now you should have learned that a district with an Apple III lab probably doesn't have the funding for a person with software specialization anymore than it has had funding for a new lab in the last 20 years.
Not trying to dig at you, just pointing out the context. That lab and your comment inhabit different districts I bet.
Re:Ease of use? (Score:2)
Re:Ease of use? (Score:2)
Re:Ease of use? (Score:2)
For instance, a spell checker. Or maybe just software to detect dyslexia.
VIM!! (Score:2, Funny)
Teach em vi (Score:3, Funny)
Linux 7.3!?? (Score:3, Funny)
That's one hell of an all-night coding session!
Re:Linux 7.3!?? (Score:2, Insightful)
I probably shouldn't be surprised as I used to work with a bunch of teachers who insisted that our MacIntosh computers in the lab were "CD-ROMS".
That said, my advice to the OP would be to make things as easy as possible for the kids to get a taste of computing and learn something usefule without scaring the teachers in the process. Teachers project their feelings to their students. If the teacher thinks something is too hard, the bulk of students will probably think so, too.
A few suggestions (Score:4, Insightful)
For an editor, you have a lot of choices. While there are the command line ones, I assume that you want something in X. My suggestions would be Kedit (a great notepad/wordpad replacement) or use something like Koffice/OpenOfficfe if you want something more like Word.
There seem to be at least a few [tucows.com] versions of BASIC for linux. You could also just run QBasic in DOSemu :)
As shells go, I think that bash is the easiest, but that's just me. It's the default anyway.
As for other things make sure to put on Konqueror/Mozilla/whatever for the web, and don't forget to put a few games on (XBill! XBILL!).
That should hopefully get you started. My only other suggestion would be to get a list of programs from the teachers that the students like/use (or just categories) and try to find versions/replacements for them. Or just wait untill someone asks for a program ("Mr. Teacher, I want a program to paint happy faces in") and find one.
That makes me think, I belive that the Debian Jr. project has quite a few good programs aimed at little kids. Debian Jr. is here [debian.org]
Why not Tex? (Score:2)
They are middle school students. From where I went to school, this means handing in typewritten papers. Nowadays, that means papers processed on computers for the most part.
So, we have the WYSI(sometimes)WYG word editors like Work 2k and Word XP, and we have LaTeX2e. In Word, I can spend hours fiddling with colors, fonts and the like, trying to get it to display the way I want it to display. In LaTeX, I can write out the report with just a few commands that will automagically create a TOC, Index, footnotes, and bibliography. LaTeX will handle the font sizes and layout for me, letting me concentrate on getting work done.
That being said, I'll admit that it won't fly. Unfortunately, LaTeX requires a bit of initial knowledge and study before the system works, and even if it might save people hundreds of hours of work down the road, they won't take the time now to learn it. Same with vi.
So give them OpenOffice.
I'm going to go back to my cave and gnaw on the bones of lusers now.
Re:Why not Tex? (Score:2)
Word can do TOC, indexes, footnotes, a bibiliography, themed font sizes, layout, et cetera as well. Maybe not as well as LaTeX can do it, but Word CAN do those things--and if you're spending more than fifteen minutes in applying any reasonable (i.e., something that you'd actually see in a book) formatting scheme, you're doing something horribly wrong.
The thing is, you have to use it properly, and if you want easy customization you're going to have to use styles... but wait, you use LaTeX, so you should be about to figure out something as simple as Word...
www.mvps.org/word for more info.
Word is $250 per seat (Score:1)
Word CAN do those things
Word is also expensive, to the tune of $250 per seat ($150 for Windows XP Professional in OEM packaging, and $100 for Works Suite, which includes Word). What makes Word worth the extra $7500 for a K-12 computer lab? Does it really take that much longer to teach kids how to do basic TeX than to teach kids how to do Word?
Re:Word is $250 per seat (Score:1)
That depends. If you want the kids to be able to go home and continue working with the material on their Windows PCs, then yes.
(La)Tex on Windows is a royal pain in the arse.
Feh. Use plain text formatting, all they really need. Fixed Width Forever! (Hey, I actually think fixed width looks better, heh)
TeX a pain in the? (Score:1)
(La)Tex on Windows is a royal pain in the arse.
Not if somebody makes a good TeX distribution for Windows.
Feh. Use plain text formatting
I actually do that. But unfortunately, it's very hard to get Notepad to word-wrap printed output correctly, so I just print .txt files from Wordpad.
Re:TeX a pain in the? (Score:1)
Not if somebody makes a good TeX distribution for Windows.
Astrophysics isn't very hard if you have a good teacher. . .
Doesn't mean it isn't a complex subject.
The key is that with the current status of (La)Tex on Windows, getting anything at all to work is not a very nice experience.
Though it just somehow seems "wrong" that a text document has to be compiled. . . . f-ed up some how I guess, heh.
transparent recompilation (Score:1)
Though it just somehow seems "wrong" that a text document has to be compiled
This can be handled transparently. Put two windows on the screen, a text editor and a LaTeX viewer. Whenever the user saves the document in the text editor, it would tell the LaTeX viewer to refresh the view of the document.
Re:transparent recompilation (Score:1)
Only a *nix user would ever think that is transparent.
Re:Word is $250 per seat (Score:1)
A school--especially one where money is tight--can almost certainly get Word for far, far less than $250, $150, or even $100. They could get a site license if they have enough PCs, or they could get an educational price in the neighborhood of $25 a copy.
Does it really take that much longer to teach kids how to do basic TeX than to teach kids how to do Word?
Unless high schools have gotten a lot more advanced, they're both wasted on K-12 students. Wordpad does all that the faculty can reasonably expect, and is relatively portable.
If they're going to be teaching real word processing, any commerical package would do. I don't believe that there's an easy solution for TeX that does mail-merges and styles, which Word does and most real-world word processors do as well.
Realistically, the lab should take whomever gives them the best offer, and that the teacher knows. Better to teach the children about word processors and how to learn them than to teach them any single word processor.
Word is the current king, but that doesn't mean that it always will be that way--or that the version used in six years will still be the one used today.
Re:Why not Tex? (Score:1)
Re:Why not Tex? (Score:1)
What sort of a piss poor school system are you in?
Granted I typed all of my papers just because it was quicker and easier then writting them, but in any decent schooling system, yes, written papers ARE expected from the third grade on up.
Re:Why not Tex? (Score:1)
Re:Why not Tex? (Score:1)
Lets see, in forth grade I remember having to some some rather irritatingly long reports for the time. Hmm. *shrugs* Third grade is kind of a blur. ^_^
I remember for a 4th or 5th grade report on Edison ripping the picture of the Wizard from The Bards Tale where the Wizard is zapping lighting between his hands and using that as my cover graphic.
"Wizard of Menlo Park". Get it? Well the teacher thought it was neat. . . . (this was before the days when type written papers where a requirement)
I agree that using TeX is overkill though. Honestly, I think I used some early version of Word. . . .
Computers should complment the curriculum (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Determining what apps to install should begin with finding out which ones best meet the need of the curriculum.
3. Unfortunately most open source apps are best suited for geeks like you and me than for children. Most apps designed for kids are also designed to run on MS platforms.
I myself just set up a multimedia lab for an elementary school. It consists of 16 IBM NetVista A21's, a SmartBoard (i.e a touch sensitive projection screen that acts as an input device), and a projector with a laptop.
Most of the teachers are familiar with MS Office and kid oriented software that run on an MS OS. I am trying to expose them to Open Source versions of the tools they use (i.e. OpenOffice, Mozilla, Opera, etc.). It's hard enough to get them to embrace these let alone a whole new OS.
My recomendation is to go slow. I have set up these machines as dual boot. Only a few people in the school know this. Introducing the entire school to Linux, GNU, et al. is going to take time.
Re:Computers should complment the curriculum (Score:1)
Re:Computers should complment the curriculum (Score:2)
Re:Computers should complment the curriculum (Score:2)
Opera?
Re:Computers should complment the curriculum (Score:1)
OK, I realized that Opera didn't belong in this list after I posted.
I'm surprised it took so long for someone to
notice and respond.
Software (Score:3, Insightful)
I would also think that keeping 'internet time wasters' like IRC and Instant Messangers off of these machines would be a plus. There's really no suitable classroom application tat I can think of anyway, besides distraction.
Always keep in mind that the teachers probably won't know what the hell is going on, so make sure the kids can do as little damage as possible.
=Smidge=
Use AIM to call home to get a ride (Score:2)
There's really no suitable classroom application tat I can think of anyway
What about using AOL® Instant Messenger to call home to get a ride, when the parents are online with dial-up and thus cannot take a POTS telephone call? That actually happened to my lab partner in a course we took last summer at the local tech college.
Python (Score:2)
Python is an excellent starting language.
Some folks I think have even written up some presentations to help teach Python to beginners.
Other than that, I think a web browser, an email client and LyX is probably about what you'll need.
Re:LyX? (Score:2)
You might be confusing LyX with TeX (LyX is the WYSIWYM front end to LaTeX). I use LyX for every paper, even when I don't need formatted equations. I've come to find it much better than a standard word processor in the WordStar lineage. The advanced stuff is a little trickier, but I found that the initial use was extraordinarily simple -- I could get off the ground in no time at all. I can visit the LyX tips and tricks page to get more advanced stuff, and now I'm slowly learning TeX as I need it, making me infinitely better prepared for serious studies in Grad school.
To teach the basics of programming, use an IDE (Score:2)
An alternative to teaching students to "program" is to teach them Html, and then move onto improving their pages using javascript or php. This will not really teach them solid concepts about programming though, although it may work out better in getting them interested in programming.
Go to k12ltsp.org (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Go to k12ltsp.org (Score:1)
Linux 7.3?! (Score:2)
Sigh (Score:2)
Turtle graphics. It's simple, and does something kids can appreciate. It is better at subroutines than most BASIC I have seen.
But really, if you knew why you had the computers there in the first place, you would have already answered your own questions. It seems someone wanted computers just to have computers.
But what about the games? (Score:1)
You're overlooking the biggest disadvantage of Linux...no good games! Just about the only software loaded on the computers we had in elementary school were games. Of course most everything we had on the Apples (IIe, IIc, II+) and the TRS-80 were educational titles, like Oregon Trail, Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?, and Microzine (a subscription, actually.)
Hmmm...now to check the emu scene for some of these...
KDE and Gnome? (Score:2)
just rember that theyre 8, and theyre not you, a rare few will even care what is running as long as it continues to do so. Dont shove your os politics down their throughts, just give them something that works and isnt complicated.
as for paper writing just use openoffice, i cannot even understand vi or emacs or whatever, nor am i willing to take the time to learn, because i alerady have a solution that works for me with OO.
and you may want to ask the teachers what they NEED and want. they will most likely give you genres and not specifics
Some sites of interest (Score:2, Informative)
Suel.org Home Page [seul.org]
Dmoz.org Linux: Projects: Education [dmoz.org]
tux4kids [tux4kids.org]
Keep it simple, stupid. (Score:1)
Text editors -- vi and emacs are both difficult for a novice to use; choose a simple graphical editor such as nedit, or for text-only based editing, use ee or pico. Let the kids concentrate on what they're writing, not on learning modes and metakey combinations.
Why are you doing this ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but classroom time, especially for third graders, is way too valuable to be wasted on computers. You're not going to find educational software on Linux that in any way replicates the software that they were using on their Apples, no teacher is going to want to spend class time teaching eight year olds about the tedious minutiae of futzing with shells and program invocation and KDE's ass-backwards menuing systems and the zillion other counter-intuitive tasks that dealing with computers entails -- to say nothing of learning it all themselves.
These systems will be gathering dust before the school year's out, in all likelihood. Now, that's not your fault, really, still less Linux's, but the situation is basically pointless. You might as well leave them in console for all the good that they'll do.
'jfb
Re:Why are you doing this ... (Score:1)
Please moderate this post as "Insightful".
Thank you.
What the... (Score:2)
Don't forget also that if you're doing K-5 a number of the kids won't be able to read, or at least read well. I would stay as far away from command prompts as possible. You can leave them in of course for the adventurous few children, but for god's sake go gui.
I'm sure many of us here from my age and around have fond memories of early apple ][ type games. Oregon trail! Number munchers! That crazy game where you did math and built space ships or something. Get good games like that and hope they will run on linux.
Make sure you have good easy to use art software (ie, not gimp) -- that can be easily used by kids to draw fun little pictures and maybe print them out. Paint brush in windows is perfect for this.
I don't recall writing too many papers in my elementary years, and certaintly NONE AT school, but I suppose it can't hurt. Another good idea imho would be to get a lot of bookmarks made for your browser, so that kids can go play flash games, read websites targeted for their age groups etc. I'm guessing you're putting no censorship software, but it seriously might be a good idea to block porn sites or something.
Programming languages are also pretty unimportant. A few kids will get em no doubt, but I'm guessing those kids will already have computers at home to play with.
Remember, short attention spans, things that can be done in a group good and are fun are good! Good luck finding linux software for most of this (might try wine for a lots of it).
What do the teachers want? (Score:2)
As others have mentioned, the software that is installed on these new systems needs to be consistent with what the teaching staff wants/needs to do. You can probably get a good idea about this by looking at what is currently installed on the old Apple systems. Then see if you can find anything close that will run on Linux.
Personally, I'll be really surprised if you find much Linix compatible software that is suitable for the mission of these computers. I'm currently running Win98SE on my kids' computer, because I have not found much educational software for Linix. To be fair I must mention that my kids are younger that the users of the systems that you're working on, but in this case I don't think that the difference matters.
Latest Version of (Redhat) Linux... (Score:1)
As far as software goes, go to Freshmeat.net and find the kid-friendly typing tutor, drawing programs, and even the Mr. Potato Head knock-off. This might make them more comfortable using the computer before the go programming device drivers in vi.
Oh yeah, and if its hooked up to the internet, don't forget some kind of content restriction such as: http://www.intrago.co.uk/products/censornet.php
No contest.. (Score:2)
Re:No contest.. (Score:1)
And this was in high-school! Sheesh..
first things first (Score:2)
step 1: download an apple ][ emulator
step 2: download oregon trail
Easy, get them addicted (Score:2)
Load ZORK! [malinche.net]
Worked on me.
How did you pull this one off? (Score:2)
seems dumb (Score:2)
8 year olds with Linux?
You must have gotten the contract based only on price.
The approval board didn't bother to think that there
would not be any software beyond the OS?
The kids would probably be happier with the
Apples.
Cruel and Unusual Punishment (Score:2)
They already know how to use computers, either at home, or at friends, and on much better hardware than your school district can afford.
Computers don't give kids a magic leg up on learning: see allianceforchildhood.net [allianceforchildhood.net] They just make people think they're "doing something".
FYI: I taught computers to Grades 4 to 6 for a few months, we all had a great time, and I didn't turn on the computers in the lab even once!. I spent the time TEACHING.
Debian Junior (Score:2)
See Debian Jr. [debian.org] for more information.
Starting points for K12 Linux... (Score:5, Informative)
Your first stop should be Here [k12linux.org]
Your second stop should be here [k12ltsp.org]
Your third stop should be here [schoolforge.net]
Your forth stop should be here [seul.org]
Your fifth stop should be here [opensourceschools.org]
Open Office would be my choice for an office suite (that or Star Office)
KDevelop is a decent enough development suite for use in a school, but with
this age group I would use this [ibm.com]
project
For a good teaching language This [mit.edu]
is a good place to start.
Hope this helps!
Linux for kids (Score:4, Interesting)
spelling? (Score:1)
This story is fake, right? (Score:1, Insightful)
I keep on getting the feeling that we've all been (Score:2, Insightful)
Would anyone please tell me how many
A) middle schools have 8 year olds
B) Aptivas (originally a home line since discontinued) could be sold... there's a possibility that they could have been donated, but then why not stay with OS/2 or the windows licenses with the computers?)
C) people consider screen an easy-to-learn tool (for someone who has X and doesn't use *IX for more than an hour at a time, much less that many times a year...)
Yep, it's a troll (Score:1)
for 8 year olds (Score:1)
Re:OH MY GOD (Score:1)
Please moderate this comment as "Informative".
Thank you.