Linux in education...

[Frederick Noronha <fred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

LINK: Linux programs for schools 
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SOME USEFUL LINUX SOFTWARE PROGRAMMES FOR USE IN SCHOOLS.
LIST COMPILED BY Frederick Noronha, INDIA LINUX USERS GROUP-GOA
WITH ASSISTANCE FROM VARIOUS SITES ON THE NET (SOURCES BELOW)
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Useful sites:            
http://www.linuxforkids.com  (Excellent links)
Educational software CD for US$5 approx
http://www.openclassroom.org

FROM www.freshmeat.net
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k12admin-client: Web-based server administration tool for K-12 school
systems (client package)

k12admin-server: A web-based server administration tool for K-12 school
systems (server package)

Authenticated User Community: CGI-based intranet system intended for K-12
settings

Interactive Geometry Software (like Geometers' Sketchpad or Cabri)

daVinci: X-Window visualization tool for drawing directed graphs
automatically

Linux as a mean to protect our environment.

Free Physics: An educational physics simulator.

GCompris: An educational simple game to learn the mouse and keyboard.

Homework Reporting System: A PHP/MySQL-driven educational application for
Web-based homework reporting.

Kard: An educational game for very young children.

Linux Letters and Numbers:  Educational Childrens Game for Linux

Nightfall: Eclipsing binary star program

OpenClassroom: Linux distribution for the Educational market.

Retro: Educational electronic hardware design tool.

Active Guardian: Server based web content filter

DayDream BBS: Old school pce/pcb-style BBS software.

Harvey: Publishing groupware for schools (discussions, webpages, photos).

Homework Reporting System: A PHP/MySQL-driven educational application for
Web-based homework reporting. 

PingoS Schulbuchmanager: Program to manage stock and loaning of school books

Red Escolar Linux: Modified Red Hat for GNU/Linux schools in Mexico.  Red
Escolar Linux is a CD of Free Software [probably in Spanish], with ready
applications, services and configurations for the Red Escolar school servers
and workstations in all of Mexico. A framework for anyone interested in massive
computer lab installations. Assembled from the Red Hat Linux distribution and
many other projects.
Download:  http://redesc.linux.org.mx/iso/ (186 hits)
Homepage:  http://redesc.linux.org.mx/ (1009 hits)
Changelog: http://redesc.linux.org.mx/report/5.html (25 hits)

Student Anecdotal Reporting System:  A PHP/MySQL system to allow schools to
track student progress with teacher comments.

uspell: A spelling tester/teacher for elementary school.

First_math: Simple math quiz game
First_math is the first creation we release.  It's a little math quiz game of
one digit additions with multiple choice answers. 
Requires Gtk. This is a work in progress.

GCompris: An educational simple game to learn the mouse and keyboard.

Kiddie Script: A novelty binary to ASCII encoder/decoder.

MathWar: A flashcard math game for kids.

matritsa: A board game for kids

TutorShooter: An educational game for kids.

xjigmgr: Jigsaw puzzle game front-end.


FROM www.linuxforkids.com
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Addpsx  is a really nice random worksheet generator for calculations with one
to four digits. Generates postscript output. Requires perl.

Math Literature  is a math quiz game with seven different levels. It goes
from 2+4 to 564/189. Enough for all ages, 2 to 8 according to the author.
Requires GTK+ 1.2.

Anton is a very challenging  math games. From the author: Anton is an
arithmetical game. Combine six random numbers with basic operators (+,-,*,/) to
come to a three digit target number. It has a graphical user interface written
with the fltk library, and the program solves the problem itself too, to
present the best solution.. 

Groundhog is  a maze game, where you rotate the tiles of the maze to try to
make the little colored balls go back in their respective colored cups. A lot
harder that it seems. 

Codebreaker is a Mastermind  clone. The computer picks 4 colors at random,
and you must find those 4 colors and their positions in less than 10 turns.
The difficulty levels change the number of possible colors (6, 7 or 8). Really
great to get those brain cells working !   Update Sept 2000: The link above
was changed, You can get the tar file from our ftp site. (Requires Gtk+).

Cinderella is a commercial  software that runs on multiple platform,
including Linux. It is an "interactive geometry software". You can use it for
Theorem demonstration, light reflection observation, prism effect theory, etc.
The individual license is $55, a 30 seats license is $150. Could be useful in
a classroom environment, and for older children.

Linux Letters and numbers From the web site:  "It is intended for children 2
and up, and is a fun learning game. It helps younger children learn their
letters and numbers, while older children will improve their spelling, and
vocabulary skills. It also helps them develop important keyboard and mouse
skills too. "  

Matritsa is a board game for children.

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EDUCATIONAL SPELLING SOFTWARE
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Review sent by Lalo Martins for the game Gcompris (June 28,2000).

I just downloaded this  great game, gcompris http://gcompris.sourceforge.net
and now I have to bring my kids here to play it. It's one of those simple,
silly things that catches kids from 3 on. I started playing it to test it, and
when I realized, I was on level 32 and had to pause it to send this message.
Of course older kids (us, who those who know no better would mistakenly call
"grown-ups") will get tired of it soon, but before that you'll have played a
lot. The premise is really simple, probably based on PalmOS(TM)'s Giraffe
game; a lot of animal pics fall from the top of the window to the bottom, and
you have to click on them, in the odd levels. After you click some animals you
proceed to the next level. On the even levels there are letters instead of
animals and you have to type the letter (caps lock on).  All of you who
actually have kids probably realized by now they could spend hours doing this.
But the catch for "older kids" is: with each level, stuff falls faster. After
you reach level 30 or something it gets challenging enough even for a hardcore
tetris player. The best thing is, this is version 0.2, and the game has a nice
API to add new level types. By 1.0 it will probably be an even cooler game. 
Download it. Play it. All kids in the house will enjoy it, including older
ones. Kudos to the author.

Sam Hart wrote a couple  of days ago to tell us about his new game: TuxType.
This is a typing tutor similar to typist or typespeed, where you have to press
the key for the falling lettter before it reaches the ground. 

Nineword is a new game, where you have to create  words of 4 or more letters
from a group of nine. There is always a 9 letters word possible. Require Gtk+.

Typist, as described  by Freshmeat: Typist is a typing tutor package built
using Curses. The package contains a number of tutorials, drills and practice
sessions to help with mastering touch typing on the standard computer
keyboard. The accent is on the US keyboard layout, but the lessons may also be
useful with other layouts. A Dvorak lesson set is included. There are lessons
for the Dvorak and Qwerty keyboards. with small and big caps, and some speed
tests as well. The tarball extracts in the current directory, and is actually
a set of more tarballs for binaries, source, lessons, and man page

Typespeed is a neat little program that  has words moving across the screen.
It calculates your cps and tells you how good you are doing. You can pick
general English words, or Unix commands word

for Gnerudite, a scrabble clone for  Gnome. Only one player so far, but it
is playable. Comes with a dictionary, different background scenes. Counts
points automatically, and you can return some or all your tiles and get new
ones if you're stuck. Among the things in the works: saving a game to be
finished later, and giving hints.

Linux Letters and numbers  From the web site: "It is intended for children 2
and up, and is a fun learning game. It helps younger children learn their
letters and numbers, while older children will improve their spelling, and
vocabulary skills. It also helps them develop important keyboard and mouse
skills too.". Clicking on a letter or a number brings up a picture of
something starting with that letter.  Update February 22, 2000: The game now
uses .wav file for sound to go with each pictures. Parents can add their own
too.

LFK's review: A nice game to  learn your alphabet. Every time you press a
letter or a number, a new window pops up with an image. The game picks the
pictures from a predefined location. The pictures are associated simply by the
first letter of their names. For example Apples.png and Ants.png for the
letter A. You can add your own pictures. (Use The Gimp for that). If there is
more than one picture with the matching initial letter, one of them is picked
at random. Filenames start with a digit for the numbers pictures.

xletters Type the words on  the keyboard as they fall down the screen, and
before they reach the bottom. (Scroll down the linked page to get to xletters)

Across is a program to generate your own crosswords puzzles.

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FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING SOFTWARE
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Qvocab is a program to help you learn your  foreign vocabulary. You can
download words file from the author's site or create your own. Uses MySQL if
you have it, but not required. The program has five levels of progression.
Wrds that you know well move down, while words that give you problem move up,
so you can work on the ones you really need to. Requires Qt, and Qt-devel to
build.

Japanese WordMage  is a Japanese and multilingual word processor, HTML
editor, and Kanji dictionary. Comes with the Kanji fonts, so you don't need to
install anything special. Commercial software, the full license is $79, free
demos are available on the web site.

Lingoteach is a new tool to learn a foreign language.  It is an early release
(hence the B rating), but already has support for a dozen languages. Right
now, it can only teach a few common phrases such as "How are you" and "Excuse
me", but the structure is such that thousands of entries are possible. It runs
on Java. If you have RedHat, You can get the kaffe package that came with it,
otherwise you can get it from blackdown.org or from Sun. Looks very promising.

Compjugador is a Spanish verb conjugator.  Runs on the console or with Gnome.
We tried the Gnome version, and it seems to work fine (at least for the
Spanish verbs that we know !). Note: make sure you have the gnome-libs-devel.
package installed.

Correcteur is a french grammar checker.  The web site is in French, and the
software is shareware, with a CA$20 registration fee. 

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SCIENCE
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gTempConv is a is a little perl/gtk  temperature converter (Celsius,
Fahreneit, Rankin, Kelvin and Reaumur). Requires Perl and Gtk.

Atomix is a little mind game  where you have to create molecules out of atoms
floating around in a maze. You can see on the side window what molecule you
have to build, and how the atoms are supposed to be connected. However,
getting them in the right position is tricky ! Requires Gtk.

Xplanets is a new,  simple solar system simulator. You can fly a spaceship
around, although not very easily. Since it behaves like an object in the solar
system is supposed to, you will have to make sure you apply the right
acceleration ... Requires Gtk.

LOGO is a wonderful  tool for children to learn programming. They will like
the little "turtle" that moves around on the screen according to their
commands. There is a Unix version, developed by Brian Harvey. There are also
versions for Windows and Mac, so LOGO source code can be used anywhere and
shared among platforms. There is a Logo Foundation with tons of additional
links. We got the Unix version from Harvey's site, but unfortunately it
wouldn't compile on our system. The source will compile under Slackware, but
RedHat users will have to modify a few lines of code, so we recommend you get
the RPM package. Since there are packages that install without a hitch, and
thanks to the author's great support for his code, LOGO gets an  We used
rpmfind and found an RPM package for LOGO. It's the same Berkeley version,
repackaged by somebody else.

HitchHicker, an "astronomy  visualization program". I assume it is a
reference to "The HitchHiker's guide to the Galaxy", which by the way is a
great book. Now if I just could find time to get the telescope out of the
garage ... 

A solar system simulator  called SSystem. It requires Mesa and Glut, so we
haven't had a chance to test it yet, but the screen-shots look impressive.
We'll get the Glut package as soon as possible and give you a review.

GPeriodic is a simple Periodic Table,  with atomic weight, and melting and
boiling temperatures.

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TO GET THIS USEFUL SOFTWARE ON A CD: 
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First Volume of the LinuxForKids collection: Over 100Mb of downloads (V 1.03)
contains all the titles reviewed on LinuxForKids.com as on March 2000. Over 70
different games and educational software for children that run under Linux.
LIQUIDATING old stock, while supply lasts $2.95

New Version 1.1 ! - October 2000: Newer version. Over 30 new games, now 160Mb
of games, educational software and libraries. About 20 have source and RPM,
and a couple also have debian packages.  $5.95

We currently only ship via the United States Postal Service. The flat fee for
shipping and handling is $1.00, and will be added to your order when you check
out. The shipping fee for international order is $2.50.

Email:  sales@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 


FROM K12 Linux in Schools Project
http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/
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gEdit: Word Processor with spell checking and a host of other features

Calendar: a complete PIM, daily, monthly and yearly views

Address Book: Personal contact database

gnotepad+ - a nice text editor with built in HTML markup tags.

Gnumeric spreadsheet - a very usable tool, imports and exports *.xls

The Gimp - a great photo editor tool. 80% of PhotoShop at 0% of the cost.

Netscape - your basic browser, email and news client. 

XMMS MP3 player & CD-Player - Everything you need to listen to music

FROM www.google.com
Search for Linux educational software
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The-Linux-Educational-Software-Project
return to linuxhelpers.org The Linux Educational Software Project A central
link to software for educational software that will run on LINUX.
http://www.linuxhelpers.org/ed-soft.html

Educational software for Linux--progress report
The reason I'm moved to write to you proposing that you enter the Linux
educational software market is my 6-year-old son. I run Linux ... 
www.seul.org/archives/seul/dev/apps/Jul-1998/msg00000.html 

Open Directory - Computers: Software: Educational
chat and discussion boards. Linux for Kids - [Linux] Educational software in a
variety of subject areas. LittleFish Software - [Mac] Teacher built software
www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Educational/ 

LittleFish Software - [Mac] Teacher built software 
www.lefureteur.com/plebius/od.cgi/plebius/Computers/Software/Educational/ 

JBMall Web Search:  .. chat and discussion boards. Linux for Kids - [Linux]
Educational software in a variety of subject areas. LittleFish Software -
[Mac] Teacher built software for ...
jbmall.com/cgi-bin/search/theweb.cgi/Computers/Software/Educational/ 

FROM http://www.linuxhelpers.org/ed-soft.html
The Linux Educational Software Project 
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A central link to software for educational software that will run on LINUX. 

The Linux Educational  Software Project is intended to provide a clearing
center for educational software that runs on LINUX.  We prefer open source
native LINUX software, but very happily embrace commercial software that
crosses over to LINUX from other platforms. 

This project is just getting started.   Please drop us a note if you have
software that will work in education and would like it reviewed here, linked
here, or even located here for download. 

We are looking for individuals to  provide reviews and build reference pages
in a language other than English.  French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek,
Japanese, Chinese, Russian and German come to mind... 

Email us at software@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
-- 
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frederick noronha, freelance journalist, fred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
near convent, saligao 403511 goa india 0091.832.409490/ 409783
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