Linux educational circulum

[evil316]

My wife and I home school our children. I am in the process of converting all our PC's to Ubuntu from Windows. There are some great educational programs for Gnu/Linux and that's all well and good. What I wanted to find out is if there is any curriculum out there that would help me in teaching my kids about Linux rather than just using Linux to help them learn math, science, vocabulary, etc. Stuff like "What is an operating system", "What are applications", "How do computers work from simple to complex principles", real simple stuff going on up to advanced things like programming and advanced troubleshooting. I'm sure I can come up with something on my own but I was curious if there was already something out there that would give me a leg up on this. Thanks!

[ubuntu27]

Welcome to the UBuntu forums :)

Hello "evil316" There are lots of educational apps in the repositories. Simply open the Synaptic Package Manager, Click on "Search" and type keywords such as "education" , "kdeedu", and a list of applications will be presented to you.

Select the applications that you will lick to install by clicking on the box beside the name. And then click on "Apply"

Here are some list of applications software that you might be interested. [There are more than that]

gcompris - Educational games for small children.

A large collection of educational games for small children. It is meant to
become some sort of unified interface to integrate more educational
games.

Language-oriented games now contain vocabulary for too many languages
to list them heres. Sounds and voices are also available for a number of
languages, check the gcompris-sound packages for your language.

Currently available boards include:
* learning how to use a mouse and keyboard
* learning simple arithmetics
* learning how to read an analog clock
* recognize letters after hearing their names
* reading practice
* small games (memory games, jigsaw puzzles, ...)
* etc.


tuxtype - Educational Typing Tutor Game Starring Tux

TuxTyping is an educational typing tutorial game starring Tux, the Linux Penguin. The player guides Tux to eat fish which are falling from the top of the screen. Each fish has a letter written on it. When the player presses the corresponding key, Tux will position himself to eat the fish.
The game is intended for children learning to type, though it does have higher difficulty levels which even experienced typists may find challenging.

ktouch - touch typing tutor for KDE

KTouch is a program for learning touch typing - it helps you learn to type on a keyboard quickly and correctly. Every finger has its place
on the keyboard with associated keys to press.

KTouch helps you learn to touch type by providing you with text to train on, and adjusts to different levels depending on how good you are. It can display which key to press next, and the correct finger to use.


kturtle - educational Logo programming environment

amming.

The commands used to program are in the style of the Logo programming
language. The unique feature of Logo is that the commands are often
translated into the speaking language of the programmer.

KTurtle is named after "the turtle" that plays a central role in the
programming environment. The user programs the turtle, using the
Logo commands, to draw a picture on the canvas.

Note that this version of Logo is only focused on the educational
qualities of the programming language and will not try to suit
professional programmers' needs.

Also, here are links to some website that you might be interested:

Getting Started with Linux (http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/index.html)

SchoolForge.net (http://www.schoolforge.net/)

The KDE Education Project (http://edu.kde.org/)

ReallyLinux (http://www.reallylinux.com/)

[matthewboh]

O'Reilly is always a great resource for books - here's an example - Ubuntu for non-geeks http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9781593271527/ and there's a few courses out there for young learners - here's one

http://www.icanprogram.com/nofeecourses.html

[StefAndrew]

I think that The Official Ubuntu Book (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780132354134&itm=6) is pretty good for that kind of thing. I've read a few Ubuntu books and most of them have all the basic stuff about where linux started from to present day, and gives the history of Ubuntu so far as well.

[ubuntu27]

Hello again.

There is good program for teaching programming to kids called "Hackety Hack" (http://hacketyhack.net/) Highly Recommended!

http://hacketyhack.net/

[kesomir]

Not knowing how old your children are (or in what country), I attach links to the UK QCA Schemes of work for ICT at key stages 1-2 and 3.

http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes2/it/?view=get

http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes2/secondary_ICT/?view=get

KS 1 is for children aged 5-6, KS2 for 7-11 and KS3 12-14/15. I hope you find that curriculum implementation useful.

The trick is seeing past any application/vendor (microsoft) bias and teaching the core skills and concepts:

i.e. Translate "Excel" to "Spreadsheet" and "Word" to "Word Processor" wherever they may appear.

Might also be worth taking a look at the Australian and American IT curriulums - before deciding what you want to cover. I'd recommend including touch typing - very useful skill.

The hardest sections to tackle on linux I think are those that deal with monitoring and control, although you have the tools to do it, there are better resources (in terms of programs for the teaching of) on windows.

[BLTicklemonster]

Hello again.

There is good program for teaching programming to kids called "Hackety Hack" (http://hacketyhack.net/) Highly Recommended!

http://hacketyhack.net/

/home/bill/hacketyhack-0.L/ruby/lib/hpricot/builder.rb:193: warning: parenthesize argument(s) for future version
(eval): [BUG] Segmentation fault
ruby 1.8.5 (2006-12-25) [i686-linux]

and there's no help on the site for this.

[Scunizi]

And for other links about education check out the following.

http://k12edcom.org/
http://k12os.org/
http://en.opensuse.org/Edu-CD
http://opseast.wordpress.com/2007/07/26/openofficeorg-in-education-a-roundup/

I've been looking for educational tools for specific subject matter for my kids who are 12-16 yrs old. It's not easy finding programs that will help them. There seems to be tons of stuff for the school admin side and for young children but nothing targeted at specific grades or levels of education.

Good luck. Post back here what you find that's been helpful.

[hsweet]

If you really want them to understand what is going on under the (pretty) hood, just take away the gui for a while. Nothing like a command line to foster a deeper understanding of what is going on. Probably depends on how old your kids are. Maybe for just a week.

[matthewboh]

Novell just put out a K-12 curriculum for openSUSE and all the materials, resources, etc. are free for non-commercial use.

http://ocw.novell.com/suse-linux-enterprise-desktop/get-ready-for-open-source-suse-linux-enterprise-desktop-book-1/Course_listing

[ubuntu27]

/home/bill/hacketyhack-0.L/ruby/lib/hpricot/builder.rb:193: warning: parenthesize argument(s) for future version
(eval): [BUG] Segmentation fault
ruby 1.8.5 (2006-12-25) [i686-linux]

and there's no help on the site for this.

Oh~ :( I never tried to install it in my Ubuntu and Debian GNU/Linux.
I have it installed in WIndows, its marvelous. :) If you have some box with Windows, try it out.

Did you try posting on their forums? Maybe someone will be able to help you.

Hackety Hack's Forum (http://talkety.hacketyhack.net/)

[marioquark]

good post, thanx