Re: Further discussion on Educational Software
lør, 10.04.2004 kl. 12.29 skrev Ralf:
> Dear List,
>
> several threads ago, I addressed software packages that possibly should
> be added. I am quite aware that the maximum space for the ISO image of
> 650 MB (why not 700?) has been reached - but: If - as discussed above -
> a statistical package like R isn't appropriate for schools - how about
> TeX then? Removing TeX could save loads of space, amn't I right?
Why.. perhaps:
Yes, TeX could be removed. The only dependency I can think of is LyX, an
almost-wysiwyg frontend to TeX which is a very handy for writing for
writing mathematics. The TeX/LyX framwork is almost irreplaceable in
this regard.
It's also a very fine tool for writing structured documents and for
letting the pupils not care about physical layout of the text, so they
can put all effort into the text instead. With (recent) KDE layout for
LyX, the only real drawback left is dictionary support. It doesn't work
well for norwegian, at least.
Why not:
Neither teachers nor pupils want to waddle through too many
applications, especially when half of them aren't relevant for your use
anyway.
It's a distraction, and, believe me, distractions are not what makes a
learning tool successful.
So until kschoolmenu and similars makes it easy to weed most
applications out of the menus of large groups of people, the number of
user applications should be very limited.
We'll also have to see to that these programs are translated.
And right now, all effort is at stabilizing the 1.0 release of
Skolelinux. There's not many weeks left, and we need it the best way
possible.
After that, we'll have to see. Thanks for your efforts, the best place
to put this information might be some debian-edu metapackages for Sarge.
Not my speciality..
Happy easter.
Harald
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