Re: What I need for my kids
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 09:26:56 -0800
Andrew Sackville-West <andrew@farwestbilliards.com> wrote:
> That age is definitely difficult. My desire would be to see, not
> necessarily a different DE, but perhaps an appropriate theme. For
> example, a very simplified desktop using large, fun icons and
> stripping out some of the things that are more complicated for little
> kids: right clicks, middle clicks, nested menus and so forth. The
> right combination of look and feel could be built pretty easily (he
> says without any thought...) by theming one of the existing DE's or
> WM's. Populated with the right packages under a meta-package and it
> should be pretty straightforward.
Sure. Any takers?
> 1. A big, fun simple interface
> 2. Simplified mouse interaction (something most WM's can handle, I
> think)
> 3. A set of basic apps - paint, draw, type, simple games.
> 4. maybe eliminate key-bindings.
> 5. passwordless login for kids accounts
> 6. maybe a seperate set of post-install scripts for setting things up
> in a kid friendly way.
>
> that's just some of my thoughts.
Good. I have linked this thread from http://wiki.debian.org/DebianJr so we can develop these ideas and perhaps produce something.
> I don't think there's necessarily a dearth of apps for kids that age,
> its more of an interface problem. Really small children do what the OP
> mentioned above -- bash the keyboard and sometimes watch what
> happens. Maybe some kind of kiosk setup would be in order?
As I've said earlier, we're not the only ones who might need a kiosk setup. Is there anything like this in Debian or any existing group more suited to taking on this task? I'd like to remain focused on those aspects of the problem that pertain uniquely to children.
> Have the
> thing boot up running a paint program on the root window (is that
> possible? maybe) and then overlay some icons on top of it for
> launching other stuff like some games. That way, the kids can get
> immediate results by just clicking and dragging on the desktop -- look
> I can draw! and then when they inadvertently click on one of the icons
> they get something else.
What do you think of gcompris? It embeds tuxpaint. It is a self-contained environment with activities for kids.
> I think for the 1-3 crowd this might not be true -- when it breaks its
> broken and they throw it away or cry about it... your experience may
> vary :) but definitely by 5 this is true. by 9 they are ready to fix
> what they've broken and maybe fix what others have broken.
Sure. When the kids were younger, we held our kids on our laps and navigated from app to app for them, guiding them to use the system properly. Completely unattended use isn't recommended at this age. At least not with the DE and apps we have today.
Ben
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