Re: What I need for my kids
Hi!
It was very interesing for me to follow this thread. I am based in
Vienna and working for kids and teenagers on free software based system
setups. I'm doing this since about 4 years and within this time it
turned out that putting together bootable preconfigured Knoppix based
setups are reaching our target group best.
We are currently focusing on a setup for small kids 3 to 6/7 years
(Kindergarden Range) and will try to prdouce some thousands of the CDs
and distribute it via the cities admininstration channels. For me
personally it is the phase of getting back in my job after giving birth
to a daughter which is now 18 month old.
We decided to use gcompris as the main interface for the children
(Version 7.4) and found out that it has a nice administrative section
(gcompris -a) where you can add a new profiles and select which game
modules to load and which ones to skip. You can also use password
protection. After the setup you start gcompris for exactly the profile
you want.
I think we will use a default screen resolution of 600x800 where desktop
icons are very large but still keep a window manager running.
Thanks for the link to freevo, I will also look into that and think
about if and how it could probably be used for young kids like my own
one. After a first look at the website i can not really imagine, but
maybe looking at the features an idea will arise. I would really like
to see my girlie putting her fingers (or fists;) on the keyboard and see
a direct reaction (abstract or realisitic) on the screen.
For the next weeks i will work with a grphic designer and a programmer
on the realisation of our CD. I would reaally like to see our work (and
if it's just the graphics) getting implemented somewhere else too. Maybe
we can arrange something.
One more thing: Sofar we focused on a german target group, mainly because
our distribution channels are based in austria and germany. It's not a big
deal - especially for the next CD edition - to get at least bilingual.
Greetings and thanks for your great work,
Andrea
* Ben Armstrong <synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca> [2006-11-12 13:56]:
> On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 22:05:33 -0800
> Andrew Sackville-West <andrew@farwestbilliards.com> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Nov 10, 2006 at 06:50:59PM -0400, Ben Armstrong wrote:
> >
> > > What do you think of gcompris? It embeds tuxpaint. It is a self-contained environment with activities for kids.
> >
> > I played with gcompris a bit... its pretty cool and is definitely a
> > good interface for 3 to at least probably 6 or 7. It seems to be
> > slightly broken in sid though.
>
> I'll see if I can reproduce your problem. Meanwhile, go ahead and file a bug.
>
> > that said, if it did work, you could certainly use gcompris as a total
> > environment for the very small. just putting it in .xinitrc works
> > great.
>
> This is the direction I'm biased towards, rather than some sort of configuration front-end as you suggested. Keep on adding to the wiki so that our users can easily find out how to configure their Debian systems to suit the needs of their child users.
>
> I've always kept the Jr project's code as lightweight as possible, preferring to do everything via mere configuration. If a configuration front-end for managing user accounts is generally useful, then it should be worthwhile as a separate project of its own. If such a thing manages to get off the ground, and we agree that it would make things easier for our users, then we can evaluate it if-and-when it becomes available.
>
> Of course, I wouldn't discourage anyone from participating in such a project if they have something to contribute and feel it would help us.
>
> Ben
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