Similar project in Vienna using Knoppix
Andrea,
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:51:34 +0100
Andrea Mayr <andrea.mayr@netbridge.at> wrote:
> 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.
Nice. Well, as you see, I've been putting some work into making a pure Debian equivalent.
> 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.
Aha. Well, the timing is probably wrong for us to make something you can use by the time you press your CDs, but I hope before too long you'll be able to enjoy the benefits of running Debian instead, perhaps in your next CD release?
> 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.
This is interesting, and is something I'd like to explore.
> I think we will use a default screen resolution of 600x800 where desktop
> icons are very large but still keep a window manager running.
I suppose any apps that do not run fullscreen would benefit from a window manager so that kids can control the windows launched by gcompris. For the age range we were discussing recently (1-3) I would think we'd need to ensure all apps can run fullscreen and it is easy for the child to leave the app and go back to gcompris. With that restriction, a WM would not be needed at all.
> 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.
Certainly I'm keeping my eye on this as well. Since the ITP has been filed to include Freevo in Debian, we will soon be able to play with it and see if we can come up with something truly usable for the very young.
> 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.
We'd really appreciate that. Of course, whatever we build for Debian needs to be done the "Debian way" (i.e. taking no shortcuts around Debian policy, as some derivatives do) but I'm sure we could learn from your efforts and use some of your ideas in Debian Jr.
> 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.
Understood.
Thanks for dropping us a note.
Ben
--
,-. nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
\`' Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
` [ gpg 395C F3A4 35D3 D247 1387 2D9E 5A94 F3CA 0B27 13C8 ]
[ pgp 7F DA 09 4B BA 2C 0D E0 1B B1 31 ED C6 A9 39 4F ]
Reply to: