Re: [seul-edu] Using free software after school or at home for education

[David McClamrock <mcclamro@concentric.net>]

Speaking of incredibly late replies--yes!  I can do that too!

I'm a home-schooling dad with four kids, aged 4 through almost 14, and one wife
who teaches them more than I do.  We have two all-Linux computers running
Mandrake 7.1, which the kids often use for school.  Most often the school-age
ones use StarOffice, which my wife likes a lot.  They've also used AbiWord, Tk
NotePad (simple text editor like Windows Notepad, only better), Typist (good
no-frills typing tutorial from the LinuxForKids CD), Netscape and KFM for Web
browsing,  and the GIMP ("The GIMP is *cool*!" my artistically-inclined
11-year-old daughter exclaims. "I *love* the GIMP!")

My 4-year-old son Joe, who has known how to spell "LINUX" for many months now,
likes Joe's Own Editor (joe), an old-fashioned console-mode text editor.  As a
concession to his GUI-crazed dad, he agrees to use it in a KDE console window,
but it must have authentic old-fashioned white letters on a black background. 
He types "12345678910," a few simple words (including "LINUX," of course), and
a fair amount of gibberish. (Even the gibberish helps him get used to finding
letters on the keyboard, I guess; he does look at the keys and select the ones
that, for reasons known only to him, he decides to press.) After dad has
commandeered the computer and exited Joe's Own Editor, Joe likes to look at
Linux websites featuring pictures of penguins (using KFM) and at family photos
(using KView).

I'm hoping to increase the variety of programs we use--but not before I catch
up on some other incredibly late replies to e-mail!

David McClamrock

On Sat, 26 Aug 2000, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:

> I was wondering if parents on the list use free software with/for
> their kids to help them in education purpose. If so I will be very
> interested - I'm a parent too - to know how successful they were and
> how they use the software and computer.  Actually my son is 2 years
> old and he's very fond of computer but well I don't like him to use
> that so early.