Easing kids into free software

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By current standards I was already old when I had my own computer for the first time. It was 1997 and I had already been out of school for six years. Now, as an IT professional, I often wonder where I would have been had I been given an early introduction to computers.

That is perhaps why I may be overcompensating with my child. You know what I mean: The guy who wishes he played provincial rugby so drives his rugby-playing son hard from a young age. My daughter is just over two years old, and she can launch an application from a desktop icon, click a button, scroll a list of images to find a specific one, and follow a pattern on screen with the mouse cursor.

A few months ago I went in search of educational software written for Linux. I built her a machine from old spares and wanted to introduce her to the world of open source software. I was astonished at the amount of open source software for kids out there.

I was familiar with the KDEEdu package. There is also excellent desktop planetarium software around, like Celestia, OpenUniverse, KStars and XEphem. The PotatoGuy (KTuberling) and TuxPaint packages are included in a lot of distros and there is a quiz-type package called ,a href=”http://edu.kde.org/kgeography/”>KGeography. I also know about AJ Venter’s TappyTux.

All these programs are great, but are mostly aimed at older children.

I really want to discuss my daughter’s favourite, GCompris. I came across this comprehensive educational package on a magazine coverdisk, and tried it out. What a bundle of fun learning games in one package! GCompris caters for children from ages three and up (to about 14 I would say). The application launches in fullscreen mode which presents the user with a closed-in workbench, all the time playing stimulating music, Mozart mostly. Games are arranged in functional groups, like maths, word and letter games, keyboard and mouse exercises and so on. Each group contains programs that range in difficulty and skill levels.

The simplest is an animal photo covered with coloured blocks in a 5 x 7 grid. As the mouse cursor moves across a block, it disappears until the whole photo is exposed, followed by an encouraging exclamation. This game will develop fine motor skills. I’ve been amazed by my own daughter’s progress over the last three months. Difficulty increases incrementally, with smaller blocks and eventually blocks that have to be clicked before disappearing. Another point-and-click game shows an underwater reef with fish swimming across the screen. As a fish is clicked it disappears with a loud click sound.

Gcompris launches in fullscreen mode, so there is little risk of the child messing up any desktop settings for instance. I also created a separate user account for my daughter, and placed large icons for Gcompris and TuxPaint on the desktop.

There are even distros dedicated to education, like FreeDuc, OpenLab and Edubuntu. I personally like Freeduc as it uses Xfce and has a full implementation of Gcompris.

GCompris is available for both Linux and Windows though in the interests of promoting the use of free software the Windows version has a limited set of features and the full set can be bought for fee. The Windows version includes only about 15 of the full 55 activities include in the Linux version. The Linux version is free.

For users that do not run Linux already there is also a GCompris Live CD available which can be run directly from the CD without installing the Linux operating system.

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