edubuntu for day-care centers, philippines

[Jerome Gotangco]

Hi Maning,

Your email is welcome. I am from Manila btw, we could probably chat
some time. Regarding your inquiries, I'll try to answer some:

>
> Installation and other things:

> 1. Will edubuntu run "comfortably" on a 64-128 ram?  Should I use xfce
> as my desktop environment instead?

Unfortunately, the GNOME desktop is quite heavy on resources, since
Edubuntu defaults to GNOME, your experience will be quite slower than
usual, especially if you have a slower CPU. Plus the fact that some of
the apps require the KDE core components to run (all of KDE-EDU).
However, you can install Xubuntu then install the Edubuntu apps.

Another option is to create a new installer with the specific apps
that you would like to have installed by default to have a uniform
setup. I could probably help you with this.

There is a a spec and current work in progress to have Edubuntu
default to XFCE but we won't see this happening till Edgy+1 (next
year). This is still in flux though.

> 2. How much partitioning ratio should use for system, swap, home (I
> intend to put /home on a separate partition)?

It depends on what work you want to do. The installer can
automatically partition your setup depending on your RAM and HD space.
Or you can also create a custom partition setup.

> 3. Which programs/applications should I remove to free up space (such
> programs that may not be suitable for day-care envi for instance, or
> those software pertaining to LTSP)?

A desktop/workstation install does not install any LTSP component so
you can choose this.

> 4.  As part of the project I would also like to monitor how the PC are
> being used (both by teachers and students).  One mechanism is to save
> the syslog (possibly on a diskette) and send them to me for analysis.
> How do I make a short scripts that does the following: create a text
> file of programs accessed by the user (much the same as a gcompris.log
> file) and regularly save them in a designated directory in /home on a
> predefined dates (maybe monthly or bi-monthly)?  Any tips/experience
> in doing this for child-related programs?  I want to know the
> frequency of use of the programs as well as their level of
> understanding.

We haven't really focused on this much although we are aware of the
need for performance metrics to gauge student performance.

> 5.  Since this will be a stand-alone workstation w/o a cd and Internet
> connection, how do I regularly update and fix?

I don't see much of a need to update this if the machine will never
ever be connected to the net. The updates are more geared towards
security and the current apps in Edubuntu work fine as is. However, if
you have plans to connect this to the net, updates are a must. We've
also released an updated version of the 6.06 CD which contains all the
updates since it was released.

> Supplemental resource materials:
> We also want to support the teachers in designing and creating lesson
> plans and resource materials that will make full use of the equipment.
>  Some thoughts here are:
> 1. How much time should the students be in the computer for a given week?

Well it really depends on your policy. I've been told in ABS-CBN
Foundation that there is a standing policy of no computer access for
kids 10 below in their shelter and focus on teaching them with
traditional teaching methods. It's more of an ideological issue rather
than technological

> 2. On what certain subject matter should computer use be appropriate
> for inclusion?

If you noticed on Gcompris, the focus of the apps are geared towards
pre-school/elementary with the basic teaching tools (math, alphabet,
etc). I am not an educator by profession so I cannot really give an
opinion on this. If there are any educators on this list, can you give
suggestions?

> 3. Any links references on computer use for ages 5-8 years old?
> 4. As this is an offline workstation, we also plan to archive some
> interesting web materials that the children can browse even though
> there is no internet connection.  Some interesting things I found on
> the web are the International Children's Digital Library [4] and
> matemania - hurtigmeny [5].  However, most are copyrighted and does
> not allow archiving the whole site offline.  Can you give me some
> links I can look into that can be freely distributed?  It could be
> reference materials, interactive games (flash maybe), e-story books,
> etc.

Wikipedia content itself can be downloaded and used for offline use
[1], as well as Wikibooks [2] and those included in the public domain
which can be found in Project Gutenberg [3].


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
[2] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Database_download
[3] http://www.gutenberg.org/


Hope this helps

Best,

Jerome

-- 
Jerome Gotangco
Email: jgotangco at ubuntu.com
Jabber: jgotangco at jabber.org
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