Teaching with Tux (Linux Journal) [LWN.net]

Over at Linux Journal, Mike Diehl looks at three educational programs all featuring Tux the penguin. Programs to teach typing and practice math skills are two of those he looks at, in addition to TuxPaint, which didn't, at first, strike him as particularly educational: "So how is this educational? At the lower ages, this might simply be a first introduction to using the mouse. In this case, the parent or educator would help the student select colors and draw lines and shapes. Older, pre-readers, could use this program to tell a story in storyboard fashion. Still older children could use this program to create their own comic strips complete with text. Of course, you could also use Tux Paint to teach students art concepts like color, line, and texture. It doesn't matter how you use it though. Tux Paint is a lot of fun."

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Teaching with Tux (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 27, 2009 11:04 UTC (Tue) by philh (subscriber, #14797) [Link]

In places where paper is in short supply, _any_ painting program is an educational tool, as discovered by Professor Sugata Mitra of Newcastle University when installing Hole in the Wall computers in Indian slums:

http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/

as described by him in this BBC Radio podcast:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/think...

where he says something like (IIRC) "The most popular program initially was the Paint program, because parents when faced with a choice between buying paper and pencils, or food, tend to choose food"

Teaching with Tux (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 27, 2009 18:51 UTC (Tue) by dbruce (subscriber, #57948) [Link]

(I'm the maintainer of Tux Typing and co-maintainer of TuxMath)

It's nice to see the programs getting a little attention. We're quite a small project, and mostly aim to have the software become noticeably more useful and reliable each year. It isn't too hard to spot areas for further improvement, particularly in Tux Typing.

We were fortunate to have some Google SoC students working on the programs this summer, and soon should have some new releases with some nice new features.

I would also recommend GCompris as a highly useful and broader-ranging project than our stuff.

Best,

David Bruce
http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org

Teaching with Tux (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 27, 2009 18:55 UTC (Tue) by dbruce (subscriber, #57948) [Link]

p.s. - although I'm not directly involved with Bill Kendrick's Tux Paint (http://www.tuxpaint.org), I can attest that it is by far the most polished and professional of our offerings. I really think that no computer that is used by a child should be without it.

David Bruce

Teaching with Tux (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 2, 2009 9:27 UTC (Mon) by roberton (guest, #39680) [Link]

Another thumbs up from me for TuxPaint. My daughter has used it since she was 3 and pretty much learned her mouse skills from that. It is also interesting to see that both her and my son are now totally comfortable with general application concepts as modes, toolboxes, undo/redo etc, all from TuxPaint.

My partner now also has TuxPaint in the pre-school she works in where it is the main program they use with the children. Again, it helps with mouse skills and also it allows easy creative experimentation that compliments all the other (physical) things they do.

Conclusion 1: TuxPaint is an educational program.

Conclusion 2: TuxPaint is a lot of fun :-)

Roberto/.

Teaching with Tux (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 10, 2009 16:16 UTC (Tue) by tmassey (guest, #52228) [Link]

Quick thank you for putting so much time and effort into children's software. It's appreciated.