Re: Macs and kids

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

>>>>> "Anil" == Anil  <anil@example.com> writes:

    Anil> On Wed, 6 Nov 1996, Jim Schweizer wrote:
    >> Oopps sorry, that leads to yet more questions. Anyone using
    >> Linux in a classroom full of 6-10 year olds? Any suggestions
    >> for education related software on Linux?
    Anil> Jim, I think you might be using the wrong tool for the job.
    Anil> However much I love Linux for its muititasking stuff, but
    Anil> you might be better of using a Mac with Kids. This will
    Anil> probably invoke someone to send me flames, so I better back
    Anil> it up by saying I majored in Educational Computing, and no I
    Anil> do not want to get into a discussion of which OS is better.

Well, if you can't back up a statement like that better than "I
majored in Educational Computing," I think you're definitely asking
for flames.  That's like saying "I majored in Economics, so I know how 
to run a business."  After getting a PhD in Economics, I can tell you
that it has *nothing* to do with running a business (but don't tell my 
MBAs I said that ;-).

Seems to me that there's been a lot of convergence recently in
operating systems and user interfaces.  The issues seem to be

  o software; probably the Mac has more for what Jim wants, but is
    it free?  Can he find it?  How does he move it to the Mac if he's
    not networked by Mac?
  o Are Macs as cheap as 486 boxes?
  o Does Jim know how to run a Mac?  (Sys admin with multiple users is 
    nontrivial; especially on a single-user box.  I spent three hours
    last Monday helping a student scan/OCR his MA thesis after some
    delinquent deleted his entire home directory under Windowze 95.
    This is more fun than xroach for some people.)

On the other hand, I can see a couple of real advantages to Linux for
kids, if you're willing to muck around with the sys admin stuff
necessary.

  o You can configure a window manager like fvwm so that it's as hard
    to get out of as the Mac finder, and AFAIK it's much easier to
    disable all the stuff you *don't* want the kids touching.  You
    simply don't teach them about virtual console switching (or
    disable it), and don't give them any terminals in the menus.  Then
    they only see what you want them to see, which is what you put in
    the menus..  (No, you haven't locked yourself out; you see, you
    have a boot disk that *doesn't* auto-boot into the restricted
    mode, unlike the hard drive and/or the boot disks you give each
    kid which boots to their account.  If you're networked you can log 
    in remotely, or you can provide an "xterm -e su" on a menu so you
    need a password to get out ;-)  But you'd better remove the off
    switch unless you want to do a lot of fsck'ing.  :-P)
  o If you're really paranoid, you can do a chroot on them.  Don't
    teach them about chmod.
  o Lots of nice tools and scripting languages like tk/tcl and python
    and even perl has an Xlib binding these days via the XForms
    library.  Build your own word games or even graphics.
  o Doom.  Nethack.  Tetris.
  o Networking is easier; Mac freeware for internet uses is pretty
    buggy in my experience.  (Servers, anyway; but I've heard lots of
    bad things from my students about their Macs.  Networking is not a
    matter of point and click on the mac.)  Kids *love* chatting; give
    them "talk" and they'll go nuts over a LAN.  xmessage is pretty
    cool too, especially since it will pop up without warning.  In
    Jim's bracket (6--10 years old) anything that keeps them reading
    and writing is ichiban.
  o If you want them to do internet stuff, email and the like, you
    really want a Linux box between them and your ISP.
  o Oh, yeah, fortune.  (Don't forget to disable the dirty ones.)
  o Does the Mac have xjdic or the equivalent?
  o Linux has xroach.  I never saw that on a Mac.  (Doing that to
    somebody else's box is definitely the kind of thing that kids will 
    really latch on to.)

I'm not saying this makes Linux better for Jim's purpose.  But I can
see lots of ways it could have advantages.  Realistically, though,
it's going to come down to

    o is the software Jim wants available on both systems?
    o if not, which one is easier to build it on?

Steve

-- 
                           Stephen John Turnbull
University of Tsukuba                                        Yaseppochi-Gumi
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences  http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
a word from the sponsor will appear below
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The TLUG mailing list is proudly sponsored by TWICS - Japan's First
Public-Access Internet System.  Now offering 20,000 yen/year flat
rate Internet access with no time charges.  Full line of corporate
Internet and intranet products are available.   info@example.com
Tel: 03-3351-5977   Fax: 03-3353-6096