Newsletter 10

   En Français

01 September 2002

Newsletter #10 from the KDE-Edu team

As it's now time to go back to school, here is the newsletter number 10 from the KDE-Edu project. The project ultimate aim is to create educational software based around KDE, the K Desktop Environment and all our projects are under an Open Source license (mainly GPL or Artistic License). This newsletter keeps you informed of the state of this project.

Website

What's new?

On August 22nd 2002, the KDE Project released KDE 3.1 Beta1, an experimental snapshot of the current CVS tree that will become KDE 3.1 final. That means that the new KDE-Edu applications or new features in existing applications can be found in that beta release.
Please see
http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-3.1beta1.html for more details.

As it was holiday time, the development has slowed a bit but we are still trying to define the best strategy for developing the best educational software.

We started a discussion ([kde-edu-devel] possible design math app http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-edu-devel&m=102906378818449&w=2) about a mathematical application, which should be based on a plugin-system and offer these basic functions:

• learning something, with imediate feedback if an answer is correct or not.
• training: do the exercises as fast as possible
• feedback at the end of a set of exercises
• some flashcard approach, where exercises with incorrect answers come up again
• exercises embedded in games
• statistics
• .... (whatever teachers come up with)

Part of our difficulties is to come up with an attractive user interface for each application. If you are using educational software that you find useful and well designed, please send us a screenshot of the interface as well as an explanation of the software.

In France: Debian Éducation

The Debian Project has always been keen to promote eduware through the Debian Jr. Project.

In France, the Debian Éducation CD is out to be tested in schools. Back in 1998, the French Board of Education committed itself to promoting the use of Free Software, especially in high schools, where it was less widely used than in universities. In 2001, the Conseil Général de Seine-et-Marne decided to provide high schools with 2,000 Linux-operated computers, in order to test the efficiency and useability of both the OS and the registered applications. To make it possible, Logidée, a company specialized in providing professional training and consulting on Linux, has kindly packaged all the applications for the Debian distribution, customized the installer and the desktop to make it possible for teachers to use it. The resulting bootable ISO image can be downloaded here :
ftp://ftp.logidee.com/debian-educ/iso/ (main site)
Project link (in French):
http://logiciels-libres-cndp.ac-versailles.fr/index.html

This is a very encouraging first step to get free software in schools!

You can find a HTML version of this newsletter at
http://edu.kde.org/newsletter/newsletter10.phtml

The KDE-Edu team
kde-edu@edu.kde.org