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Educational Software To Donate With Laptop?
SlartibartfastJunior writes "I will be sending my four-year-old laptop to a school in Uganda this fall. I plan to load up an older version of Windows (or something free), and I need suggestions - what should I load on it? I need suggestions for educational games, educational software, etc. that won't drain my battery too much (since the computer will only be able to recharge at night), won't require a CD (since my drive doesn't work 80% of the time), and won't be too America-centered (most of these children have never been more than ten miles out of their own villages, and wouldn't understand "Oregon Trail"). Also, any great ideas on where I can acquire copies of this software?"
Are not free. Do not commit software piracy.
Arrrrrr.
Real Lives 2004, as previously mentioned on Slashdot. Oh, and Starcraft.
OpenOffice or something of the sort would be nice. An office package is always useful.
Give them a couple old versions of Civ and Sim City.
Those are educational and addictive enough. And are not American centric.
Ted
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
Years ago I set up a punch-card scanner for a correspondence school in Kumasi, Ghana. The staff had never really worked with a computer much; I was suprised at their level of interest in the computer itself (just a P3).
I had loaded a copy of Microsoft Encarta on the PC and they absolutlely loved that!
Sigs cause cancer.
...replace the CD drive.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
You might spend all your time creating a nice load, but if they can't speak english youre probably wasting your time. Are you sure they don't have any IT people over there that will put a base set of apps on the machine? They might just format it and start from scratch.
--
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They're not, but most laptops came with windows, so I'd say it's probably licensed for at least 95 (supposing that the license wasn't therafter used on another PC).
I am not sure how useful an old laptop with a defective cdrom drive will be, but here it is. If it can be plugged in at night, it seems it can plugged in at day and just used as a small desktop, btw, so I don't really focus on power.
;) This allows them to use Gimp, sound editing, video editing, web design, etc. or anything else and you don't have to know what their needs are in advance (which you probably can't do anyway).
;)
Linux as the OS (there are tons of language options), Open Office for docs, ALL the standard Linux games that come with typical distros to first expose the kids to computing and get them used to using a computer. Most dont use text, so language is irrelevant, and they teach basic thought skills. (Tux Racer may seem weird to them, watching a penguin belly flop on snow trying to catch herring is not a typical scene in Africa
Suse 9.1 (you can buy a home rolled copy on ebay for $10, shipping and all) is an EXCELLENT distro. 5 CDs and unreal amounts of software. Fedora is a decent choice as well. Choose to install all the extra games with Gnome as well.
One of the biggest advantages of using Linux instead of Windows is that they can copy it to other computers they get without breaking any laws, so everyone can use the same platform, making training and maintenance easier, and support is available in many languages from many people. Another advantage is the ability to have true multiple users on the system without the threat of screwing up someone elses files, and you can't delete the system files by accident if you are not root. (win9x is dangerous for newbs in that way).
The average win9x system comes with less than 300mb of software (200mb of it bloat), but you can install up to 4+ gigs of software from a good Linux distro, so its easier to prep the box and make it useful, using all Free software. Or you can install much less and still have a great system.
Also, using Linux, your gift is less likely to become a source of trojaned spam in the future
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I know it sounds silly, but you should ask the people you are donating to what specifically they need. It is much better for them if they get something they don't need to make any modifications to whatsoever. They will have some experience in the field and will have dealt with many people like you. Maybe they are more concerned about the shape of the hardware (perhaps they will format it as soon as they get it and put their own stuff on it).
So ask. :)
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
It's nice that you are sending your laptop away to help someone else. Quite a commendable act.
My question is, why in the world are you sending it to another country? There are plenty of students right here in the U.S. that could use this hardware. I am all for helping out other countries, but I feel that we should take care of our own first. When all of our students have laptops, then we should consider sending them to other contries.
After spending some time in Eastern Africa, at times dealing with technology concerns, most villages don't have the resources to take advantage of software applications in reality. For example, what good is OpenOffice if they don't have a printer, toner cartridges, and paper? Also, climate control might be difficult for them, so just keeping any of this stuff operational is going to be a huge undertaking.
Maybe give them an archive of Wikipedia or HowStuffWorks would even be better! What good is Celestia when they need to learn how to fix a motorbike or a radio? Or health information?
Especially if the equipment isn't being sent to a *large* city, then the dust, humidity, shipment, and general treatment is going to send the equipment to the graveyard pretty soon anyways.
If you're going to donate software, just remember that most people in Africa do not speak English.
1. Outlook and a browser would be first on the list. Congolese want to explore and the most impotant thing for them is exploring the world through WWW and keeping in touch with loved ones.
2. Second on the list is antivirus and anti-spyware. After various worms like Blaster receed here, they persist for months in the RDC because no one protect their computers. I often hear about the crippling effect viruses have on computers there.
3. With few printers and no projectors, Powerpoint, Excel, and Word are possibly over the top.
4. RPGs, Strategy game would just not make sense . Sport, Racing, and first person shooter would be a better choice.
She says that the situation there is dire. The school system is rudimentary and most have never seen or touched a computer. The average person there finishes school before 6th grade to work. Most work laborful jobs, the lucky ones work as maids, sentinels, chauffers, and other service jobs making $30-$50 a month.
With computers costing twice as much there than here and Cybercafes charging several dollars an hours, very little of the population can afford computing of any kind. FYI, With almost no phones lines, everyone uses cellular phones and to connect to an ISP, you need to buy a $1000 transmitter that gives you about 6 Kilobytes max a second. The monthly charge is > $100 a month.
In 2003 and then in 2004, They had an Internet Festival aka "Fête de l'Internet" . The most popular booth was by far the President's booth. He had some computers with free internet access and there was apparently a line around the corner to use this access.
A craigslist for RDC called infoCongo was started and this is one of the most popular sites there. Unfortunatley, with a small amount of user base, what's popular there looks quite void to US Standards.
Because to someone with *no* computer, a four year old laptop is better than nothing. Myself, I think your "its four years old.. its USELESS!" attitude is worse. I use a four year old computer daily.. its not my main machine, but its still useful.
As long as the thing works, there's nothing wrong with donating it. Although, I would suggest he replace the finicky cd-rom before sending it off. It may not be any use to him (having been replaced by newer hardware) but that doesnt make it useless. The fact that he *could* sell it on e-bay and send them the money pretty much proves that its useful to someone, now doesn't it??
Sure, buying a new laptop and donating it would be even better, but even in the US not everyone can afford to donate a brand new laptop...
You know you're a fuckhead ?