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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?"
OpenOffice or something of the sort would be nice. An office package is always useful.
I think they have multilingual games... Or maybe it's just their website.
This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
The OpenCD is the obvious choice. Mod this down if it's already been listed.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I will be sending my four-year-old laptop to a school in Uganda this fall
Dear Sir,
I am Umbumbo Bumbalilo of Uganda. PLease send your Laptop.
Thank you.
Umbumbo Bumbalilo
Project gutenberg makes there collection available as isos. Burn a couple copies of each and bundle with the laptop.
Bang: you've just donated a library not an obsolet laptop!
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
best matlab clone out there
I am very familiar with Uganda b'se it my mother country. One thing to note is depending on the location of the school and what type of school it is the software needs will be totally different. If you can give more info like the name of the school and where it is located in Uganda i can give u more useful data about the major requirements of different schools.
That's a good idea. Better might be the Wikipedia. there's probably one in whatever language they speak (well, I guess that would be English in Uganda.) and is certainly one in English.
You can download the Wikipedia database, export out static pages, and shove those on the computer. I'm pretty sure there's software to do this.
Of course, you'll end up with a lot of Star Trek and Middle-earth articles, as well as an article for every tiny town in the US, at least if you use the English database. You could sort out useful subsets using things like their new categories system.
Maybe I should ask a MediaWiki-knowledgeable person to post. I'm mostly just a user.
I have several good friends who have been to Uganda on a number of occasion, and have done extensive service work there. (One of them, in fact, earned a Rhodes partly because of his efforts). At one time I was considering setting up a Ugandan-American service organization, and I picked their brains about what is and is not needed in general. This may come as a surprise, but computers (especially junky ones) are firmly in the NOT NEEDED list.
Many American charities and organizations send used equipment to Africa. One of the principle functions to the giant tax write-off foundation that Bill Gates created years ago was to send brand new computers to African schools. The net effect is that computers are not difficult to acquire and your laptop, although probably still appreciated, would be less useful than many other things you could send.
What they really need, as I understand it, are plan, old everyday books. The student-to-textbook ration in most schools is 20 to 1 or greater, and many libraries are downright pathetic. What books they have are arcane, products of the 1950's and 1960's. Since they speak (British) English in Uganda, why don't you do them a favor and ship some of your old textbooks, or some good children's stories instead. These will probably go a lot farther than a half-useable laptop.
...En að Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað Er Nýr Dagur