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GPL Edutainment Software
haxot writes "I'm the technologist at a local library. In our lab, I've managed to get some recognition for tools such as GIMP and Open Office, and even such toys as Bomberman and BZFlag. Now I'm turning towards the children's computers, which are mostly filled with ancient, buggy, rather boring games that try to be interactive TV shows rather than something entertaining. I'm looking for good OSS games and education suites (preferably multi-platform — I want to be ready for an OS switch to Linux). I'm not picky about the license; I'd just like the software to actually have that 'neat' appeal. Some examples I've found already are Gcompris and Tux Paint. My focus is the 2-year-old to 8-year-old range, but I'm happy to hear teen-oriented suggestions too. Since it's a public library, however, I can't have any software on the computers that is risqué, gory, or violent."
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You might want to look at http://www.filegate.net/linux4kids/ to see if anything meets your needs.
There's a demo available online, I recommend at least trying it out: http://www.mindrover.com/
Oh, and there's a Linux version too.
No one under the age of 13 could EVER use Blender. Even I can't >_>
Website is here. It's a different approach to teaching programming fundamentals to kids, somewhat akin to the concept behind LOGO.
My focus is the 2-year old to 8-year old range, but I'm happy to hear teen-oriented suggestions too. Since it's a public library, however, I can't have any software on the computers that is risqué, gory, or violent.
No gore, cuz it is a public library. Otherwise it'd be cool for the 2-8 year olds.
God spoke to me.
Disclaimer, I haven't actually tried the software in the links above.
I disagree. Although telling them to have fun with it is expecting a bit much.
I installed GCompris my laptop. My wife saw it, and asked 'what the heck is Gcompris?' "What is Gimp?" Can someone please come up with better names for some of these programs?
So far my 3.5 year old son has a blast spelling his name in OpenOffice. He hasn't enjoyed Gcompris, as most of the games seem targeted towards older children and tend to be a bit buggy.
One thing I remember from working at a school years ago is that educational games tend to suck really bad.
There's just no motivation to be fun. Speaking from a proprietary standpoint, what factors does an educator look for when deciding which games to purchase? Cost and what the learning topics are. "Here's a game that teaches multiplication and is $10 cheaper than all the others." Fun doesn't fit into the equation. And it's not like many educators are test-driving these games either. Oh, and these are typically poorly written games too.
My point being, the educational games sector is filled with poorly made products that feature very little fun and are a pain to administer. Hopefully some open source options don't suffer from the same issues. Hopefully you'll be able to sort through the crap and find some good ones though.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
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Frozen Bubble is fairly mindless but endlessly entertaining. I believe it comes pre-packaged with some distros. There is also a Java port.
http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
As a library worker, it's his job to make sure that the computers run the best they can for the least amount of money. If he's more capable with the free software than he is with the proprietary stuff, then he's not so much an "evangelist" as a good employee.
http://www.codenautics.com/lemonade/
;)
Just like the Apple II classic. Teach them capitalism so they don't end up on drugs
technical writing / development
Sqeak is a Smalltalk-like language and environment, runs on many platforms and has a package called e-Toys. It's on the OLPC
I believe they have other education software too so here's a link for you to search for yourself:
http://www.squeak.org/Features/Education/
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
A very educational game to learn all you need to know about drugs, guns, prostitutes, loan sharks and New York geography. Highly recommended! http://dopewars.sourceforge.net/
I used to love playing Battletech the board game when I was middle-high school aged. Check out the java version available for all platforms, its pretty fun and true to the board game, though could use a UI facelift to make it a bit more intuitive for first time users.
megamek link
I hate when that happens. :-/
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki
It is really intuitive to use and the name just about says it all. It is however perhaps slightly heavier on system requirements than other 2D educational games out there (more so if you start playing with large volumes of water)
A live CD and Windows Free Software installer, also a good listing of apps that are edutainment-related.
http://www.edu-nix.org/livecdthree/
You should at least take a look at the kde4 and Education projects. Arguably, they're the best parts of KDE4 (no argument about the games; they *are* the best parts), and since KDE4 is destined for Windows too, it's cross-platform, although I don't know what state the Windows port is actually in.
Phun is an educational, entertaining and somewhat addictive piece of software for designing and exploring 2D multi-physics simulations in a cartoony fashion.
http://www.vrlab.umu.se/research/phun/
Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.
http://www.alice.org/
Since it's a public library, however, I can't have any software on the computers that is risqué, gory, or violent.
Exactly why not? Does your library also lack risqué, gory, and violent books? What the hell sort of library is this?
Tell that to my 10-year-old son. He does great with it, and he teaches himself by watching tutorials on Youtube.
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
Its absolutely amazing and a true testament to the power of open source that programs like Blender actually exist. I mean there is obviously hundreds of thousands of hours of dev time behind that program. Competitors sell similar programs for tens of thousand of dollars, and you can go down that for free. Just... awesome.
Take a look at http://k12ltsp.org They focus on educational software and thin clients. Both would be a good fit for a library environment.
Perhaps a bit older than you were looking for
Storytelling Alice - Designed for Middle School
http://www.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling/index.html
Frozen Bubbles. Fun, and teaches some geometry.
http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
I think small children would have an easier and significantly more fun time playing with a kitchen blender than trying to learn the application.
Hello
Having children in that age range, and having looked to some degree I haven't found any GPL educational games that really got my kids interest (Tux paint held the 6 year olds attention for an afternoon).
What has held my children's interest are games on the following websites:
http://www.pbskids.org/
http://funschool.kaboose.com/
http://www.starfall.com/
http://kids.discovery.com/
How about Line Rider as a flash game?
http://www8.agame.com/mirror/flash/l/linerider_v1_5.swf
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
Web based games (usually in flash) can be fun, especially for the younger kids.
For 2-5 I like www.poissonrouge.com
If your library has a CD collection, you could see about installing AudioSurf, and having the kids get a sense of how different certain styles of music are. That's reeeally stretching what could be considered 'educational' though.
Check out OpenEducationDisc and OpenDisc.
True, although it's hard to say from the summary whether the submitter is actually opposed to commercial software or not. If he is, shame on him for reducing his options... but hopefully he's looking for quality software first, and its free/commercial status is a secondary consideration.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
For learning basic circuitry, logic gates and wiring in a fun way, I'd have once recommended Robot Odyssey for the Apple IIe. These days, there's a java clone called DroidQuest.
SimCity was just open-sourced, and there is the even better Lincity-NG, but where are the open source clones of Number Numbers, Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, etc?
kde-edu is a nice start, but if there were more education programs, I think Linux would make more inroads in schools. Introducing kids early on to the concept of free software, and choices in picking your software is very important.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
You already mentioned Tux Paint, but I wanted to express how truly great that program is for kids.
I found it several years ago when my 7 year old was 2 and he loved it. Since then, my current 5 and 3 year olds, along with many cousins and friends have all truly enjoyed it.
It is probably the best example of how to design open source software for kids, in my mind.
Give Phun a whirl, its a physics sandbox thats made by a university student from sweden. My first thought when i saw it was; Damn, wish i had this when i was a kid :-)
From the site (http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki/About):
"Phun is meant to be a playground where people can be creative. It can also be used as an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction."
It has linux binarys avalible and the author is planning on releasing the code, just hasn't decided on what licence to use.
Video of gameplay http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki/Media
Yeah but Blender wasn't always open source.
Mada mada dane.
E.g. KTurtle. It's fun and very approachable for little'uns who are interested in programming and/or art.
I remember endless frustration during my initial attempts to grasp more traditional languages--they generally depend on a great deal of prerequisite knowledge and experience which a beginner hasn't accumulated yet. In elementary school I was exposed to some variety of Turtle Graphics on an old Mac and made some fun, albeit simple, pictures. The visual feedback offered is a vastly more effective reenforcement than console output (for me at least). Event though it is (or can be) a very simple language, it includes staple concepts of most languages.
KTurtle has a nice reference guide included with it, so a student (or instructor instructing students) can absorb the language at their own pace.
Perhaps ambitious students would realize their potential and move up to a general purpose language. Maybe even C/C++ and OpenGL to further explore graphics!
I can't remember the last time I forgot anything.
You should definitely have a look at Anagramarama. It's a fun game for many different ages, and can certainly be played in groups. Also with/without adults. Also exists in other languages than English. The game is available to GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac and BeOS. Inface it should probably work on all platforms that support SDL.
Maybe I'm just jaded, but there are very, very few examples of edutainment that kids actually like playing. When I was young, Zoombinis was great to play at school, but that was about it.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
GIMP? Bah, Paint.net (http://www.getpaint.net) is where it's at :)
Also, though definately not one for the kiddies (and also will fall under your gory category), Typing of the Deat, while not free, will teach teenagers to type far better than any Mavis Beacon stuff they have at school.
Why was this modded Troll? Blender isn't exactly suited for 2-8 year olds...
Bug Squish, think by the same creators of Tux Paint. Popular with the 2-8 crowd. Also Enigma is a fun game, the puzzles are difficult, but it will keep a kid occupied for a few minutes.
Somewhat similar and GPL:
Botsnscouts is a Java version of Roborally (though without option cards).
But use the CVS version, it's way better than the ancient release.
ZoeyBot is a free service for kids, parents and educators. It's Disney DXD meets Wikipedia/google for kids.
http://www.alice.org/
The KDE Education package contains some impressive applications. The KDE Games package contains some nice casual games. In KDE4, many of them were given new good-looking SVG graphics. Also since KDE4, they can be run on Windows and Mac OS X natively (and on Linux too of course). The Windows port is a work in progress; maybe not something you should install tomorrow, but something to keep an eye on.
I'm helping a local park get started with an outdoor classroom (no computers outside), but we are hoping to have a "rainy-day room" with a few computer games. Since we expect younger children we were going to have the donated computers (i.e. older) running on ubuntu with Google Earth; the plan is to have prepared a KML of natural areas within and near the park with lots of things for the children to click. We also wanted to have a television with the auto-focus 'microscope' at http://www.eyeclops.com/. The possibility of Sketchup or Scratch has been discussed.
scribbles is a great program for drawing that Im actually grooming to replace photoshop for simple drawing-but is also meant to be a simple childrens' drawing program. Unfortunately, its a mac only program so linux or windoze could be a problem.. neverball on the otherhand is an awesome cross platform game that is free.Highly addictive though-you may want to consider putting a time limit on it!
The opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily those of my brain.
The OP said his focus is on 2-8 year olds. While it's cool your 10 year old enjoys blender (and I think Blender rocks), it's outside the scope of the original post. Better to keep the discussion on topic.
Some 10 year olds will enjoy Blender, but it's not exactly a user-friendly (certainly not child friendly) interface. Hence the need for tutorials on YouTube. My 11 year old tried and enjoyed 3ds Max (had no problem picking it up), but thought Blender was completely unintuitive.
I'd find a machine and see what you think of Edubuntu ("Linux for Young Human Beings").
http://www.edubuntu.org/UsingEdubuntu
My daughter is 3-1/2 and loves the stuff on Linux. She was typing her name on TuxPaint before she turned three but we had to click on the icons for her to set it to text or other modes since the mouse was too big and unwieldy.
So I bought her a laptop mouse which is perfect for her small hand. Big mistake. She will now sneak into the computer and start up "Paint Penguins" (TuxPaint), draw something, print it and come show us.
If she's bored with that she plays "Running Penguins" (SuperTux) or "Bubble Penguins" (Frozen Bubbles) or steals my Blackberry to show where Nana lives on Google Maps.
If she finds my bank-account numbers I'm in trouble. But seriously, Linux has plenty of edutainment software available and Edubuntu packages it in one place. It it also designed for classroom (and therefore, I suppose, library) use with features like centralized-management (LTSP) and such.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Seeing KStars in KDE reminded me that there are a couple of really good FLOSS astronomy programs out there.
One is Celestia, which lets you travel/fly through the solar system, the galaxy (including several other known solar systems), and the local universe!
I know there's also a similar FLOSS planetarium program (Earth-based, rather than space-based), but I can't find it right now. Through in a pinch, Celestia can work like a planetarium too.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
My kids both love Tux of Math Command...
http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org/tuxmath.php
Here's my five year old son playing...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D20yCEDye2Q
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
There was some discussion about Blender, which I found far too complicated for kids, but Google Sketchup may fit the bill for a kid-friendly 3D application. It would target the high end of your range (my 8 year old enjoyed it), but certainly not a 2 year old. May not be OSS, but it is available for free...
I read this morning on Linux.com about how a dad install Edubuntu on his computer(s) at home and his kids love it. You might want to take a look at Edubuntu.
I'll bet they'd learn it easier than you.
That's not a slight on you, just that it's well known that kids pick up things quicker than adults. That's why "child-proof" caps really end up being adult-proof -- my parents always used to ask me to open them, as a kid.
Sorry, I'll get off your lawn now.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Not too much edu but loads of tainment!
http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/
You might need headphones tho since it's a library! xD
You did say "teen-oriented"...
Firebug, for one...
Or just include source and compilers for everything you can find. Gentoo might be a good fit for that (though not for much else).
And of course, anything you can get as a shell/interpreter. irb, python, erlang, etc.
Another possibility: Xen. Make it possible for people to load whatever they want onto a (temporary) virtual machine image. See if people start writing their own OSes...
One more, while I'm at it: Core Wars. Allows you to write bots that attack each other.
Also, depending on the policies you have to work with, check out World of Padman -- Quake 3 engine, GPL'd, violent but comical and gore-free (it's like fighting with super soakers, really). Nothing educational about it, though -- purely entertainment.
Finally: Throw up a wiki, just because. Let students start to post interesting things they've discovered. The idea is to create a sense of community, not just one teen hacking on their own.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
My 2 year old likes:
1) Tuxtype -- on easy mode he can type about 1/8th of the letters before they hit the ground. Especially if the letter is W (his favorite).
2) Tuxpaint -- Loves just drawing different colored lines.
3) Tuxracer (or one of the forks)
https://www.facebook.com/digitizeicm -- Show your support for the digitization of the Iron County Miner newspaper archiv
More likely is that he knows how to find the commercial software and is running into trouble finding GPL software. And he's wondering if it's because it's just not out there, or if he isn't using the right resources.
At least, if I were a library worker, I'd be very concerned with keeping on top of ways-to-find-information.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Stellarium for star charts and constellations. Windows, Mac, Linux versions. Highly recommended.
Bender and OpenOffice.org are both formerly closed source programs. OO.o (then StarOffice) was purchased by Sun and released so that they would have a viable alternative to MS Office on their platform, while Blender wwent under and was purchased through donations from the FOSS community.
Put identity in the browser.
While I'm here, the submitter should talk to the guys on the K12OS.org mailing list. They deal with this issue all the time and will probably have the most to say about it.
Put identity in the browser.
You don't really need individual suggestions, as most of the decent open-source educational programs out there are part of KDE. The latest version of KDE will hopefully be installable on Windows this year.
Just install the full package, and you'll have stuff like KLatin and KVerbos for learning languages, as well as star-gazing software, plus KTurtle, KTouch and a load more.
Here's the educative games I suggest.
;-). Suitable for your oldest ones?
http://www.food-force.com/ Made by the U.N. Free, MacOS X or Windows. (sorry no Linux afaik) Probably the best one in my list for the 6-8 years old.
http://www.tqworld.com/ - Tranquility. After years and years, this game has something no other game offers. Well suited for the youngsters. Free, but not open source.
http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/ U.N. too. Free and web-based. Excellent. Probably best for 8 years old (older ones of your range). Surprisingly informative.
http://www.stepmania.com/ Not sure that ones counts as edutainment, but it sure is good for the children! Open source and available for all platforms.
http://www.openttd.org/ A railroad tycoon open source clone (gosh I'm getting old
For the curious ones, here's the other worthy (subjective) open source games I discovered with time. http://del.icio.us/Satri/game+opensource
Animoog.org
typical capitalist pig. Trying to force the government to subsidize private enterprise so these firms do not actually have to hire people to innovate new products to compete with cheaper alternatives. Not that I have a problem with the corporate dole, to the contrary, I like the fact that executives become extremely wealthy at the expense of the average taxpayer, I am just mocking evangelicals that love the dole but hate paying taxes.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
http://www.schoolforge.net/education-software
http://www.theopendisc.com/education/
The OP also said that stuff for teens is fine as well.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Fish Fillets (Next Generation) is a cute and intelligent puzzle game that trains problem solving skills. It's apparently a port of a 1998 game by ALTAR interactive, but the OSS version works just fine. The player interaction is very nicely done - the version I downloaded 18 months ago only had Polish voices, but even so, it was easy to understand and quite addictive. (I just checked, and it seems that the game is now available in 13 languages)
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
I'm not entirely sure, but it's possible that this distro is still only available in German. If so, I'm sure you can contact the maintainers and organize a translation of the main content.
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
It was modded a troll because certain moderators don't have any clue about what constitutes a troll, and what is funny.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Why do you limit yourself to GPL only. Are you really going to alter source for applications for kids... Probably not. You are better off getting freeware, shareware and arguable gray area of legal of Abandon-ware. As well open if you can use windows the more will be available. Linux is barely making a nudge in the desktop assuming that there will be slew of applications for kids is just crazy thinking, Linux's knitch is really in the Server.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I once heard someone describe educational computer games as much like christian rock. Both have the same kind of "... not quite" about them.
I put linux on ancient computers for my cousins, who cover the gamut of elementary school ages. By far, their favorite toys are tuxpaint and frozen-bubble. They think globulation2 is great as well, but it's a bit too hard for them.
I remember loving simcity when I was in elementary school. I believe there is an open source clone of the original somewhere, but it's probably not pretty enough for today's kids.
In our school we run these and some othere that are less game like (and for older students).
:)
Tux Math: http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxmath/
Tux Typeing: http://tuxtype.sourceforge.net/
Tux Paint: http://www.tuxpaint.org/
The newbreed software site has a number of programs there. There are actually quite a few educational titles around, I like gtypist for the older students as it is fast, modifiable, and has a lot of lessons. Its curses based though so it will turn some people off if they have a fear of the terminal, also it only runs on Linux, Unix, and OS X via darwin ports or fink (not counting cygwin). You can run it over an ssh session though and could automate that with a script.
~Petaris "The world is open. Are you?"
Of course, having Google Earth is bound to chew up a lot of bandwidth, so use your best judgment.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Idea
Shapari: http://www.spelunkcomputing.com/ My kids had fun with this when they were younger (6--8) Makes fractals. Windows executable.
http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/
My 4 and 2.5 year old children love it.
The author of Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby has brought us the edutainment in the form of http://hacketyhack.net/
This is supposed to help children >= 13
learn how to program with cartoon characters to teach them. I haven't actually looked at it, but
I do love most of whytheluckystiff's work and there is a Linux version. I'm not sure if all thous source code is available though.
I like ChildsPlay also for my 4-yr old.
I am one of the primary developers for Tux, Of Math Command (aka "tuxmath") and Tux Typing. These GPL programs were more or less dormant for a while, but have been actively maintained and enhanced for the last couple of years. They now live at:
http://www.tux4kids.com (which is really just an alias for our alioth page - http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org)
Tuxpaint (http://www.tuxpaint.org) is loosely affiliated, but is more polished and professional, and has its own site.
These programs have been around for a while, but the newer versions are significantly improved over the versions found in most linux distros, especially Tuxmath.
All programs are also available for Win32 and MacOSX, and are internationalized to varying degrees.
The Tux4Kids programs will be further enhanced by 10 Google Summer of Code projects this year.
David Bruce
dbruce@tampabay.rr.com
http://en.opensuse.org/Education
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Education:/desktop/openSUSE_10.3/repodata/
http://funguloids.sourceforge.net/
http://tomatoes.sourceforge.net/
Keep the games boring so that the kids read some books!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I believe that various 4X games, like Master of Orion series, Civilization, etc, should be used to teach schoolchildren the value of resource management and strategic thinking. These skills transcend english grammar, mathematics, artistic expression and even critical thinking - they can be applied to almost all life situations. And it doesn't hurt that the games which have this as their fundamental mechanic are quite enjoyable.
My older son (now 4) learned how to use a mouse and the basics of computers from a Toddler Game when he was just two years old. I highly recommend this game for children between 2-4. Although its not 100% finished, enough of the game is there to keep toddlers occupied.
I agree. Intact digits are even more overrated than computer software
"Where's my other sock?" - A. Einstein
Yuck! I cringe whenever someone uses that word. Perhaps because lately I feel very much offended that a lot of 'Information' out there is in fact nothing more than a subtle (or increasingly not-so-subtle) attempt at Marketing.
... rather than on a computer screen. Teach them well those basics that our ancestors took so long to truly comprehend, preferably with a pencil and paper.
Please enough already - no more of this Hollywood style, flashy, 'make believe' stuff with specious vocabulary. There is a certain spark in the Human psyche that gets lit whenever a person truly gains comprehension or insight into something they did not know before. Especially with Children, in my humble opinion, what's need is to light that little flame. 'Edutainment' makes it seem like it's a bitter pill that must be sugar coated with oodles of artificial sweeteners to be palatable.
I say, leave them kids alone. Let them discover the joys of the Earth without the myopic view of Google Earth and look for the Stars in the night sky
The original version of SimCity was recently Open Sourced, more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropolis_(software) and download. at
http://www.donhopkins.com/home/micropolis/
The GPL version of SimCity Classic from Maxis is called "Micropolis", and is available on Google Code.
There's an old version based on TCL/Tk, which runs on the OLPC, Linux, and also on the Mac with X11.
And I'm in the process of rewriting it in C++/Python/GTK/Cairo/Pango, which runs on Windows, Mac OS/X and Linux (including the OLPC of course).
Lots more stuff about it on my web site.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
it is, for the lack of other word, a "Simulator" that allows you to travel across the Solar System and even farther. Very good educational software.
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Don't forget BRL-CAD (open-source 3D solids modeling) which now has been added to Google's Summer of Code program. Not easy to get into or understand, but excellent potential, given its origins (core not written by amateurs).
Here is an on-line interactive site my children spent ages playing on: http://www.poissonrouge.com/ Free to use and in english and french.
the current site for tuxmath and tuxtype is
http://www.tux4kids.com (although we are certainly not commercial - it is just an alias for our Alioth site- http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org)
The current versions are way better, especially for tuxmath.
David Bruce
(primary programmer and maintainer of tuxmath and tuxtype for las two years)
Just to be clear, OpenTTD is an open source clone of the Transport Tycoon (not Railroad Tycoon) engine, but to play the game you must provide the data files from the original game yourself; they are not available under an open license. So it's probably not a viable option given the submitter's criteria.
Also, in my experience the addictive quality of the game has a pronounced negative effect on the player's GPA. Proceed with caution.
Journey onward.
Also check out Celestia which lets you "travel" through space for up-close views of stars, planets, moons - even spacecraft are included. GPL, Linux, Mac, Windows. My 7 year old daughter loves it, although she needs help with the interface. For that matter, so do I.
Journey onward.
the bbc's cbeebies have a number of games, many are lightweight fun games, some have a little learning (reading), and a few are very good. the nice thing is that you could whitelist that web page and be fairly sure there's nothing nasty on that sub URL.
CFD programs like ChannelFlow graphically show how things like water change course and create all kinds of currents when you add obstructions.
For more adventuresome kids, there's the Mars Simulation Project. History? There are simulators of many early computers, including those used on the Apollo spacecraft. Keen programmers? Pose this little problem: When should you use these programming languages? MUMPS, D, Tcl/Tk, Forth, Erlang.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Too many of the games being recommended are essentially programming trainers. Not every kid wants to learn programming. At least, not consciously. I always loved The Incredible Machine and had hoped a similar offering would appear for Linux someday. However, Phun (mentioned above) looks entertaining enough. Good for some basic physics lessons.
Shouldn't the focus be it being "good" rather than "GPL"? Maybe you can get both in the same criteria, but I'm just surprised the primary objective is that it's GPL - you might find proprietary is the way forward; would that be a road block? Sounds to me like it would be in this scenario.
throw new NoSignatureException();
1. Celestia - 3D Accelerated Planetarium software
2. Kiki the Nanobot - Very good (award winning) 3d robot puzzle game
And finally- Google Earth. Not GPL obviously, but free and a lot of fun for anyone- kids included.
http://polishlinux.org/apps/educational-programs-in-gnulinux/
One of the best programs I've seen for kids who are learning to read or even learning letters is Dr. Seuss's ABC; put out by the Learning Company and Living Books. It is a commercial program but well worth the small price. Each letter has a small story going with it, and many, many animals and events start with that letter when you click on "something." Fun, hilarious, and our 4-5 year old thinks it is as great as I do.
A fun little game where you guide a toy train around a track while your train gets longer in a manner similar to snake.
Probably that falls into about that age bracket.
Includes a quiz section on the "Rights of Man"
I'm not sure if that can be disabled or made an arbitrary quiz module.
Seems likely, given it is OSS that is it possible at some level.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
An interesting looking, cross-platform, 3d-oriented educational programming laguage. Free, source available, but not OSS. http://www.alice.org/
Cultist of the Average Middle-Aged Ones
Never fear, the power of Google is here!
Looks like these guys have taken up the gauntlet which Loki had to relinquish... I wish them luck. I'd buy from them, but frankly, I'm trying to give up gaming rather than looking for new games...
True, although it's hard to say from the summary whether the submitter is actually opposed to commercial software or not. If he is, shame on him for reducing his options... but hopefully he's looking for quality software first, and its free/commercial stat
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
Try Apophysis-J and Electric Sheep for getting kids into math and evolution through fun imagery.
Scott Draves
BRL-CAD has languished long enough. This is a great project that could be brought up to date quickly with modern stuff.
It's good to see it in Google's SOC program.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If you can find them, back in the 90's there were a whole bunch of Math Blaster games, you played through the levels doing math and logic problems as you progressed through the story. There were others as well, and they were designed to be games first and teaching programs second.
And I don't know if someone else has suggested it, but Where in the world is Carmen SanDiego is the greatest game in the world for teaching kids geography while they think they're playing a game. That game is one of the reasons I have a map over my bed to this day.
Also, Oregon Trail was always fun.
Since it's a public library, however, I can't have any software on the computers that is risqué, gory, or violent.
Presumably you don't have any teen fiction either. That's all innuendo, gore and violence from cover to cover, or else terribly boring.