The Community-Linux Training Centre: Practice Briefing 2

Using Linux with Kids from 3 to 7 – an introduction

By the Free Range Comunity-Linux Training Centre Project, CLTC-P02, version 1.1, December 2004. email: fraw@gn.apc.org web: http://www.fraw.org.uk/cltc/

Using computers with kids can be problematic. On Windows machines problems arise when they start fooling around with system files or donâ €™t respond appropriately to warning messages. By contrast, the greater security provided by Linux means kids can play, largely unsupervised, with little risk to the system. This briefing looks at various aspects of using Linux with kids – both in terms of software and playing with hardware.

Gnu/Linux is a really good computer operating system – especially if you like playing with networks or programming languages. But there is one area where both the resources available with Linux distributions, and the efforts of the Linux support community to provide assistance, are a little thin – using Linux with young children. This briefing has been developed to address this shortfall in support.

The development of this briefing has not been a formal study. It has emerged as a result of the experience gained in studying how two young children (right) have been able to learn how to use the computer, and the functions of the graphical desktop. What follows is therefore a documentation of the knowledge gained from observation rather than an in-depth study. It is also the reason why this briefing is limited to the ages three to seven. However, it is hoped that the idea presented here will spawn other projects to provide support for the use of Gnu/Linux with young children....

http://www.fraw.org.uk/pubs/cltcpb/cltc_pb-02.html

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