Linux Journal: Freeing Computers in Schools

“Riza is a four-year-old Indian girl who thinks of computers as
toys. Instead of adding one more difficult subject to her already
tiring school day, she occasionally plays educational games on the
PC. When her friends come over, they end up learning without being
aware of it. One girl her age, who’s never handled computers
before, drags the mouse. As she moves it across the mouse pad, the
image of a furry bear jerkily is unveiled on the monitor. Another
younger child dances to the music that a program called Bump and
Jump plays, a piece of software written by a team of Swedish
students. The best part is nobody paid for the CD the children are
using; it’s not pirated either. It can be run from any computer,
simply by booting from the CD-ROM drive. The CD comes in a
distribution called FreEDUC.

“So, what’s the point of this example? The point is free
software is opening up a whole new world, and education is one of
its major global beneficiaries. Free software tool are being used
to help students from kindergarten through graduate school, but how
much attention is being paid to this topic…?”

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