[K12OSN] Re: Open Source curriculum

[anthony baldwin <mrbaldwin school-library net>]

>Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 08:17:23 -0500
>From: "Richard K. Ingalls" <awm002 mail connect more net>
>Organization: Glenwood R-8
>To: k12osn redhat com
>Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Open Source curriculum
>Reply-To: k12osn redhat com
>
>I echo your statement Caleb!  Is anybody out there doing anything 
>interesting with their elementary students?  What applications are you 
>using?  What are the grade levels you're working with?  Etc...  Right 
>now, I only use the K12LTSP lab with 6th - 8th grade students, primarily 
>in a language arts class (word processing, internet, presentation 
>software).  What are you people on the list doing / using?
>
>Thanks!
>
>
Last year I taught an elective course in creative photography in which
we used the Gimp to edit many projects.  For instance, students used the Gimp
to create creative self-portraits in which they pasted themselves into race cars
or stepping on the school building and stuff.  That was fun.
Also, I use a unit on advertising and propaganda to introduce my Languaeg Arts
students to the concepts of logical fallacies in order to bolster their
persuasive writing skills (I teach them to recognize, and therefore not use, logical fallacies).  The unit also lends itself well to instructino in audience awareness.  I had students create their own products and then advertise them.
They had to choose a target audience and write an abstract before creating the ad
in which they described elements of their audience and how they would use what 
ad techniques to target that audience.  Students used the Gimp to create ads.

I have also used OOo to create many curricula for students.  I have posted a graphical organizer for persuasive writing on my classroom page, for instance, that was created with the OOo drawing tool. (http://baldwinets.tripod.com/school/sago.jpg)
I think I saved it as a png or something and then converted to jpg for the website using the Gimp.
Of course, my students have used the write and presentation software, too.
We've discussed a webdesign class in which I would use Moz composer or hte OOo html editor to intiate the course and then maybe move to Quanta.  Of course, I would try to wean them from gui tools and teach them some code, too.
I gave a knoppix cd with Kstars to the 8th grade science teacher and I believe that she used that in class.  Also, gPeriodic.
Since I do a lot of online stuff with my kids I have considered careting tests and quizzes with Keduca, but I don't really know enough about cgi to post forms to my
site like that.  I intend to learn in my copious spare time...
I do post a lot of their work as well as resources, links, etc. for them on
a class website (http://bulldogs.school-library.net)
This is all with 7 and 8 graders, though.
My daughter loves GCompris.  In fact, I have photos of her playing it on
the frankenstein box I made for her out of spare parts that I have been meaning
to share with the project  just to show how simple using K12 and linux in general can be...Of course, MY child IS a genius.  That goes without saying.

I could see gnucash or some other such financial tool being used in a math class, 
and the many graphing and mathematicla tools, I'm sure, would lend themselves to that sort of thing (OOo Math, Dia, KChart, etc., etc.)
Isn't there some molecule building graphical program somewhere, too?
KDE has a whole kaboodle of nifty educational goodies.  
Check http://edu.kde.org

The pastabilities are endless.

tony

http://www.School-Library.net
Freedom to Learn!

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