[K12OSN] TuxPaint 0.9.16 vs. KidPix a teachers perspective

Wed Dec 13 16:25:13 UTC 2006

I disagree that logins are tough for young kids....my kids do it all the
time and they start in kindergarten.  What I have done for my
kindergartners is created a simple password....  "12345"  They learn their
username pretty quickly, but they also come into the lab with a "login
card" which features the two screenshots of username and password for gdm
on K12LTSP.  I used OO and did a mailmerge to create the login cards from
the same list that I used to create the accounts in the first place.  the
kid takes their card....goes to a computer and logs in.  In 1st grade we
then move to normal passwords....and they do fine after the first few
times....they too have login cards.  In fact, I provide login cards (8.5 x
11 for little ones and half size for the older kids) for everyone....the
older kids....grades 3+ don't bother with them after the first couple
times as they memorize their passwords.  If you start in the beginning
with having the kids log in....then there are no bad habits to break with
regard to "mass logins".  Each kid has their own space on the network.... 
 Teach them now....not later.

For the younger kids the teachers often laminate the cards and keep them
until the kids need them to log in into a computer either in the lab or
the classroom.  For the older ones they pass them out the first day of
school to the kids with the instructions to memorize them ASAP.  

"Support list for open source software in schools." <k12osn at redhat.com>
writes:
>Sound advice indeed!
>
>John
>
>On 12/13/06, John Lucas <[ mailto:mrjohnlucas at gmail.com
>]mrjohnlucas at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>While it is OK to have the same account on multiple standalone machines,
>it
>will not be OK to have one login for 20 users on the same machine (i.e.
>with
>LTSP).
>
>This is not a problem with TuxPaint (as the original post implied), but
>with 
>the administrative decisions that were made in setting up the lab. Logins
>for
>very young students are tough, but ignoring the operational assumptions of
>the OS is going to cause myriad problems (not just with TuxPaint).
>If/when 
>you make the change to LTSP consider kiosk-style accounts with one account
>per *terminal*, this would at least eliminate having to create/maintain
>accounts for every student.
>
>On Tuesday 12 December 2006 18:15, john wrote: 
>> Thanks for the feedback. We have the lab in question set up using
>windows.
>> In this age group (k-5) students login with a  user-name based on the
>> teacher for that class. So all 28 kids log in as "smith" for example. 
>> Inside of the "smith" folder on a network share called k:\Smith is
>another
>> directory with each students name on it. Students drop work in that
>> directory. This isn't the ideal set up, but for various historical
>reasons 
>> that is the convention we use. AFAIK because you can't "save-as" you
>can't
>> name  the image to differentiate it from other kids work. Short of
>> providing logins for all the k-3 set who generally use this I don't see
>a 
>> way around it.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> As a side note, my goal is to replace this lab with an LTSP set up, but
>I
>> need to have analogs for those things which are favorites. KidPix and
>Type 
>> to learn are big ones. Has anyone ever tried to run these under
>cross-over
>> office?
>>
>> John
>>
>> On 12/12/06, Samps <[ mailto:samps at unplugd.com ]samps at unplugd.com>
>wrote: 
>> > Quoting john  <[ mailto:lists.john at gmail.com ]lists.john at gmail.com>:
>> > >> - Kids can't save to their [own] file - every station would have
>> >
>> > everyone's 
>> >
>> > > art - and can be deleted by anyone
>> > > - There isn't an import option to bring in pictures saved from the
>> >
>> > internet
>> >
>> > > or a digital camera. 
>> >
>> > Have a look at the 'savedir=' option in the doko, it'll do the trick:
>> >
>> > [ http://tuxpaint.org/docs/html/OPTIONS.html
>]http://tuxpaint.org/docs/html/OPTIONS.html 
>> >
>> >
>> > Samps
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > [ https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
>]https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
>> > For more info see <[ http://www.k12os.org ]http://www.k12os.org>
>
>--
>        "History doesn't repeat itself; at best it rhymes."
>                        - Mark Twain
>
>| John Lucas                          [ mailto:MrJohnLucas at gmail.com
>]MrJohnLucas at gmail.com                |
>| St. Thomas, VI 00802                [
>http://mrjohnlucas.googlepages.com/ ]http://mrjohnlucas.googlepages.com/ |
>| 18.3°N, 65°W                        AST (UTC-4)                        
>| 
>
>
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David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Director
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask at vcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100