01 September 2002
Newsletter #10 from the KDE-Edu team

As it's now time to go back to school, here is the newsletter number 10 from 
the KDE-Edu project. The project ultimate aim is to create educational 
software based around KDE, the K Desktop Environment and all our projects are 
under an Open Source license (mainly GPL or Artistic License). This 
newsletter keeps you informed of the state of this project.

Website
http://edu.kde.org

What's new? 
On August 22nd 2002, the KDE Project released KDE 3.1 Beta1, an experimental 
snapshot of the current CVS tree that will become KDE 3.1 final. That means 
that the new KDE-Edu applications or new features in existing applications 
can be found in that beta release.
Please see
http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-3.1beta1.html
for more details.

As it was holiday time, the development has slowed a bit but we are still 
trying to define the best strategy for developing the best educational 
software. 

We started a discussion ([kde-edu-devel] possible design math 
apphttp://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-edu-devel&m=102906378818449&w=2) 
about a mathematical application, which should be based on a plugin-system 
and offer these basic functions:
- learning something, with imediate feedback if an answer is correct or not.
- training: do the exercises as fast as possible
- feedback at the end of a set of exercises
- some flashcard approach, where exercises with incorrect answers come up 
again
- exercises embedded in games
- statistics
- .... (whatever teachers come up with)

Part of our difficulties is to come up with an attractive user interface for 
each application. If you are using educational software that you find useful 
and well designed, please send us a screenshot of the interface as well as an 
explanation of the software.

In France: Debian Éducation
The Debian Project has always been keen to promote eduware through the Debian 
Jr. Project.
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/

In France, the Debian Éducation CD is out to be tested in schools. Back in 
1998, the French Board of Education committed itself to promoting the use of 
Free Software, especially in high schools, where it was less widely used than 
in universities. In 2001, the Conseil Général de Seine-et-Marne decided to 
provide high schools with 2,000 Linux-operated computers, in order to test 
the efficiency and useability of both the OS and the registered applications. 
To make it possible, Logidée, a company specialized in providing professional 
training and consulting on Linux, has kindly packaged all the applications 
for the Debian distribution, customized the installer and the desktop to make 
it possible for teachers to use it. The resulting bootable ISO image can be 
downloaded here : 
ftp://ftp.logidee.com/debian-educ/iso/ (main site)
Project link (in French):
http://logiciels-libres-cndp.ac-versailles.fr/index.html

This is a very encouraging first step to get free software in schools! 

You can find a HTML version of this newsletter at
http://edu.kde.org/newsletter/newsletter10.phtml

The KDE-Edu team
kde-edu@edu.kde.org
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