What are my options to get the latest GCompris and Child’s Play?

thank you,
TY

I agree… that education departments have not broken the nexus between computing and Microsoft.

As I posted recently on ZDnet.com.au forum:
[Start of extract of post at ZDnet]
The real battle will be over school Operating System use. I think Ubuntu is now far more secure, stable, less-viral, easy-to-use and has far lower total cost of ownership than any proprietary OS. And interestingly, it may take the success of the One-Laptop-Per-Child project in Africa to confirm to OECD-country education departments that Ubuntu is the ‘free/open’ way to go. Then we’d see an interesting phenomenon where the first-world will learn IT lessons from the third-world. I’m still laughing from hearing the NSW Education Dept’s claim that it can’t/won’t accept the free computer for each high school student from the Rudd [Australian] Federal Government on the grounds that the software and support costs will cripple the education budget. Someone should show the minister how a cloned Ubuntu drive can be copied in just minutes (as no separate licensing muck-around per PC) and how a user logged in as ‘Guest’ can do all manner of browsing but not EVER cause a stuff-up on the system, irrespective of what malware sites are visited.

WinXP never asked if you objected to the storage of a executable file in the program area of the system; Vista asks all the time, to the point where people disable the feature; Linux asks only once per 3-10 days when there are real program updates available, but then prevents you from by-passing this important security feature.
Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu)
[End of extract]

The support costs could be 70% less with Open Source (eg Linux) AND I object to kids being taught corporate/proprietary formats and applications. Let’s remember that the ISO standard for documents is now OpenOffice (M$ ‘DOT DOC’ was rejected)!

Having got my rant about ’standards’ and ‘open source’ out of the way, let me say that, like the author’s cousin, I too have decades of experience in the IT industry.

I think there are definitely ‘real world parallels’ in having kids use Google and Wiki to research topics, rather than accessing index card drawers in their local library. Having kids by Yr3 able to type up and save documents ain’t bad either. Feeling comfortable doing a powerpoint presentation by Yr4 or Yr5 is a good skill to be comfortable with too.

I think the challenge is to ensure that these are NOT the only skills kids get (for the reasons cited in ABC article). That is not to say we need to do equal time in index card drawers… but just that we need to make sure that at least half the assignments up to Yr10 are required to be in handwriting, so that our future adults can still write (as well as type) and to ensure (as best we can) that they did not just copy-and-paste from elsewhere.

Google and Wiki are great tools, and what they are likely to use in real life. Go back one generation and remember that the argument then was about use of calculators (that excessive use could decrease numeracy skills)… and for Engineering students a generation before that, the use of slide rules to speed up calculators (similar argument).

When I started my first undergraduate course in 1972 we were just then (Sydney Uni) allowed to bring calculators into exams. But I still have the numeracy skills - like the mathematician with constipation - to work it out from first principles using just paper and pencil.

A news item on IT mag www.ZDnet.com.au notes that Portugal earlier this year did a licensing deal with Intel to build 500,000 laptops in Portugal for school kids, based on the Intel Atom low-power processor. Now Portugal reports a deal with Venezuela to supply 1,000,000 laptops for that country’s school kids. Of course all 1,500,000 will run Linux, not Windoze.

Australia [and America] needs to get behind the Open Source revolution, rather than training our youngest how to live a life entirely locked-into proprietary protocols. In time it has the power to change our whole economy. The countries with whom we will compete over the next century are already not paying large software royalties, so why should we put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage?
Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu)

Now your child grows up only know whats in his/hers face all day long LINUX they grow up and there you have it a new generation of Pengiun lovers. tell you what my kids will eat sleep and drink Linux.