Re: [school-discuss] bootable CDs?

[Chris Gregan <cgregan@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marilyn,
Yes, most people in the community are as excited as you are about the 
introduction or the Linux LiveCD. It is the main reason why there are so 
many. Everyone wants a disk with all the apps they find most useful, and 
your subject based CD is one worth exploring with some of the LiveCD 
development groups. In the mean time, there are a fair amount of subject 
neutral LiveCDs for kids to learn software concepts, science, math, 
language/phonics, etc. The one receiving the most attention currently, 
Edubuntu Live, has a large base of educational software and is built on 
the very popular and stable Ubuntu distro.

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/6.06.1/release/

I'm sure I speak for all of us here in saying that I'm glad to see more 
and more teachers like yourself taking the initiative to explore some of 
the open source options available to you. If I can help in any way, do 
not hesitate to write.

Chris Gregan
cgregan@xxxxxxxxxxx
Open Source Migration Specialist/Founder
Aptenix LLC-Desktop Solutions
New Market, MD
(240)422-9224

"Open source, open minds."

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marilyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Does anyone else see the potential in bootable CDs?  
>
> I used them the moment I discovered them back in 2003.  I was teaching
> keyboarding and Knoppix 3.2 had a copy of LyX on it.  The students used LyX to
> write reports for their other classes.  I sent a Knoppix CD home with every kid
> at the end of the term.
>
> Since then I've kept up with Knoppix and frequently have used it as my primary
> OS, using my hard disk just for storage.  Since my technical expertise is not
> at the level of most of you on this list (music teacher . . . yesterday I spent
> the day playing "Hot Cross Buns" on recorders all day), I appreciate that
> Knoppix usually sees my hardware and networks easily.  It's much less
> complicated then messing with an installation.
>
> Last Spring someone from the schoolforge list sent out a link to Frozen Tech's
> Live CD List.  http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
>
> Wow!  That was like Christmas!  I had no idea there were so many flavors!
>
> I found two I liked for school use right away.  I use Kanotix to print out
> posters, but the most important for me is Musix.
>
> For the past two years I have been teaching music at an intermediate school. 
> Musix is a bootable music studio.  I boot from the Musix CD, it sees the sound
> card and presto - I've got sequencers, synthesizers, music notation editors,
> drum machines, a music theory game and even a guitar tuner.  I have permission
> from my system administrator to use bootables so next week I am taking all of
> my music classes to the lab to run Musix.  We will play the music game, play
> with the drum machine, and write a recorder song using only five notes.
>
> Couldn't we have a bootable CD for each subject area - math, science, writing,
> art?  A teacher can use bootables without the district adopting a new OS.  
>
> We will be using Samba Network Neighborhood to save our work on district
> servers.  
>
> Of course you all know about Freeduc.  I use that with my little kids at home.
>
> I am giving a presentation on bootable CDs at our local TCEA conference on
> 10/28.  It will be interesting to see if anyone attends!
>
> Later,
> Marilyn