[school-discuss] How to properly outfit a learning-system for children?

[David Harsany Crusoe <dhcjournalism@optonline.net>]

Hello, friendly people of schoolforge-discuss... I come to you with a 
question, perhaps even an excellent question, maybe even worthy of a 
discussion. Just maybe.

As a project, I am collecting and outfitting 15 Pentium-2 233-mhz+ systems 
(majority are 400mhz+) to donate to the hard-working school children 
(4th-8th grade) of low-income families. (For reference, this will be 
happening in Greenwich, CT, USA) Systems are required to contain a cd-rom, 
modem, and video adapter, and my goal is not to give children a gaming 
platform, but a learning system. This might include word processing 
software, a simple graphics program, and the capability to surf the web. 
Open-source and/or freeware exists to fully complement this goal, and I 
believe these software packages offer tremendous (maybe even unparalleled) 
opportunity for learning.

While I'm certain that Linux is an absolutely excellent operating system, I 
am faced with two realities: children will require support for their 
systems, and not all "common" child-oriented software is linux-based. 
Children will most likely want to run the same software their peers may be 
using, and the schools in town are Windows-based. The other - uglier - 
alternative is to collect old Windows 98 site licenses & donate a Windows 
98 OS with each system. While this has its obvious disadvantages, it does 
provide parents and children with an operating platform they might have an 
easier time troubleshooting should "something go wrong". Since these 
systems are not "brand new", I'm concerned frustrated parents might trade 
technical support for the garbage can.

I ask you, people of school-forge: how would you configure a *simple* 
learning system for children? Would you consider using ugly Win98/OS 
software, if you perceived linux support to pose a future problem? If 
choosing Linux, how might you avoid such support issues? Most importantly, 
what opportunities would you highlight to children (and their parents) 
should they be faced with the "linux learning curve", and what might be 
included in training sessions?

Thank you for your time,

David Harsany Crusoe