Re: [seul-edu] [...]Linux and home schooling

[David McClamrock <mcclamro@concentric.net>]

On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, you (Michelle Head) wrote:

> I just finished an ar[ti]cle for LinuxMall.com on Linux in education and
> would really be interested in doing another one on Linux homeschooling. 
> Please contact me at the email below!  I would really like to try to
> increase visibility on Linux in education.

Hello Michelle,

Great idea!  I just joined the "seul-edu" mailing list yesterday; I saw an item
on the Linux Today website <http://www.linuxtoday.com> about discussion of
Linux and homeschooling on this list.  My wife and I are homeschoolers in
Indiana with four kids, ages 13, 11, 8, and almost 4.  We have "one and a half"
Linux computers:  (1) a new all-Linux "white box" (AMD K-6/450, 64 MB SDRAM,
6.5 GB HD, Mandrake 6.1), never defiled by any Microsoft product, and (2) an
old Compaq Presario (486-66, 48 MB RAM, 420 MB HD, dual boot with Red Hat 5.2
and Windows 3.1). Among the applications we use are:  Netscape* and kfm for
web browsing; Network Configurator (netcfg) for Internet connection; FileRunner
and kfm for file management; WordPerfect 8 for word processing; WordPerfect 8
and erwin for HTML editing; Tk NotePad, kedit*, and joe ("Joe's Own Editor"--my
boy Joe's favorite) for text editing; kmail for e-mail; GIMP* for graphics; CBB
(Check Book Balancer)* for home finance; and a few simple arithmetic programs
derived from the "mathq" program in Chapter 3 of Andrew L. Johnson's Elements of
Programming with Perl. (The ones marked with asterisks are on the new computer
only.)

We're pretty short on specifically educational software so far, but we're very
interested in trying out what's available, especially if it costs little or
nothing (a very important consideration for us, at least until we get out of
debt). We like the idea of being "pioneers," blazing trails that we hope many
more home computer users and educators will follow. Our 11-year-old daughter
and I are also interested in learning at least some moderately simple
programming with Tcl/Tk, Perl, and (maybe in a while) Python; we're taking some
beginning steps in that direction. 

Time to get ready to go to work--hope to hear from you and others soon!

Dave "Pa" McClamrock