<![CDATA[Mark Stuckless : Activity]]> Elgg http://www.commun-it.org/community/marks/ <![CDATA[Pivot Stickfigure Animator]]> http://www.commun-it.org/community/marks/weblog/2822.html http://www.commun-it.org/community/marks/weblog/2822.html Tue, 20 May 2008 02:04:09 GMT If you haven't heard of this program, it is a fun little program that can be used in a variety of ways by students.  It is freeware and works quite well.  It is a Windows program but will run under Linux using Wine.

 Here is a link to a download site:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/stickfigure.html

]]> <![CDATA[Spellinator Project]]> http://www.commun-it.org/community/marks/weblog/2680.html http://www.commun-it.org/community/marks/weblog/2680.html Sat, 17 May 2008 13:45:09 GMT Hi All,  

I am working on a project to take an old idea that I had and resurrect it to live as an open source teaching tool.  If you are interested in finding out more and perhaps getting involved, please go to:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/spellinator

Thanks,

Mark

]]> <![CDATA[Why Linux?]]> http://www.commun-it.org/community/marks/weblog/961.html http://www.commun-it.org/community/marks/weblog/961.html Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:00:03 GMT As an elementary school teacher, I have been letting my students know about Ubuntu- the Linux operating system I run on my laptop as an alternative to Windows.

In my previous experiences with Linux, I must confess that getting all of my hardware to work under Linux was sometimes a challenge. But this is changing for the better with the distros available now. We had a scanner that we tried to hook up to a Windows computer in the classroom last year and we had difficulty getting the driver to load properly. I plugged the same scanner into my Ubuntu laptop and was scanning right away. Linux is ready for the desktop....and users deserve a choice.

In social studies, we have been talking about different forms of government and to me giving consumers a choice is akin to democracy while cowtowing to a monopolistic behemoth like Microsoft is slavery under a dictatorship. To use the analogy of Marc Prensky (an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, and designer in the critical areas of education and learning), the "digital natives" are not intimidated by the FUD of Microsoft. They are not as easily tricked into thinking Microsoft is the only way to go as many of their "digital immigrant" parents, teachers, and bureaucrats in business and government are fooled.

I'm glad to see that pc manufacturers like Dell are starting to sell pc's with Linux preinstalled.  I believe this is a win-win situation for that pc maker and consumers. I hope that school boards too will begin to look seriously at Linux as a viable and cheaper option and one that supports the democratic principles of openness and freedom.

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