F/LOSS Educational materials for teaching/learning process

There are many F/LOSS educational software and applications that could be used for teaching purposes in home and education sector. These resources are available online and can be downloaded from certain website.

openSUSE:Education-Li-f-e

To use GNU/Linux for educational purpose, OpenSUSE development team had developed an iso image which can be used to burn DVD. The software and applications were chosen to target home and education environment. This collection in DVD is useful for educational purpose. The website even compasses of screen shots and videos to help users install it from the live-CD and DVD.

Some of the applications available on the DVD are Chemtool; which is used to draw chemical structure, Euler; which is used for mathematical purposes, iTALC; which can be used by teachers to help in digital learning, KLogic; which is used to built and simulate digital circuits, QCAD which is a two dimensional Computer-Aided Design system etc. It also contains educational server such as openSIS, Moodle, OpenBiblio, ATutor, FreeSMS; development tools such as eclipse and netbeans and a lot more F/LOSS software and applications (OpenSUSE, 2011). 

SchoolForge

SchoolForge is a website that aims to unify independent projects that advocate, use, and develop F/LOSS resources for education. Resources available here is in the effort to make F/LOSS educational resources more effective and efficient. They develop the applications that are needed by the educators and students to fulfil their task. It serves as a common ground for individuals and organisations who are working for the same purpose, so that they can meet and work together to develop quality and dependable applications and teaching materials for educational purpose (SchoolForge, n.d. a).

Software	Description
Celestia	Space simulator that gives the user ability to travel through the universe in three dimensional (3D).
Childsplay	Memory and a typing game for young children.
Crossword Builder	Application which allows the user to create crossword for all the subjects. The users can also supply hint for the crossword.
GCompris	Educational software that provides children with various activities in different categories like science, computers, geography, algebra and others. It contains more than 100 activities.
jMemorize	Helps in the learning process by making memorizing more efficient and fun.
TuxMath	Helps the children in learn and practice mathematics.
Tuxtyping	Helps the children learn how to type correctly and faster.

Table 1 Software available in SchoolForge Source (SchoolForge, n.d. b).

Organization for Free Software in Education and Teaching (OFSET)

OFSET aims to encourage and support the development of free software for educational sector. It also promotes the localisations which are essential to educational sector worldwide. It gives priority on application that is needed and can be used in most of the countries (OFSET, 2008).

Skolelinux/ Debian Edu

It is an operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux. It is developed for the education sector and supports all the languages that is supported by Debian GNI/LINUX system (Skolelinux, 2009).

Software	Description
Atomix	Educational game which allows users to built molecules from isolated atoms.
Blinken	Memory enhancement game.
Celestia	See table 2
Chemtool	Used to draw chemical structure.
Euler	Mathematical programming environment.
Gchempaint	Two Dimensional chemical structures editor.
Gimp	Software for image manipulation.
Gperiodic	Digitalized periodic table of elements with overview of the datas for the element.
Gpredict	Satellite tracking program.
Gpsim	Microchip's PIC microcontroller’s simulator.
Grass	Geographic Resources Analysis Support System.
Kalgebra	Mathematical graph calculator which represents 2D and 3D graphs.
Kbruch	Helps to learn fractions and percentages.
Kcalc	Simple and scientific calculator.
KGeography	Helps in learning geography in an interesting and interactive way.
Ksimus	Electrical circuits simulator.
Ktechlab	Circuit simulator for microcontrollers and electronics.
Marble	Desktop globe and world atlas.
Mathwar	Educational game to help children learn simple mathematics.
Openoffice.org	Office productivity suite.
Pcb	Printed circuit board design program.
Planets	Useful for teaching gravitation of planets.
Printer-applet	Manage printing jobs.
Qcad	Allows computer aided drafting in two dimensional.
Qgis	Geographic Information System.
Rocs	Integrated development environment for graph theory. It allows users not only to draw the graph but also allows them to create the algorithm.
Scilab	Matrix based application for numerical computations.
Stellarium	It is a planetarium for user workstation. The users can see the sky and stars like when they are outside and looking at it through their naked eye. It allows the users to zoom so that the user can see the stars and universe more closely.
Xdrawchem	Chemical structures and reactions editor.
Xtide	Gives the information about the tide and current predictions.

Table 2 Software available in Skolelinux (Debian, 2011).

Centre for Open Source Development (Central Queensland University)

It aims in promoting and providing F/LOSS software for the education sector and encourages the members of education sector (including students) in the development of F/LOSS. It provides F/LOSS applications for various education fields on DVD/CD. In the website, it’s mentioned ‘The aim is to make finding software easier by categorising them by Key Learning Areas used in Education’ (Central Queensland University, 2010).

Software	Description
Bioclipse	Visual platform for the life sciences.
GenChemLab	Simulate chemistry lab exercises to help students prepare for a real practical.
GraphCalc	For graphical plotting. It also has statistical analysis tools.
KGeography	See table 3
KLetters	Helps learning the alphabets and some syllables for various languages (currently 16 and some of them are: French, Spanish, English, Portuguese etc) by associating sounds with letters.
Qalculate	Mathematical calculator which supports sin. Log, SI units, differentiation, integration etc.
RJS Calculator	Used for business and scientific purpose.
StarDict	International dictionary.
Sterra	Geography quiz game with more than 70 exercises related to country, cities, capitals and flags.
TheSage Dictionary	It provides comprehensive dictionary, thesaurus, example sentences, pronunciations and anagram search.
vocabJava	It provides users to practice vocabulary. Also helps in SAT, GRE, GMAT preparation.

Table 3 Software available in Centre for Open Source Development (Central Queensland University, 2007).

International Open Source Network (IOSN)

It aims in F/LOSS application and technologies for Asia-Pacific region so that the developing countries in this region can enjoy the ICT solutions that they could have never without F/LOSS (Yusof, 2008).
 

The KDE Education Project

It develops F/LOSS educational software based on KDE technologies. Even though the main focus of this project is for young school children, it still develops application for teachers to plan lesson and some for the university students too. It now also supports Microsoft windows. It has divided the application by age, which comprises of preschool, school and university and subjects, which comprises of language, science, mathematics and miscellaneous (edu.KDE, n.d. a). 

Software	Description
Blinken	See table 3
Kalgebra	See table 3
kalZium	Digitalized periodic table of elements with overview of the data’s for the element.
Kanagram	Letter order game for a scrambled word.
KBruch	See table 3
KGeography	See table 3
KHangMan	Helps children to learn in a more exiting way. There are categories of words and difficulty levels to chose.
Kig	Helps in drawing geometrical figures.
Kletters	See table 4
KmPlot	Mathematical function plotter.
KTouch	Helps in learning to touch type.
KTurtle	Helps in learning programming in an easy way.
Marble	See table 3
Parley	Helps in memorizing power and supports different languages.
Rocs	See table 3
Step	Physical simulator which makes studying physics more interesting.

Table 4 Software available in The KDE Education Project (edu.KDE, n.d. b).

REFERENCES
http://pravab.blogspot.com/2011/09/references.html