I’m actually opposed to computers in schools: I think it’s silly to think a computer is going to teach anything better than an actual teacher can. Consider that the people who invented the computer didn’t have access to one, nor did the writers of most the great works of literature, etc. They’re just tools, after all.
Anyway, I upgraded my desktop to KDE3 today and discovered the kedu package, a couple of useful educational things. One to learn touch-typing (I’ve needed that for years), and one to allow simple tests to be composed as a drilling aid. It takes the questions and answers through simple form-based UI, and creates little XML docs that can be read in as tests. See an example below:
<?xml version = ‘1.0’ encoding = ‘ISO 8859-1’ standalone = ‘yes’?>
<!DOCTYPE educa>
<Document>
<Info>
<title>Simple test</title>
<category>Geography</category>
<type>1</type>
<level>1</level>
<language>us</language>
</Info>
<Data>
<question points=”1″ type=”2″ >
<text>What is the capital of Peru? </text>
<false>Quito</false>
<true>Lima</true>
<false>Buenos Aires</false>
</question>
<question points=”1″ type=”2″ >
<text>What is the longest river in South America? </text>
<false>The Plate</false>
<true>The Amazon</true>
<false>The Orinoco</false>
</question>
</Data>
</Document>
Couldn’t be simpler.