Nursery Technology

Nursery aged children generally aren't techno snobs or geeks, they don't demand iMacs or Sony Vaios. They don't even demand an operating system, they just want to use the computer - to draw or play a game, just to use it. New PCs or Macs that can run the latest and 'shiniest' applications are expensive, but if someone just wants to 'use' a computer do they really need new?

There is an alternative to Windows and iMacs - it is called Linux and as well as being free, it is also efficient, meaning it can run on older hardware. There is a specific version of Linux aimed at educational users called Edubuntu, it even comes with a set of educational programs.

In terms of specification it will run on a 1GHz processor with 256MB of memory - think 10 year old system. For those of you with out of school programs this is a double bonus, you can use pretty much any system that you have bought over the last 10 years, or even systems that parents have donated.

There are a couple of sites that have large lists of software that run on Linux - OSALT and FLOSS

Edubuntu is fully web compliant so any online games or interactive web sites can be used on an Edubuntu system. With Flash compatability it is even more web savvy than an iPad or an iPhone.