Do they enjoy learning new things from new colors or words, to math and science?

Do you cringe every time your 4-year-old wants to use your computer with his sticky hands or a tippy-cup full of Apple juice?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, please read on for a very important public service announcement from HiTechDads.

Now that I’ve been a dad for a few years, and have VERY curious kids, I have a renewed interest in a program called Edubuntu. I used it once about a year ago, and haven’t had a chance to revisit since then. I think the time is right to revisit it again. Edubuntu is a specialized Linux distribution based on the popular Ubuntu distribution. Some of you may see “Linux” and immediately tune out and think of a bunch of nerdy dorks in a room huddled around a command-line terminal, but I urge you to ignore those thoughts and read on. It’ll be worth it. And if it’s not, blame one of the other HiTechDads on here…I’m new to this blogging thing.

Edubuntu is a great tool for parents with kids of all ages. It’s designed for ease of use, ease of updating, and educational value to kids/students. Edubuntu is a complete Operating System with an Office Suite (similar to Microsoft Office), Internet Browser (similar to Internet Explorer or Firefox), and loads of educational applications for kids (and probably parents) to expand their learning potential. Best of all. IT’S FREE!

Did you catch that part? That’s right…you don’t have to pay a single cent for it. Zip. Zilch. Zero. All you need is an mid-level PC that has enough hard disk space and memory to load and run Edubuntu. It doesn’t take much. I installed it on an old Pentium III with 512 MB of RAM and a 20GB Hard Drive. Everything ran just fine. For those of you that have no idea what that means, that computer is about 8 years old, designed for Windows 2000, and still ran Edubuntu just fine. That’s the beauty of this, it doesn’t require an expensive top-of-the-line PC to run like Windows Vista or Mac OS X do. Afterall, it’s just a learning PC for kids. Who cares if it’s a little slower than you could deal with on a daily basis. You’re not going to be doing any hardcore gaming or video editing on it anyway.

Unfortunately, as that computer was 8 years old and not in the greatest condition, it didn’t last long before my hard drive went bad on it. I’ve still got the computer, because the kids are getting to the age where they like to use the computer. So I’ll go find a $20 hard drive somewhere and put it in, and have a brand-new educational workstation for the kids. Well, brand-new to them at least.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a way to help the kids learn while entertaining themselves on the computer, look no further than Edubuntu. It’s regularly updated with new tools and applications and it’s based on a Linux distribution that enjoys a wide user and support base. It just doesn’t get any easier…

Oh, and did I mention it’s free?

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