homeschooling
 

Hello

New to the list and have a question or two....
We are homeschooling our 11 year old son and want to
install Mandrake 9.0 on a older machine we have.
My questions are.....
Is Mandrake 9.0 a good choice?
How much is a normal 11 year old able to handle as
far as installing, networking our other machine to it.
How much do I need to know to help him out?
I am computer literate in the sense of point and click
but not much else.

He will use the machine for some text am email stuff.

Also what else in terms of programing could he pick
up on fairly easily that would impress a 11 year old?

Thanks for you thoughts

Andy

Mandrake would be a really good choice. Its got alot of GUI interfaces, so you won't have to deal with the command line all that often but its something I would recommend highly to familiarize with though.
You'd be suprised though, most younger kids pick up on things faster than adults, so him using Linux, he'll be more inclined to pick up and learn probably rather quickly.
Also, if you have internet access, just read all you can ( lots of information on the web ), come to sites like this when you have questions as anyone here is willing to help out and etc...

In terms of programming, I would say maybe at 11, start out with some basic web design. Possibly HTML would be a good start for someone that young. Then move up from there if they show interest in it.

kde(mandrakes default desktop) has a growing list of 'edutainment' software
http://edu.kde.org/screenshots/