Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Open Source - Tux Paint

The open source software I decided to explore from SourceForge.net is called Tux Paint. Tux paint is a drawing program for young children with sound effects, graphics, backgrounds, shapes, text, and more. It is similar to the layout of the classic paint program, but I feel it has better features. One of the best things that stood out to me was the option to place a preset background before you start drawing.

When you start the program you see a blank screen for you to free draw. The left panel on the screen has all of the different tools you can choose from. These tools include paint brushes, stamps, liens, shapes, text, graphic effects, eraser, and the undo button. The right panel shows all of your options for those different tools. Foe example, when you click shapes, all of the different shapes you can make are shown on the right side. When you click magic, all of the different graphics are shown on the right side. The same is true for each tool. Below the workspace shows all of the colors to choose from. I was very impressed with the amount this program can do for such a young audience and the quality of the pictures that come out.

From an educational standpoint, this would be a great program to get students adapted to computer graphics or just an introduction to the computer. The program is targeted for a younger audience, so this program would fit well in an elementary setting. I can see it fitting well with an interdisciplinary unit between art and social studies or english. Having students use computers to create a picture of what they read may bring out some interesting pictures from students. Another great piece of this software for educators is the configuration tools. You can disable certain features if you choose to do so. I recommend looking into Tux Paint!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tuxpaint/

2 comments:

  1. Tux Paint is great! We have it installed in Clarkstown. It is creative, has voice overs, and it multi-lingual! On the negative side, it is difficult to save in a networked environment. Students must sit at the same computer from week to week. Type is not editable once it is written, and it is relatively easy for a student to erase the effort made during the class. These are simply the shortcoming of a great free program. If you don't have the funds for Kid Pix, this is a perfect alternative. I am hoping to get Kid Pix for next year...

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  2. I'm glad to hear there are districts using it!I thought it was very creative as well. The voice overs and the overall graphics were impressive to me. Kid Pix would also be great to have. I saw that some of the versions include animated clip art as well.

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