Books explaining Free Software for Children

Duncan dguthrie at posteo.net
Thu Jun 15 22:38:43 UTC 2017


Hi Matthias,

Although I can't recommend any particular book, I'd like to say 
something.

I didn't get to appreciate free software by reading news articles or 
books. It was more an interest in technology, and then a few of those 
issues that go beyond simply applying the technology became apparent, 
and I decided to see how one can solve these.

In my opinion, the best way to encourage kids to love free software, is 
to make them love technology, and then when they are more mature (or 
when issues crop up at school) to explain free software. If they are 
into programming it's not unlikely they might encounter these concepts 
themselves.

What would really help the (more young) kids, in my opinion, might be 
flash cards / card games / mobile apps, introducing some of the issues 
that pop up around technology (which I believe that are almost always 
best solved by using free software) such as privacy, the extension of 
the so-called "right to repair" to software, accountability. If there is 
no Wiki page (on FSFE or related organizations) regarding this, then I 
think it might be interesting for someone to collate information and 
resources around this.

In the meantime, let them program/play with computers to their hearts' 
content!

Any other thoughts?

Best,

Duncan

On 15.06.2017 09:25, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> does anyone of you have good recommendations for books explaining Free
> Software topics, basics of computing, source code, etc. to children. I
> am interested in books for the age from 3 to 12. Also things which are
> slightly connected would be appreciated.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Matthias



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