BJ writes -
WHEW. Finally head from my school district's IT dept. regarding the possibility of installing Python for kids to learn programming on. They are VERY resistant to this. I am amazed.
The LiveCD route might provide at least a partial solution. It is plausible to me that a smart kid could do more network damage from a booted Linux LiveCD than from a hard drive install. But I suspect the perception is different, and as a practical matter, one might meet with far less resistance. http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php?showonly=&sort=Purpose lists over 10 available LiveCD distros whose main purpose is educational. I suspect most, if not all, include a Python distribution. But I doubt if any are ideally configured for what one might want to use as a basis for teaching Python - IDLE, pygame, whatever else, etc. There is, for example, a Lisp resource kit in the educational category: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/lisp-res-kit/ I am surprised that nothing of the sort has emerged from the Python community. My own efforts to spark interest in such a project have met with luke warm response. But I might not be the right guy to be trying to organize a community effort. Art