Akademy 2008
KDE in Education - The tale of a large scale deployment in Brazil
Speakers: Mauricio Piacentini and Milton Cesar de Souza Leite
KDE 3.5 was selected as the default desktop for Linux Educacional 2.0, the software that powers thousands and thousands of machines in public schools in Brazil with free software and open content. The desktop's excellent usability and the applications in kdeedu and kdegames were strong reasons for this adoption, but the tale does not end here. This talk will present the project's characteristics to the KDE community, including logistics, hardware, software, and its specific needs and goals. The difficulties faced by the Linux Educacional team will also be shared, and feedback from KDE developers is expected: what are the possible pitfalls and best practices to be followed in the transition process to a KDE4-based desktop for children?
Mauricio Piacentini
![[Mauricio Piacentini]](../photos/58.html)
Mauricio Piacentini is a member of the kdegames and kdeedu projects, and contributes to applications like KMahjongg, KBlocks, KTurtle and others. He holds a degree in Communications and Arts from Sao Paulo University, studies Pedagogy, and works with interactive media since 1995 as a designer in Tabuleiro Producoes, Brazil. His blog can be found at http://piacentini.livejournal.com.
Milton Cesar de Souza Leite
Milton Cesar de Souza Leite is a systems analyst and works for the Ministry of Education in Brazil since 2005, coordinating the research and evaluation of Educational Technologies in IT and spearheading the development of the Linux Educacional distribution. He holds a degree in Computer Science issued by Universidade Federal de Sergipe in Brazil.
