Kids online education resources - reading

Today while at the linux.conf.au education miniconf someone (sorry not sure of name) asked about the availability of kids reading software for Linux. Sure there is software for making sounds and learning letters and numbers (Gcompris, Childsplay, KHangman, Linux Letters and Numbers, Tux Math, Tux Typing and more) but as of yet, there is not much in the way of software to teach kids basic reading skills.

Lucky for Linux users and people who have access to the internet (broadband even better) there are a number of online options. Just tonight I had a quick poke around and found a few sites I thought were appropriate for kids learning English in Australia:

• http://www.starfall.com This one has excellent online reading material.
• http://vocabulary.co.il/ This is vocabulary based stuff but still useful all the same.
  
• http://teacher.scholastic.com Click student activities and search for reading. A number of results will appear.

Perhaps people can add to the list of sites above or can recommend appropriate software for Linux users. Fantastic stuff if you are thinking of starting up a software project in this area.

Dialysis - what a load of rubbish!

The thing that bothers me the most about PD (peritoneal dialysis) is the amount of rubbish it generates. Stacks!

To give you an idea I've taken a photo of the rubbish from one exchange - plastic wrappers, a leaflet, paper toweling, catheter cap and the dialysis bag itself. The box contains 4 bags, I go through one of these a day.

Before it can be disposed the dialysis bag has to be emptied. Lucky for me, my partner Greg does most of the bag slashing, he uses the fluid on the garden.

Further rubbish comes from other supplies such as gauze, cleaning sticks and bottles of antibacterial wash, avagard and saline. At least the boxes and some of the bottles can be recycled. I might be able to get the plastic recycled by the good folks at Australian Composite Technology (Computerbank recycles computer plastics with ACT). If you have any other ideas please drop me a line.

Back from Eden return to work

Camping at Eden was fantastic, just what I needed. Even more so after the car journey up, traveling almost 5 hours with the heater on so as to cool the engine. This was after a kmart auto mechanic told us we'd be fine. Nothing wrong with our radiator. Right. Lucky for us *the* Cann River mechanic was open on a Saturday. He took one look at our radiator and said it needed replacing. We stayed overnight in Cann River while our friends drove on, some had already made it to Eden (we all left at the same time). We arranged for our friend Mark to come back and get us the next day (3 hour return trip), our car would not be ready until Tuesday.

We stayed in the Ben Boyd National Park. A really nice spot not far from the coast. We had goannas, possums and wallabies in our camp scavenging for leftover food. The goannas would eat whole fish carcasses, yuck. While driving into Eden I also saw two lyrebirds. They quickly run away off into the bush. We saw and heard a lots of other birds including bowerbirds, wonga pigeons, kookaburras, currawongs and more.

Despite advice not to do so I went snorkeling using a tegaderm patch over my exit site. On the first attempt I used 2 patches doubled over and it seemed to work - I only swam for 15 minutes though. The next time I went swimming I tried it with 1 patch and went for longer (an hour). It didn't work and my exit site bandage was wet. Salt water is good for wounds so I really don't think it matters much - just as long as nothing nasty got in.

I'm glad I went because while I was snorkeling I saw more than I have ever seen before (usually only swimming in Vic waters): black stingrays, two types of jelly fish, snapper, a parrot fish, sweep, old wife and a port jackson shark. The shark was dead.

My partner Greg, a spearo freediver type, got us dinner nearly every night. He caught leatherjackets, Australian salmon, blue, red and banded morwong, catfish and some abalone. Tim and Bel, friends from Melbourne, traveling around in the area, also stopped by for a fishy dinner a couple of nights.

There were plenty of kids to keep us entertained. We got some of them to pose for a kid police line up.

The drive back was so much nicer with the new radiator, we could even drive with the air conditioning on. It took us around 7.5 hours to get back home, compared with the 10 hours it took to get to Cann River on the way there!

Update: I wrote to Kmart and they gave me a refund for the radiator work they charged me for. Bravo for being quick to respond to my complaint.

First List for 2008...

It's been great not having to worry about to do lists for the past few weeks. I feel refreshed. It's not that I haven't had stuff to do - I have. I just completely blanked it. I needed a rest. :)

Tomorrow is the start of the working new year for me, back to reality. Ho Hum. Lucky for me though, its only for two days - then I'm back to relaxing for another week when I head to Eden.

So tasks from last year include:

- Invoicing (both new and follow up outstanding) - A nice thing to do in Jan - bring in some money while it is quite.
- Email follow up. Answer any outstanding emails. I think I'm fairly on top of this.
- LCA follow up. Get in touch with people about tours of Computerbank, open day and volunteering.
- Overseas Projects. Cook Islands. And Another. Hmm.
- Darebin revamp. Their P4 is slow to start and needs replacing. They also need another 2 units.
- Distro Project. Write up notes. List where we are at over on the wiki. Somewhat related but not high priority is to finish the distro paper I'm writing.
- Follow up from Shepparton project.
- Radio interview. Tech Talk Radio.
- Catch up re finances.
- Applications
- Review past to-do lists (the list above seems small?)

Tasks that need to be done this week:

- Pay the rent or send a volunteer to do so. Pay AAPT bill.
- User Support. Broadband woes.
- Work for the Dole (WFD) Planning. I have some things planned but will wait to see how many folks come.
-Touch base with WFD Unit.

Future Tasks/Projects:

- LCA Computerbank Tour
- LCA Open Day
- Shepparton?

I need to call the folks at Gambro and do a stocktake as well as pop into the dialysis unit and pick up medical supplies before i go away. Oh and I need to go to a chemist!

So a mild start to the new year. Yay. :)