The Asus EeePC - My first impressions...

We recently purchased a few of these to test out in our district. I took a moment to write up my initial experiences here:

http://www.pcs-tech.net.

I'm curious, is there anyone else on the Classroom2.0 that's using them? If so, in what capacity? Are any of you using them in a school environment with teachers or students? I'd welcome any thoughts/inputs.

-Lucas

Tags: 2.0, EeePC, Lab, Laptop, Linux, Mobile, Open, Source, Web

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Permalink Reply by Lucas Gillispie on February 22, 2008 at 7:23am

This little laptop continues to blow me away. ...starting to think I should become a sales rep. I'm continually surprised by what it can do and have found few things it can't. I've been able to use it with my online WebCT Vista-based graduate course, download the professor's PowerPoint presentations, archive them and view them on-screen while she presents, etc.

Now that I've added a 4Gig SD card, I think it's time to start adding some software... GIMP, Blender (perhaps), etc....

Anyone have some favorite software, especially education-oriented? If our district does, in fact, decide to purchase more, I'd love to see them get into the hands of teachers that can put them to good use, so software for teachers would be a plus!

-Lucas

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Permalink Reply by Gavin on February 22, 2008 at 12:20pm

The obvious ones like Audacity, GIMP and View Your Mind all work a treat. You can get these from here: http://eeepcrepos.tuxfamily.org/
There's also LinCity on there, which could be used as an enterprise challenge; and GCompris for younger learners.

Google Earth is a must (and runs perfectly after performing the speed tweaks) and so is a program called Celtx that I use with my Media Studies class for planning productions, but can be adapted for other uses too.

A little "hidden" secret is the fact that the Asus repos hold LinDVD (the Linux version of InterVideo's WinDVD) which is exciting for those of us who use Linux on our bigger laptops (even though it's probably horrendously illegal).

I also have OpenArena running on mine which, while it probably has anti-educational value, is brilliant for playing on the train and runs like a peach.