<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
<!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 -->
<!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html -->
<!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" -->
<title>GCompris
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/side-menu.css" media="screen" />
<style type="text/css" media="screen"><!--
#content h2 { text-align: center; }
.pict {
width: 25em;
margin: 1.5em auto;
}
--></style>
<!--#include virtual="/education/po/edu-software-gcompris.translist" -->
<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
<div class="nav">
<a id="side-menu-button" class="switch" href="#navlinks">
<img id="side-menu-icon" height="32"
src="/graphics/icons/side-menu.png"
title="Education Contents"
alt=" [Education Contents] " />
</a>
<p class="breadcrumb">
<a href="/"><img src="/graphics/icons/home.png" height="24"
alt="GNU Home" title="GNU Home" /></a> /
<a href="/education/education.html">Education</a> /
<a href="/education/edu-resources.html">Resources</a> /
<a href="/education/edu-software.html">Educational software</a> /</p>
</div>
<!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE-->
<!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" -->
<div style="clear: both"></div>
<div id="last-div" class="reduced-width">
<h2>GCompris</h2>
<div class="article">
<h3>Description</h3>
<p>GCompris is a cross-platform complete educational suite for children
from 2 to 10 years old, and it is part of the GNU project. It includes
more than 140 entertaining activities that help little kids learn skills
such as the recognition of letters and numbers, the use of the mouse and
keyboard, basic algebra training, reading time on an analog clock, vector
drawing, language learning through games, and much more. The program
includes a simple text processor to produce documents with basic text
style. Another feature is the animation tool, which can be employed as a
simple and effective method to support story telling, thus improving
communication with children and helping them to express themselves.</p>
<div class="pict">
<!-- GNUN: localize URL /education/misc/gcompris-sm.png, /education/misc/gcompris.png -->
<a href="/education/misc/gcompris.png">
<img src="/education/misc/gcompris-sm.png"
alt="Screenshot of the GCompris interface showing the various activities."/></a>
</div>
<p>GCompris includes several activities grouped on a yellow bar to the
left of the screen, from which the child can choose as soon as the
program is started. Such a design makes it easy to add new activities or
to adapt the program to specific needs. The program itself and all the
activities are available in many different languages.</p>
<p>To learn more: <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/project/gcompris/">
FSF Directory</a>, <a href="http://gcompris.net/"> href="https://gcompris.net/">
GCompris Official Website</a></p>
<h3>Who's Using It and How</h3>
<p>Gcompris activity-based design makes it highly and easily adaptable to
particular environments. One example of innovative use of the program is
in the work done by the <a href="http://insight.kerala.gov.in/">Insight
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110712141510/http://insight.kerala.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/breakingfree.pdf">
Insight Project</a> of Kerala, in India. The project aims to bring the
benefits of Free Software to differently abled people in the State. They
found that GCompris is a powerful tool to improve the communicative and
motor skills of mentally challenged persons like children with autism.
The project is using and adapting the program for the particular needs
of its target community.</p>
<p>The Insight team implemented a training module for teachers that
provides instructions on how to use the different activities of GCompris
when working with children with special needs, to help these children
acquire abilities such as eye-hand coordination, memory, listening, and
improving the child's attention span. The module addresses different
levels of education, from pre-school to the primary level. A small
handbook was also distributed to parents and special educators to help
them understand how to use the software to improve children's skills.</p>
<p>GCompris is also used to help older children understand the
relationship between numbers, learn basic arithmetic operations, train
them in analytical reasoning, and to improve communicative skills as
well as spelling, reading and writing.</p>
<h3>Why</h3>
<p>Teachers report that it is extremely easy for them to implement
GCompris in their curriculum since children find it intuitive and fun
to use. The program is also an excellent resource for mentally
challenged children and adults.</p>
<p>GCompris has become an important resource to speed up the child's
learning process in the context of developing countries like India,
where the only chance for a child of getting accustomed with computers
is during school time. At school, the computers are often shared and
children have limited time to access them individually. GCompris is easy
to use and intuitive, so it is particularly useful in this environment
because there is practically no time spent on getting to understand how
the program works. With GCompris children develop quickly the motor
skills required to use a computer.</p>
<h3>Results</h3>
<p>GCompris respects the users' fundamental freedoms and this permitted
the Insight developers and specialists to adapt the software to the
children's needs, creating new activities, and proposing the
innovative use of the program to help autistic children and their
parents. The Insight team is also free to distribute copies of the
modified version to teachers and parents, who can use the program at
home without restrictions. The modified version has proved effective in
improving the academic and functional flair of intellectually
challenged children.</p>
</div>
</div>
<!--#include virtual="/education/education-menu.html" -->
<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
<div id="footer" role="contentinfo">
<div class="unprintable">
<p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to
<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>.
There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p>
<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
replace it with the translation of these two:
We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
<web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p>
<p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of
our web pages, see <a
href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
README</a>. -->
Please see the <a
href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
README</a> for information on coordinating and contributing translations
of this article.</p>
</div>
<p>Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2020, 2021 2022 Free Software Foundation,
Inc.</p>
<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
<p class="unprintable">Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
$Date: 2022/06/15 11:06:51 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
</div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include -->
</body>
</html>