My school actually has Kid Pix installed on their computers so I wanted to try out Tux Paint to see how it compares. It was a breeze to set up using Ubuntu since it is within the software center.

At first glance, Tux Paint has a similar set up with buttons on both sides of the screen, with the tools on the left side and the choices for that tool on the right side. While I was exploring through the program, I did find that it was easy to navigate and find the buttons that I wanted to use. I can see this program being used with younger students to help them learn mouse control and keyboarding. I feel that older students might get a little bored unless they have a specific paint assignment to complete. It could also be incorporated into a content area, depending on the assignment. For example, if students were learning about structures in STEM, they could easily draw a stable structure using the paint feature and label each part of it. Aesthetically though, I would say that Kid Pix has a slightly jazzier look to it than Tux Paint. But when compared to the cost of Kid Pix or Tux Paint (free!), I could go without the fancier interface.

Within Tux Paint, you are able to paint a picture using various brushes, color/fill in a picture, use stamps to decorate your pictures, and a text option to label. I like the magic feature of Tux Paint, which allows you to modify your picture with several different, fun features like making it look like a mosaic, fisheye, adding in bricks or a rainbow, and the list goes on. I can definitely see students spending lot of time with that feature, simply because it has so many options of customizing your pictures.

One feature that I did not like about Tux Paint was that it did not allow me to chose the destination where I wanted to save something. When you push on the save button, it just saves it to a standard location instead of asking what your preference is. After googling the problem, I did find this youtube video that showed the users how to copy your picture and put it in the location that you choose and also import pictures into Tux Paint to use as a background. Tux Paint also has a FAQ section on their website that addresses another way to solve the issue. Personally, this seemed like a lot of steps for a feature that should be easy to use since it is a frequently used option.

I feel that given a choice between the two, I feel that Tux Paint is a great option because it has enough of the features of Kid Pix and an easy to use interface, that I can't see myself spending the money on a software that I can get for free.