If MicroWorlds is not available, NetLogo could be a good addition to your list of software. It’s certainly NOT as kid-friendly as MicroWorlds, but it could act as a substitute.

And who knows… maybe a teacher will want to make on-line (although very local) classes. You could add a Moodle / Apache / MySQL / PHP package from Moodle.org.

Comments on wireless networking; I’m no expert… but
* I’ve experienced more problems with ad-hoc than infrastructure. Whatever they decide to do, test it well before leaving.
* EduBuntu is great – but if the plan is to use wireless, make sure the adapters will work with it.

Your friend should look up Fundacion Omar Dengo, the NGO that has supported zillions of educators and millions of kids in their use of constructionist technology, and see how he can help them rather than colonize a school. The Omar Dengo Foundation has a large quantity of “tutors” who travel the country supporting even the most remote rural schools in constructive computer use.

Internet access is hardly a priority. Micromundos does at least 5/6ths of the software you listed.

There’s a lot to learn from Costa Rica, but here is a place where you can read at least one (oldish) book chapter about their amazing efforts.
http://www.microworlds.com/company/philosophy.pdf There is a chapter by Clotilde Fonseca, one of the leading Logo educators in the world and one of the highest ranking advisors to the President of Costa Rica.

In terms of the question about downloads– you can run EduBuntu from a “live CD” that starts up the computer, so if you don’t have admin rights to change applications on the computer but can still start from a bootable CD, you can access and use all its programs that way. I’m not sure if you can’t install or download programs at school– if downloading is the issue but you CAN install, you can download the programs from home or another computer off-campus and copy them over to a CD or USB flash drive and then install them from there at school. If the issue is admin access rights on school computers, then you can use a live CD like EduBuntu, or petition your IT department to permit installation of applications you’ve selected. Again I think a strong case can be made for free applications like Tux Paint, Audacity, Scratch, etc. Licensing fees aren’t an issue, so those applications could be theoretically installed on all computers in the district and on an approved “disk image” for computers. One big issue I’ve seen is that some IT departments are not comfortable with the idea of students authoring content of any kind, other than productivity documents from MS Office. So that is mindset to deal with that goes beyond technology issues, into the pedagogy/instructional uses of the computers.

http://www.mackiev.com/kid_pix.html

You have to buy it but it’s reasonably cheap and you can draw, write, illustrate, make movies etc with it.

You can change the language to Spanish as well.

My primary school age children use it all the time from pre-school up to 11 year olds.