Zorin OS 16 Education is a Linux Distro That Makes Learning More Accessible

Zorin OS 16 was one of the most impressive distro releases in 2021. You might want to learn more about Zorin OS 16 and Zorin OS 16 lite, if you are curious.

Now, after a while, the Zorin OS team finally decided to release the Education edition of Zorin OS 16.

You should expect all the improvements to Zorin OS 16 along with specific modifications to tailor it for education.

Note that the Education edition of Zorin OS 16 is completely free to download. You get a separate Lite version for older computers as well.

Zorin OS 16 Education: What’s New?

Zorin OS 16 Education focuses on an offline-first learning experience. In other words, it includes a decent collection of educational content that can be accessed without needing internet access.

To achieve this, Zorin OS 16 includes “Kolibri“, which is a free and open-source education solution that supports self-paced learning, and sync/sharing over local Wi-Fi networks.

So, even without internet, you can rely on peer-to-peer connections to share educational content, collaborate, and continue learning without any interruptions.

School administrators can also create their own curriculum and download ready-made resources from sources like Khan Academy, Open Stax, MIT, and more.

Of course, the administrator will need internet access to do this. But, once you download the content, it can be easily shared over the local network without internet access, making it possible to distribute educational content.

In addition to Kolibri, Zorin OS 16 also comes baked with new educational apps, some of them are:

Minder: Visualize Concepts and Notes

Similar to Obsidian and Logseq, Minder is a simpler and effective mind mapping tool to help you visualize your notes and ideas to facilitate brainstorming sessions.

Foliate: eBook Viewer

Foliate is an impressive e-book reader app for Linux. It should enable students/teachers to enhance the reading experience, and also gives access to public domain books for download, when needed.

OpenBoard: Interactive Whiteboard

I’ve recently covered OpenBoard as one of our app highlights. It is a free and open-source whiteboard that should make things interesting for teachers and students as well.

OpenBoard should help improve the learning process through the tools, and the capabilities of the app to interact with multimedia content.