I have a whole series of lessons already written for ktouch 1.7.1 for our school. We upgraded our computers to mint olivia and can only get ktouch 2.0.0 which won't even import our lessons which are in xml format. is there a ktouch1.7.1.deb that i can download or an older repository or something I can do to get the older ktouch up and running.

While i'm not sure what options are available for running the older version of KTouch, I suggest sending an email to the kde-edu@kde.org mailing list - as the KTouch developer(s) track that list and can probably advise you what steps can be taken with regards to getting the newer KTouch to load the older format files (which should be supported...).