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Linux & Education - How To Get It For Your School
r-jae asks: "I've noticed there's been a bit of discussion on the topic of Linux in Education on /. recently. As a high school student, how I could improve the situation at my school? Today in Software Development, my class were discussing software licensing. I was asked to name any license that I could think of. I mentioned the GPL, and my teacher looked at me as if I were green and had antennae. When I described it to her, she passed me off as if I were off my rocker. So my question is, how can I possibly change this situation? How can I convince the faculty to include a unit of Linux, or free software, in the course? "
At my school, the most advanced class in computers is 'Computer Applications', where they tell you how to do things in Microsoft Word and Excel.
Things that can't be done in StarOffice.
Of course, we've checked the OEM numbers on several computers and they're all the same. (Yeah, I have about an hour extra every day because I get done early).
Next semister though, they're offering an HTML class, where you learn to code HTML (using Microsoft's WYSIWIG Webpage editor, unsurprisingly).
But the truth is, there needs to be a decent office suite for Linux if anyone, school or else, will take it seriously. Maybe Corel will help fix that, but hell, Corel just cares about making money off Open-Source software, not about the Open Source movement itself.
Right now, we're all going to be stuck with Windows (on a 64 meg machine, Windows 98 at school runs out of memory loading Paint and Excel at the same time, resulting in a blue screen). Sure, there are Macs to play with, but they are too damn expensive to even consider.
Anyways, that's just my rant.
I hate to say it, but an estimated 90% of my classmates were guilty of spreading viruses at my high school when I graduated in '92. Most of them just weren't aware of the problem and spread the viruses in blissful ignorance. We had such a problem with viruses on the Macintoshes in the writing lab and library, that I took to carrying anti-virus software with me at all times.
At that time there were 2 IBM compatibles available, and they were tucked away in the back of the computer lab, where only a handful of students could use them and the only kind of network that existed were print-sharing devices.
As for the knowledge level of the average student... My CS instructor showed me a test that was completed in his (mandatory) "Introduction to Computers" class. The student had answered all 50 multiple-choice questions and scored a perfect 0. Based on his lack of knowledge of computers, there is no way that he could have intentionally achieved that score. While he certainly wasn't average, it helps to remember for every student that has a good grasp of computers, there is one that is incapable of learning how to use the simplest programs (don't get me started on how many classmates I had to tutor on how to use MacWrite!).
What if you're the only one in the school who actually uses Linux (except the 2 others, who are pot-headed crackers not interested in anything but themselves)?
I go to the Advanced Technologies Academy in Las Vegas. It is a magnet school with different program areas, like Computer Science, which I am in, systems technology support, management information systems, computer graphic design, and law. The first year of computer science is visual basic, and then the next two years is C++. There are electives like multimedia 1 and 2, website 1 and 2, etc. In your senior year you just learn more of whatever you want.
We don't use linux in classes, but the mail server (mail.atech.org) is running linux, and the main website http://www.atech.ccsd.k12.nv.us/ and the faculty website http://atech.org/ both run solaris.
I walked into my kitchen yesterday morning and was stopped in my tracks by Linus's mug beaming penguinishly from my TV (CNN business interview program, Movers, was doing a feature on him.) He had a camera crew following him around the Transmeta offices and out on the front walk of his home. There was almost no content to the piece at all, sadly--except that I learned that God favors red Pontiacs for his personal transportation needs. But this multi-segment show was basically all about Linus, because of Linux.
That was just a Sunday morning business/general interest feature. If a computer science educator, someone who bloody well ought to know, ACTS as though they haven't heard of Linux and/or BSD, SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG WITH YOUR PICTURE. The teacher may well be putting the kid on feigning ignorance, in hopes probably of evading detection as a witless jellomold "computer professional" who is really, fundamentally ignorant and will be as helpless as a baby without the familiar sequence of click-point-click-point operations burned into her twenty odd neurons through Pavlovian conditioning.
Wow, a CS course at High School. My crappy little schools "Computer Skills" course involves learning to use a mouse the first week, then on to Microsoft Office, THE ONLY PROGRAMS you should use. According to the mis-educated teachers at least.
m l
Be happy, we use NT on everything but the iMACs. Yes, iMacs...*shakes head in disgust*
Take a look: http://www.rfsd.k12.wi.us/high/silver/business.ht
It's damn fine looking too!
>School teachers are very highly paid
lets see.. $30,000/180 days = $166.6666666 a day.
That's a hell of alot more than I make a day.
And no I don't work at Micky D's
Facists? Is that like a racist, only they discriminate on the basis of face? "I don't like your face, I guess I'm a facist."
Perhaps you meant "fascist".
This post brought to you by Grammar Man, standing up for Truth, Justice, and Strunk and White!
a) Spelling. Get some.
b) NetBSD runs on Macs too.
the problem with computer teachers is that they don't know between their left and right when they're teaching, we have a teacher (ms. drucker) who knows what linux is (we got an assignment on it) but she says that it'll eventually die. the only way to do this is to run workshops, and forcibly send any computer teacher to it.
Why do they ask for an email address? Most places let you login with a username and password without asking for them. The only reason I can think of is so that they can sell that information later. Either way, it seems to be mostly so to identify people. You know how trivial it is to find most people's real identity if you have their email address? Most of them are listed in Lycos' people find, and you can bet there are special agencies that specialize in matching emails with real identities. With my previous isp, I never gave my real name to anyone but my isp, and I'm still listed for some reason.
Also I haven't checked recently, but doesn't Slashdot include your number in the refferer? If so than all the add companies Slashdot uses can match your identity with the pages you are looking at. Then, if your not using something like junkbuster, they match your identity with all the other stuff you're looking at, not only in the future, but the stuff you looked at in the past (if you haven't destroyed their cookies). Slashdot would probably have to sell those email address, but their so called privacy statement dosn't say they won't.
If you choose to give us personal information via the Internet that we or our business partners may need -- to correspond with you, process an order or provide you with a subscription, for example -- it is our intent to let you know how we will use such information. If you tell us that you do not wish to have this information used as a basis for further contact with you, we will respect your wishes. We do keep track of the domains from which people visit us. We analyze this data for trends and statistics, and then we discard it.
I bet they don't discard the emails :)
If you read this carefully, you'll find that there is *nothing* here that guarantees your privacy. What's more, this statement seems to be intentionally formed in such a way, so that it seems like it says a lot, while not saying anything. A bit dishonest if you ask me.
The Andover.net sites contains links to other Web sites. Andover.net is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.
And since 'link' can mean a banner, this specifically says you have no privacy.
So maybe some of you karma whores could stop bitching about the AC's???
Thank you, AC
French and Mexican high school students score somewhat higher than Mercan ones on international tests, though. US students often can't even find the US on a globe. Seriously.
I think it's a safe bet that most of the bullys/jerks/etc would stay out of any class named "Software Development'. One of the few places in the school system where you can usually use your brain for a while. (as long as the teacher isn't a complete moron)
Hear, Hear! :)
:)
Bet they also track IP calls, and submissions to webpages.
I know I don't log in primarily becuase I hate cookys, and I didn't particularly like the privacy policy, but I hadn't got it analyzed quite as well as you've done.
Thx
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
I've worked for a while in a Quebec High School (in frensh: Ecole secondaire) as a Network Technicien and notices quite a few thing about linux and education.
First, most teacher are not "Up to date" with the linux movement. And since most of them don't know a lot about it they just see it as "Something from out of space". Talking directly about implementation of linux to a teacher will not change a thing unless you start by giving him documentation about "Linux" and "GNU" and such related thing. Changing his mind from a "Windows is the only thing that exist" to "There is an alternative" is the first thing you need to do after all.
An Other thing, you must look at who makes decisions. Most of the time, the IT guy or the technicien, are the one who will make the decision on what will be installed where. so, If you want linux, this is where you must look. As you would have done for the teacher, you must informe him before asking for changes.
Good Luck.
>(description of expelling kids...)
And then the parents go complain to the school board, and the school board lets the kid back in because they're afraid of getting sued.
I've seen this happen for offenses such as assaulting a teacher, drug possession, gross insubordination... And you think they'll care when someone neuters a few mice?
Needless to say, this was one of the worst school districts in the area I grew up, and I'm very glad I didn't go there, and that my mom doesn't teach there anymore.
My High School APCS teacher required us to use the schools linux box for our homework. By the end of my senior year we had two main linux servers, one linux box in the ELP (Extended Learning Program) room, and a lab with about 5 linux box in it. Unfortuneately, the teacher responsible for all of this retired about the same time I graduated, and now I hear the scool switched over to NT.
>>School teachers are very highly paid
>lets see.. $30,000/180 days = $166.6666666 a day.
Do you actually know any teachers? Sure, $166.66 may sound like a lot, but any good teacher I know works between 12-16 hours a day, and on weekends. 180 days in the year? Fine. Even at 180 days (should be more like 220 in the year -- that's just working one day each weekend during the school year), for 16 hours a day is $10.42/hour.
Did you say you didn't work at Mickey D's? Then hopefully you're earning more than $10.42/hour ($21,600 a year if that's your full time salary).
Teachers could make $100k a year and still be underpaid, as far as I'm concerned.
I am sure that my Computer Science teacher last job was paking bags at a super market because she knows nothing about computers. She admited that she never went to college for computers but she taught it for 12 years. She tried to teach us OOP in C++ by using Microsoft Word which confused the hell out the class. America's schools need to wake up.
my school lets me bring (commercial) software home to "try it out" but that's just cuz my teachers know that even if they dont lend the cd to me i'm gonna find it free... pay for windows software... yeah right
The best possible way I can think of to convince the school admin that Linux is indeed worth looking at is to get hold of an old 486 machine, load up Mandrake or Red Hat on it, plus one of the office suites, and demo it for students and faculty alike. The investment would be minimal, and would be an excellent demonstration of how so-called "obsolete" computer hardware can be made to perform useful functions.
If you -really- want to 'wow!' them, see if you can load up Samba, and attach to a file share from one of the school's existing NT or '95 boxen.
Oh, and don't forget to point your teacher to http://www.linux.org/info/gnu.html so s/he can see that the GPL is indeed a legitimate licensing structure.
Good luck!
Sorry to break this to you, but if a teacher had enough knowledge about Linux to teach a course/unit in it then they're not going to be teaching. hehe I mean seriously - 90% of people who know how to use and configure Linux are in some way related to the computer industry. (or are currently being educated) High school's simply don't have the budget to hire any truly competant computer teachers. Back in my high school computer course the teacher didn't know enough to add the line: LH MOUSE to the autoexec.bat file
Cool topic...because I am a computer teacher at a high school. Some random thoughts. I have a programming background and I am learning Linux, PHP, Perl, MySQL, Rebol, and other technologies in my own time. I study all the time. Do you think other teachers are going to put in a lot of effort on their own time for the pay they receive. Yes, MOST high school computer teachers aren't capable of teaching more than Print Shop Deluxe. The students that most high school teachers get are very low quality and this makes it difficult. When you offer a programming class you get about 15% who actually seem to have a future in it. The rest are guys who play video games all the time and thus thought they would make great programmers...NOT. The best students in the high school are too busy taking REAL math classes to fit computer programming into their schedule. A lot of people that read these message boards are probably efficient coders...now, imagine, you are a teaching a high school class with these programmer's. Now juxtapose your need for intellectual stimulation with your new job of explaining what the print statement does 4 million times...I think you see the problem. The mind of a programmer doesn't coexist well with the patience and repition of a teacher. Pay is an indicator of the quality of individuals that go into teaching... Just my thoughts.
>All I could squeeze out of my school was a little pascal tutoring from the Computer Lab Nazi (tm).
:)
My god, did you get educated at Wodonga High School, Victoria, Australia
Just a quick jab at the stupidty of my ex-school's IT teachers.... Where knowing how to use PC's is knowing MS Office...
At least your school has some interesting computer courses. Let me give you an example of the 'advanced' computer courses at my high school. Programming in BASIC (enough said, I hope) Programming in Visual Basic (see above) Programming in C++ (not a bad course, but there is nothing beyond this beginning C++ course)
There is a problem with that, schoools are forcing non-computer savy students to take computer classes, because jobs are asking for them. Linux is a nerds best friend, not an regular student with no computer knowlege. All that America's schools want are kids that could succide in the future.
For Macintosh linux distros, i've heard good things about Yellow Dog Linux.
Looks like these educationnal problems are peculiar to US. It's my university (in France) that made us use Linux, and our teachers that were emphasising about the virtues of the Open Source. It's also thanks to them that I now know that the presumed "user-hostility" of linux is FUD. The only matter I've encountered with linux was that I was unable to connect my computer to Internet until I heard of the -noauth option to pppd.
FUD! Well, nearly FUD. The training cost to jump from MS Windows 3.1 to Win95 was also expensive. Today's linux distros, like Mandrake (my favorite) are at least as much simple to use as Windows. If you stick with KDE (or with GNOME, but I recommend KDE for beginner, for reason of stability and completion), you don't really need to learn how to use it. For a more complete use of Linux (with shells cli, for example), a good book and the online help (in pretty HTML with KDE) are sufficient for most case, and this isn't expensive. For complex troubles, there are lots and lots of FAQs, mailing lists archive, HOWTOs, etc, in english, and often translated in many other languages. With little goodwill, any people who dare to call himself a "computer science teacher" or "cs student" CAN quickly use Linux. The battle *IS* worth fighting, for the benefits of Open Source are really huge for education (free access to any algorithm and source code, free and frequently updated dev tools, etc). Furthermore, with the Linux-Boom we can see nowadays, skills in Linux environment will become really appreciated. A *GOOD* school should consider that.
The only matter is that their license does not include documentation. No online help. No books. No hotline. But, they don't want Linux: it comes with no hotline!
Surprisingly, all computer science based formations want to work with the Linuxed CS-Department. How strange, I wonder why... :)
Free Software in the French government
The French law proposal 117 [7] states that services of the State, the local communities and publicly-owned establishments can only use software "of which the use and modification are free and for which the source code is available" - in other words Free Software. To reach this goal by January 1 2002 an "Agency of the free software" is being created. This agency is given the responsibility to provide information about application of this law as well as deciding which licenses meet the criteria. The agency is open to internet users and its decisions will have to be preceded by consultations on the internet. These formulations are precise and the law proposal contains the words "Free Software" several times among other reasons due to a meeting that took place on November 17th 1999. At this meeting Richard M. Stallman and Frederic Couchet discussed software-specific questions with Senator Pierre Laffitte. In my view not only the engagement and work by the Free Software scene should be highlighted but especially the open-mindedness and willingness to discuss these matters by the French politicians. I have been delighted by this news and I am sure that a lot of you will feel the same way. We should now actively encourage other governments to follow this great example. I offer myself as the coordinating point for local efforts and ask everyone willing to volunteer for local political work to contact me [1].
[1] Send ideas, comments and questions to Brave GNU World
[7] Law proposal 117 (in French): http://www.senat.fr/grp/rdse/page/forum/texteloi.h tml
So, you see what you must do, US peoples!
Start lobbying for free software in all public organizations. This way, your martian-disliking teacher will be forced either to use Linux or an hypothetic Open Sourced Windows... As long as Windows won't be Open Sourced, only Linux remain. I'd really like to see this law proposal adopted by my government, and similar laws by other countries.
All text in italic was written by Georg Greve for the Brave Gnu World, here are the copyright notice:
Copyright (C) 1999 Georg C. F. Greve, German version published in the Linux-Magazin
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this transcript as long as the copyright and this permission notice appear.
Hey, try a recent Mandrake, Caldera or Corel distros. If it's not user-friendly, Windows 98 is user-hostile!
> my mom couldn't even figure out how to check her mail with telnet when OutLook stopped working)
With KDE and Gnome, you've a lot of graphical mail manager. I use Kmail, it's not as complete and bloated as Outlook, but it's largely sufficient.
> that "dir" doesn't work
"dir" works on Redhat and Mandrake distros. Just make a symlink to ls named dir, or an alias in the shell .*rc file, for example with the -l option.
Hi, were discussing the same problems here in Sweden. If you are able to read some swedish, have a look att http://www.skollinux.net keep fighting Urban
>The real problem here is not technology or >marketing, it's the fact that our educational >system treats our kids like children. When I was >in school, I took that kind of treatment as the >highest insult, not that it mattered. Many of our >teachers and most of our administrators just want >their children to be seen and not heard. It's >easier for them that way. It's one of the main >reasons that school is such an alienating place.
:)
I couldn't agree with you more. At 14 the I.T teacher at my school told me that i had no future as a programmer, because he was scared that a 14 year old could code fluently in 6502 and 68000. Well 7 years later i'm earning UKP£45,000 a year and he gets peanuts. F*** him!
> Head systems administrator
> Briggs High School
Sorry, can't resist. I guess Max Headroom really was 20 minutes into the future.
Might as well give up now, it just can't be done.
Lobby for the existence of a "linux club".
Try to get HDD space to set up a dual boot on library machines and meet after school. (start the linux club even if you can't get computer use) Build student and teacher awareness that way.
After that, start talking to yer computer teacher about doing a "Linux Awareness Week". After that you'll have to hope that it takes off on it's own, b/c you'll have graduated.
Yes, I've noticed alot of Novell server crap at my old schools and windows 3.1 also their when i was going to them. the system works, but the hubs could be linux and run much smoover here at SBAC.edu.. they run a very out dated system.. AIX and DYNIX. PUKE.. Linux perhaps you dumbasses?
I would'nt want to be excessively picky, but Mandrake won't run on a 486 since it optimized for the Pentium processor :) Dominic
(That figure excludes things that came pre-installed, but it does consider the fact that everyone upgraded to Windows 3.1 for free)
Of course, that's about how things were everyplace else in town. Maybe I just lived in a hive of wretched villany.
I was also attempting to get at least one Linux box going in my school for my use and here's what I did: 1) Brought in a few Linux magazines and spent my tech classes reading them, summarizing them, and handing in my summaries to the tech teacher. 2) Grabbed ahold of a 486-33 w/8megs RAM that was about to be tossed, along with VGA monitor from twenty years ago.. brought in keyboard, cd-rom, floppy drive, etc. from home. 3) Installed Linux now that I had got my tech teacher curious about it 4) Since our classroom only had one network connection, and about twenty computers, I setup the linux box as a firewall and allowed the rest of the computers in the room to have internet access (using a bunch of old network cards that had been replaced) 5) Spent several periods sitting on the machine just playing around, configuring it to the way I like it, and installing/compiling all kinds of programs. 6) By this time, everyone had noticed the look, and feel, and had noticed that not once had I cursed about a blue screen of death, or any other lockup. They also noticed I was spending a lot more time in that room, and getting more work done than normal. X11 was a little slow, but that was understandable considering the hardware I had. As it stands right now, at least 10 people from my tech class have installed Linux because of me, and since I spend my lunches in the tech room on my Linux box, several people in that class have also installed it (infact, I'm on the phone right now helping someone wipe out windows. :) Well, that's my story of Linux in HS, feel free to copy it. :)
Go to school with lots of guns and explosives. Kill a few teachers and students. Then they'll switch to Linux. That was why the Columbine shootings happened.. They were upset their school was not using Linux in the libraries.
We have, as far as schools go, a great computer department in terms of equipment. However being a senior I'd figured I'd show the possibilities of linux to the school. Offered to teach a class (part time) in unix basics. Offered to setup C++ on the computers so that they wouldn't need like 30+ liscences of VC++ (which isn't really C++ anyway). They didn't like it, because it wasn't main stream....
Also being the student web master, I wanted to implement a MySQL, PHP, apache thing to make things easier for the site. Currently they have a html table with 500+ names, email addresses, and it'll be growing about 350+ a year. But they don't want me doing that, because they don't know how to do it, and they CANNOT have me implementing a system that they don't know. Even though I offered to show them what I was doing they refused.
They wouldn't even let me telnet out from school, which I am doing now anyway do to bad security of our network. Kids in my computer classes spend most of the day playing games (particularly gambling games) online.
I think the biggest problem is the fact that schools do not teach you how to solve a problem, only what anwsers work. By throwing technology at problems and then having them taught by people that don't know a thing about computers, it will only get worse.
But my school also gets deals from microsoft in hardware and software, so we all know what's happening here.
...'our children' are immature smart people, learning both to speak and to think, and already savvy enough to wave off those who can't understand such obvious features of child development.
If you want respect, stop taking the honest errors of struggling children as personal affronts, small man. Or are you scrapping for someone to spank?
Get a skin.
There are a number of reasons why a history teacher might be a good ally for your cause: 1. The roots of the GPL are in political philosophy. A good teacher could tie this debate right in with a discussion of the Constitution, property rights, and so on. Juicy stuff for a motivated history teacher. 2. Any history teacher interested in current events will be following the Microsoft antitrust trial. Again, there are lots of juicy historic links to be made. 3. If your school has an economics class (usually taught out of Social Studies) then you have yet another tie-in. If you can get a history teacher excited enough to start talking about OSS and GPL, then maybe you can convince him or her to talk with the CS department about doing an interdisciplinary unit on Linux. Teachers love that kind of stuff. Also, I highly recommend that you get *Open Sources* from O'Reilly and lend it to your teachers. It is well written, highly entertaining, and presents a variety of political and economic perspectives on OSS. In fact, I would suggest that you email Tim O'Reilly directly. I wouldn't be too surprised if he donated a copy or two and even penned an email on your behalf. Good luck!
It was really sad; the teacher had a bunch of pre-made headers that did all of the actual *work* for the students. 99% of the students who passed the class didn't even know what the compiler actually did. GOd forbid they had to do some bitwise operations.
Haber, you know who you are. You're a smart guy, but you're teaching things the wrong way. We don't need another generation of MS programmers.
I hear that now, the beginners are taught in -- get this -- Java! Teaching beginning CS in Java is even worse than teaching it in C++ with "helper" libraries. The students are even more isolated from the hardware, have even less of an idea what the computer is actually doing, and pick up bad practices that way. Just because 64MB+ of RAM is common in PCs nowadays, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be conservative with system resources.
I think that all students should start on a 386, with 16MB RAM, running a Linux microkernel and GCC, coding in ANSI C with standard libraries. They'll learn how the systems actually work, and the experience of actually needing mallocs will put the resources in perpective.
But it won't happen. Java and C++, which are powerful tools in the hands of an experienced programmer, are being taught to these kids, and they'll be the next geneation of MS programmers writing more and more bloated code.
And your teacher didn't know what the GPL was? Very common. Since teachers aren't actually writing functioning code, they don't have to keep up with the times. Hey, if your teacher was so great at writing code, they'd be doing that instead of teaching. After all, good coders make a hell of a lot more than teachers, and have the same opportunities to spread their knowledge. Your teacher is a dumbass. She probably picks up computer magazines in the store and has no idea what they're talking about. "UNIX? I thought that died in the eighties!"
It really pisses me off. My CS class in high school was so bad that it actually turned my off to computers for a while.
Thankfully, I was saved.
Want to know what saved me?
Free UNIX. I started getting into the BSDs and Linux, and I got a few books on C and Perl and CS theory, and I realized that I liked programming. A lot. I just had to look at it from a different perspective. In school, I was stifled because I wasn't learning any of the theory, and it was just "copy what the teacher says to do, and you'll get your 'A'". When I finally started studying it on my own, I realized what it's all about. It's about logic and philosphy, and of thinking of ten different ways to do the same thing. It's about feeling your way through a problem until you not only know how to solve it, but you know the fastest and most efficient way. And with UNIX, it's godlike. UNIX is the program for programmers. With the modern free UNIX distributions, any tool you could possibly want is right there. You can use C to modify the kernel to do whatever you want. You can use Perl to write awesome text processing engines, and put them on your Apache web server, and make your own Slashdot. Nowadays, you can even write Java programs under Unix. You can do whatever you want in 20 different languages, or write your own!
Young coders, drop out of your CS classes. Install Linux on an old PC. Read books by Kernigan, and Knuth, and Lions. Hang out in the O'Reilly section of your local bookstore. Read the newsgroups, and the Web. Read the man pages. Read the frickin' source!
Your teachers don't know anything about programming. If they did, they'd be teaching at university level, or coding for a living. Don't put up with their bullshit. The fact that they don't know about Linux, or the GPL proves how dated they are. You have nothing to learn from them.
High school doesn't matter anyway. It's four years of mandatory "education", far inferior to the education received by students in Europe and Japan. It's not worth worrying about. Don't even bother telling your teachers about Linux. You'll be gone soon, and the dinosaurs will die.
Just a suggestion for those of you who seriously want to do something to help. Call up a local high school in your area, tell them that you are a student or professional and you want to volunteer for an hour or two or more each week. You could help by supporting a student linux user group or help the CS department/1 faculty member learn more about linux. They will never turn down free help.
Check out HDproject.
Isn't that "What do you want to buy today"? I can't believe so many people simply won't accept that good software really can be had for free.
The problem isn't which software they choose to use, theorically C++ (or whatever) is C++. It doesn't matter whether it is done on windows or os/2. Teachers usually take the middle road. Most students have to start from the beginning and having them waste 2-3 classes learning how to get around in linux just isn't practical especially for a general education system like highschool
I need a replacement equivalent for Microsoft Project. Freshmeat turned up with a "not so very useful" list. Could you suggest an alternative.
Most schools are an absolutely hideous environment of politicking and backstabbing, even before one starts dealing with the kids. So consider the position of your teacher:
If he/she embraces linux, and he/she doesn't know linux (or unix), his/her risk of exposure increases. On the other hand, presumably he/she is experienced with microsoft products, or whatever they're currently using. (Nobody ever got fired for choosing microsoft. Or IBM for that matter.) Therefore, by staying with the status quo, your teacher's risk of exposure is substantially less. And your teacher doesn't have to spend so much of their own time learning a whole new way of doing things.
In this situation, where there is substantial inertia, you need to employ the ancient art of subtlety. Consider it a chessgame. Don't start off by saying: "We need to replace these windows boxes with linux." Instead, try the tact of: "You know that old 386 (or 486) that you are about to throw out... Could I use it to learn how to set up a dynamic web server?" Then, gradually, build from there. Add an SQL server. Install the gimp. Whatever...
When you reach the point where windows boxes are going unused, and the kids are waiting for their turn on the linux boxes, the situation will change itself.
I recall a discussion with one of my teachers... I stated that a million multiplied by zero was zero. She disagreed.
Do not attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.
You might want to check out the article at http://www.thelinuxgurus.org/schools.html it discuss a bit of the financial aspects of getting linux into school systems.
The American Federation of Teachers posts average teacher salaries for each state. aft.org Cruise the site, it's there somewhere.
The average salary in the midwest is in the 50s, plus bennies and retirement, and a stipend for training. That's not too bad.
Mississippi is only in the 40s, and CA and New England is better.
Mandrake/KDE comes with about 20 or so games that kids would enjoy, like Rubik's Kube, Asteroids, etc.
French and Mexican high school students score somewhat higher than Mercan ones on international tests, though. US students often can't even find the US on a globe. Seriously.
And this is a good thing?!? Why the hell are we interested in dumbing down the system? Fix the problem; don't cater to it!
The opensource club. you can sit around and discuss the communistic development model. Where you want freedeom of choice in an OS, but linux being that only choice. Communism if I ever heard it.
Those who can't teach gym, teach computers.
I'm a senior in high school, and I work for tech support for a local ISP and I want to take a linux course at my school, of course our network adminstrator at the school doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. but maybe if the school offered a linux class I'd not only go to school more often, but I'd probably be telling the school's net admin how to fix the entirely fucked up network.
either we are networking or we areNT networking
That's right, COLUMBINE.
Here is the plan:
1. Acquire weapons training from ESR. If you're like me, he's just a short train ride away from your high school. If you are unlucky and live in Arizona or something, find some other weapons geek.
2. Acquire guns. The very anti-gun L.A. Times ironically will tell you how to do this: gun shows.
3. Acquire trenchcoat. I recommend the Burlington Coat Factory.
4. Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Remember to ask at least one person is she believes that RMS is her personal savior. If the answer is no, shoot her. If the answer is yes, shoot her anyway. Larry Wall is really her personal savior.
5. Shoot yourself. Because if you really think that you can change the world for the better this way, you're dumber than your teachers, and more evil than Bill Gates.
6. Jon Katz article, duh
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
In my experience, the wrong people are teaching programming and other computer related classes. At least in my school, the classes were taught by business teachers because they could teach typing, no real training except a hourly seminar here and there. Given my programming teacher did have a programming resume but that only consisted of cobol and her degree was in accounting. My physics teacher, who was the programming teacher before the current one, actually knew a extensive degree of many languages but he quit teaching programming when they hired the accountant!! Does this make any sense?? Why on earth hire a bad employee?? It would of made more sense to of hired a new physics teachers, in my experience a good science teacher is more common than a good computer teacher.
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
Who sold Win to your school, and who bought it? The principal, and the saleman he knows outside of school hours.
The principal met the salesman at the service club they both belong to. Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, Masons, Knights of Columbus, Chamber of Commerce, the guys who ride around on the miniature motorcycles who fund the burn hospitals that train most of the pediatricians ... you get the idea.
The people with the money get to size you up and determine if you are trustworthy. That's how you make contacts to sell stuff.
You? You're still in the dirt with no track record, and you're trying to sell to someone with no purchasing authority. School teachers are at the same level as bank tellers, albiet very highly paid. If you've got something to sell, you're wasting everybody's time talking to her.
Your best bet is to volunteer for a nonprofit, something like your local historical society, or another independent, tiny org. Stay away from name brand charities like the Red Cross or United Way. They are suit oriented. The first thing they'll think is "If this is so good, other people would be buying it. He would be driving a Beamer, wear a Hickey-Freeman, and have big bucks."
And make sure you set up the disk for diald, PHP/postgresql/Apache/MacIntosh, and it works first thing right off the bat. You'll never get a second chance. Do the set up at home, bring in the drive for a quick plug in.
Nobody cares or wants to hear about open source or labor pains, they just want to see the baby.
Only after a 5 or 6 successful (trouble free) installations, will word get back to the principal. Trust me, they have connections. Only after that will you have an audition. Just one, don't screw it up.
The IT department is usually a good place to go for anything computerlike (obvious man strikes again). Most of the IT faculty here is not Linux-capable, (or even too computer-capable) but is eager to learn. Perhaps presenting to them the benefits of Linux (cost, stability, educational value, source avaliability etc.) would work; it hasn't hurt here. Some of them may be familiar with Linux, but not know too much about it. In that case, perhaps giving a live demo (using a shitbox in the storage room, or something to that effect) would help.
Additionally, CS teachers sympathetic to student interests are invaluable for doing any Linux work at the school. Try approaching the most knowledgeable/friendly one, and inquire about if they know what Linux is. If so, great! If not, explain it, emphasizing its technical merits and cost. Perhaps offer to demonstrate it, or show off screenshots. Bringing up the monetary side of it works good. Whatever piques their interest...
I really doubt that there will be many Linux classes, especially given that the majority of students (remember, this is at my school: YMMV) don't even know that much about Windoze. Many administrators are unfortunatly highly allergic to free software. Appealing directly to faculty (CS teacher, math department head, executive leader of mathlike activities...) works well. Always be sure to explain clearly the benefits and philosophy behind the software. Show analogies between software that exists for Windoze and Linux software (GCC == Borland/MS Compiler, Emacs == Edit (heh...there's no comparison there), Gnome/KDE == GUI (Remember, these people are *really* used to windows), WordPerfect/StarOffice/LyX/whatever == MS Word). Always volunteer (within reason) to help install/administer, if you do get somewhere. Free support is a very good deal for schools.
It is truly sick that many peop^H^H^H^H consumers in our society cannot appreciate the value of something if it has no price.
and the bretheren of the Penguin said "take this gift of code so that you may grok it and thereby learn"
to which Redmonites replied : "You offer me Software that is not MicroSoft, we are sorely perplexed".
then the bretheren of the Deamon said "take this gift of code that your networks may flourish".
and the Redmondites replied "and what 800 number can we call to be misinformed by some phone monkey when we can't make it go?"
and the bretheren of the Gnu saith "Take this gift of code so you may be free"
and the Redmondites cried "Be off, you commie varlets! How can we be sure that this code be-ith not tainted unless it is a safely sealed binary?!!"
And so the foolish Redmondites continued their slovenly ways untill they were all wiped out by a particularly nasty Word virus
----the book of discordia
Sorry, I just have to "me too" everyone else who's drooling over having software development class in high school :)
:)
:) The graphics people will drool over E and GIMP, and the rest can bask in the free cross-platform goodness of GCC and binutils. You might also add that it's a proven and stable server platform to replace the uglier bits of the internal network, etc. and so forth.
:)
I'm still in HS now, and I got to take the mandatory Windows Applications class (to train everyone for their upcoming futurres as button-pushers and block-stackers). I also voluntarily took the HTML class in which I got 42 minutes every other day to read slashdot and play Nethack on a remote shell. That was a worthy use of my time, indeed
Beyond those and the Mac Applications class (I gave up on taking computer classes and took Film instead, in the hopes I might learn something), there is no more Computer related curriculum available, much less a Computer Science curriculum.
Okay, rant over.
As for getting people to warm to Linux, try asking to install it on one of the PCs in the lab. Install the vital components, compilers, X11, and Enlightenment
Good luck
F0 07 C7 C8
I work at a high School as the Head of Information System Support (or some other joke of a title) and the thing that I see that is the most advanced computing concept (besides www.shockrave.com) taught is making web pages with claris home page. When I approached the teacher he told me "Yeah I know *every* programming language there is, but writing code is so passe. It is great that we live in a world where something like claris works will write it for you.
Actually, another student got a bad grade in his class for not using claris home page and writing straight HTML. They were told that it was no compatiable with the Web Star server they were using.
I have been sickened by this whole charade where I will be looking for other work and have been scared to death about the state of .edu at least from my vantage point. My question is: How many people are learning advanced computing concepts in their high school? What kinds of things are you learning? And is anyone havin the same experience I am?
I'm sure more than a few people on here would be :)
happy to explain things to her
You just wish your ID was as low as mine! I used to be proud to have such a low id, but not so much now. Slashdot most
There are a number of factors here.
A good computer educator is going to be hard to find in public/private schools. The pay is way too low for someone with decent tech skills.
The actual hardware most schools have is pathetic, and the younger you go, the more pathetic it gets. And many can't develop standards. There may be 5 macs in one classroom, but all of them are running different OS versions, etc.
Most regular classroom teachers, from elementary on up, don't really know how to use a computer, or how a computer basically works. They can use word or something, but that's the extent of it. The computer use in the average upper grade classroom is typically limited to word processing and research.
In elementary schools, I've found that computer use is basically only for "educational" games (the vast majority of which are no better, if not worse, than worksheets or wrote practice!). The other use in elementary schools is as a reward or punishment. This should never happen. It's like telling a child "you were bad today, so you can't read your science book".
Most teachers are utterly clueless as to how computers actually function much less how to integrate them into the curriculum, are stuck with old, outmoded, frustrating hardware and/or software, and quite frankly, so many are so close to retirement, they just don't give a damn.
The baby boomer generation is nearing retirement age and a HUGE chunk of the teaching workforce will be retiring in the next few years. I was going to be an elementary school teacher. But the anti-male, totally pc (not the computer kind), technology illiterate culture combined with the horribly low pay has driven me far, far away from that. I could have dealt with the low pay, but the rest of it was... ugh.
I think if people want their kids tech savvy, they'll need to start a tech-centric charter school.
Sometimes we do have to remember the wise words of the late Admire Grace Hopper:
"It's easier to obtain forgiveness than permission."
In most school situation, to obtain the permission to go ahead with a Linux implementation, one has to go through hoops and most often, the answer is a flat "NO !".
Sometimes you just have to do it, with or without any permission, and when everything is done - the computer lab is running smoothly, with all kinds of needed things that a school needs, for example - the admin can say "NO !" but that would mean they have to do it all over again.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Your teacher may give the GPL some credence if you show him/her some articles showing Linux support from companies like IBM, HP, Novell, and Corel, and from government agencies like NASA and the nuclear labs that run Beowulf clusters. Then there's the GNU archive at MIT.
These are organizations the teacher would know of and cannot dismiss as kids or crackpots.
Once you have their attentin, you can talk about why these large, reputable organizations are using and supporting GPL software. Tailor your arguments to your situation using the hints provided by others in this thread.
You'll be better off for it and so will everyone else. There must be some way you could organize an informal class perhaps with teacher sponsorship. Honestly if this where you are today what could they possibly teach you about anything at all? Back in the dark ages when I was learning computers in middle school circa 1974 we just asked for time on the high school's PDP8 and they gave it to us off-hours. Even got a middle school teacher to car-pool several of us. The MS and HS math program really didn't have much of a clue about what to teach or how. I doubt that this has fundamentally changed in 25 years since by my own reckoning schools should be UNRECOGNIZABLE to me after a quarter century and they're not. Therefore what they do and how they teach hasn't changed or improved much either. Anyway I'd recommend that you pick up some books, crack em open and do it yourself.
Believe me, they work wonders. The main thing you have to keep in mind is how smart the admins at your school are. If you can subvertly install Linux without being noticed and/or traced, go for it.
You might even be able to pull it off when the teacher's in the room. If you can't, wait until a sub comes in --- then just pop in the CDs and repartition away.
It may sound drastic, but sometimes that's what's required. The trick is to make it so that even if you are "caught," the administration can't touch you. It all depends on how the rules at your school are worded exactly.
Do what you need to first, and then feign ignorance later. (^o^)
Though the Linux presence at our school is pretty small, I think we're getting somewhere. We've semi-covertly got Slack loaded on some Pentium III's in the computer lab we hold our meetings in, and use them to process Seti@home chunks. Check out the page for the computers at http://irc.web-docs.net/seti/ and http://irc.web-docs.net/seti/complist.html .
It's amazing how interested people get in these computers. Students wondering what Linux is like can come over and oogle at the boxes. Some of my teachers have even been interested in seeing the computers themselves, just to find out more about Linux.
Also, our high school's entire yearbook network is dependent on a Linux appletalk server our vice president has got running in there. In fact, the school is training a freshman to use Linux so that they'll be able to keep things going when he leaves.
To give credit where it's due, the vice president of the club, brtb, has done a lot more for Linux at our school than I have. He frequents slashdot, and has probably made a post somewhere in this discussion. He'll probably be president next year (after I graduate), so things are looking good for the club.
Oh, and Brendan: my apolgies if I've said anything I should've kept to myself. (^o^)
I know there is at least one guy on the Mandrake mailing list who runs Mandrake on his 486.
I run Mandrake 6.1 on a 486SLC40, which is a 386 wannabe 486 (no FPU, kind of like a 486SX but in actuality a stretched 386). It would need an FPU to install, so I rebuilt the kernel for FPU emulation by plugging the drive into a 486, installing there, and doing make menuconfig etc. No other software was recompiled. It runs ferpectly. (-:
The warnings on 7.0 are no more dire than on 6.1, so expect the same technique to work with it.
See this website for pix of the machine. It is about to suffer a brain transplant (to permit more RAM) so I can use it as a cached, filtering proxy.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Try a different approach. Instead of fretting about whether or not the uninformed teacher is treating you with respect, find a software engiineer in your neighborhood who is willing to come to your school and lecture your class on software licences, open source, and everything. Teachers like when professionals from their community come to tell the kiddies about the real world. What the hell, maybe you can invite the local press too, and make it an event.
This may be a bit off-topic, or maybe not. But when it comes to the concept of Linux and open source software, is socialism being advocated? Some consequences of the open source definition seems to be support collaborative efforts of free developers,develop alternatives to wage-labor for free developers,and advocacy of developer's individual intellectual property rights.
Projects like Linux and GNU are wonderful examples of free association of workers and worker control producing products that far better serve the consumer than anything produced by private industry.The source code is public and administered by a body of programmers and experts.
What's the source of this Utopian condition? Lack of profit motive and worker control of the means of production.This all sounds like the transfer of computer technology to social ownership, bound up with the establishment of a socialist workers government.Is that what this is about? Is that where we are headed? I for one am at a loss, I am a capitalist and I would never want such a thing to occur, or am I a closet socialist because I am passionate about open source software? Or am I completely wrong in my interpretation of the movement?
Vishak
---------------------------------------
Palpatine: The power of the dark side is boundless while that of the light side is finite.
Anakin: Why is that?
Palpatine: The strength of the light Jedi is limited by his or her own personal skill. Thus, their power is bound by their own personal limits and failings. But the power of a dark Jedi is not dependent on his or her own individual skill. Instead, the greater the dark Jedi's hatred, anger and impatience the greater the dark Jedi's power. The dark side feeds on anger and hate. The more anger and hate you can harness, the more powerful you can become. The best light Jedi is no match for even the most novice of dark Jedi . . .
Intelligent Design Theory is not Creationism
this is an excellent idea. There have to be some CS teachers / textbook writers out there that use Linux. Maybe experienced users who don't do development work very well, but want to give back to the community. I'm still in college, but I have two older siblings in education, and many people for their master degree have to design a course circiculum. If they could convince the other people they work with to release it under Open Doc. License, I could see this working very well.
I post links to stuff here
My wife just had a very similar experience. She was taking an introductory course in C at the local junior college and the instructor went way overboard. People who are trying to learn a new language and are not computer scientists or mathematicians (the Instructor was working toward his Ph.D. in Math.) really don't need to be assigned to write Fibonacci Number generators or solve the Towers of Hanoi puzzle. There was virtually no coverage of I/O, structs (unions, etc.), or debugging. There was only one assignment that required writing a program that dealt with external data files; hardly a ``real world'' situation. I guess all these topics were covered in the only prerequisite course: Introduction to BASIC. Nearly half the class dropped out of the C course.
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When I read this quote in the original post, I had to wonder what the heck most high school instructors would be teaching about software licensing in the first place! I'll bet that this discussion came up, primarily, to get across some points about how you're not supposed to pirate software.
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remember that teachers above all want to leave a lasting impression. the speakers you invite should all agree to consult for the teacher on a long term basis so that the teacher is strengthened by the interaction as well as the students.
in this way, everyone who knows something and shares it is a teacher, and those who learn something useful is a student. the GPL is quite favorable to this outlook.
after you invite me to your school, don't forget to insist on a collaboration. doing some programming is, after all, the reward for learning about programming. (but don't ask me about C++!)
CEU 988Q Linux System Administration, CEUs: 4.40-Introduces the Linux operating system including installation, basic administration, configuring for desktop and internet. Course prepares students for General Exam 1 for Linux Certification.
Prereq: working knowledge of computer hardware & software. Tuition: $600. Fee: $60.
17347 Capital WCWTC 1510 5:30p-9:30p Tue 1/4-3/14 Taylor
and
CEU 96I Linux - Install and Configure, CEUs: 0.60-First in the Dynamic Data Delivery Series. Learn basic commands, network config. and troubleshooting as you install and configure Linux OS.
Prep for Apache Web Server and Web Data Delivery courses. Tuition: $100. Fee: $30.
17350 Capital WCWTC 1510 8:30a-3:30p Sat 2/19 Taylor
There are also classes in Apache, mySQL and Perl if you want to use them for Open Source coursework examples. PCC is on the web if your teacher needs to see for him (her?)self.
Our local branch of the University of Phoenix is preparing to offer Linux coursework also.
There's more to it than this.
It's unclear from your description whether you got the strange reaction due to lack of knowledge of the existence of the GPL, or just disagreement with its terms on the part of your teacher. If you have a Software Design teacher who is unaware of the existence of such a license and its impact on the current state of software development, you can probably despair of learning much current information in the class. If your teacher has a disagreement with the terms of the GPL then that's one thing; but wholesale ignorance of the contributions of various free software licenses isn't an option anymore in the industry.
I'm not sure what would be a good approach to take as far as making changes; though, since I don't recall any software classes being available in high school. You'll find instructors a lot more cognizant of the GPL in college I expect.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This is sad. I would think that as an educator, your teacher would be abreast of the latest news in the computing world, and Linux has certainly brought the GPL license in to the spotlight. Just by making your teacher aware of the GPL, you have already made a difference. The fact that Linux, and the GNU software that runs on Linux is free, you would think that all schools are researching the uses of this [new] paradigm. Although, back when I was in high school, I learned more about computers on my own. My computer teacher served more as an advisor for my independent study, which at the time was the schools network administrator! This was back in '89.
Personally, I think the teacher is probably burned out, or does not have enough funding or energy to keep up with technology. My syster in-law who just graduated from high school told me some horror stories of her computer class. Her teacher really didn't have much of a clue, other than how to use Microsoft Word. For example, he had a room full of networked computers, and one printer, yet each student had to bring a floppy to the computer with the printer to print anything out. I told her how easy it was to enable printing to the printer over the network using Win95 Peer-to-Peer printer sharing. The teacher was impressed to see how knowledgeable she was! Who knows maybe the guy was a temp. But, this is a good example of why our country needs a radical change in education, and why foreign students are winning the big tech. jobs in the US.
Let me tell you about the little "situation" at my HS...i nk-they-know-computers-but-don't, she would try to get a so-called "Computer Club", which by the beginning of this year (we had no meetings last year) became the "Web Club". Our school has nothing but Windoze boxes (they're pretty fast but the "security" programs slow them down to jack) and a few Macs in the Art department and the Architecture dept., who don't seem to use them now. I decided, along with my friend (we actually know computers and programming and networks and linux etc.) to see what was up, so we came and realized they were all a bunch of morons - they were using front page to make the web page. And when the same girl who started the club, found a Java Applet online that creates a little popup menu on your screen which looks like the windoze start menu - and when she figured out how to edit the menu definition file on this thing (ok she read the README) she thought that she now knew how to program in java. The "Advisor" for this club (who now hates me, by the way - I avoid her at all costs) was a stupid math teacher, and at the slightest mention of linux (which she knows nothing about except that she thinks it is used for hacking) she thought I was going to hack into the school's servers and crash the network or something (yes, I have already exploited their systems without any of their knowledge but nothing malicious :) ). She hates me because I stopped coming to the "club", knowing fully that my friend and I were the only ones who could actually help them (yes, he abandoned too). My suggestion to them was that, since they wanted a consistent "look-and-feel" on all of their pages that I script the thing for them with a little bit of CGI magic :) but they thought I was going to compromise server security (granted I would have put a little but of "magic" in there but I would never do anything malicious with it). So I decided that they were totally ignorant and stupid. .).
Last year, one of the math teachers (interesting trend, eh?) decided that, after much persuasion from a-stupid-girl-I-know-and-her-little-friend-who-th
My school recently got a new "network technician" or "computer expert" (he's just a guy who dances around in the wiring closet and hits the button when the windoze boxes crash), and I knew that the only way I would ever get any linux influence at school would be if I were to befriend him (though he is dumb too). It turns out he is yet more foolish - I was talking to him after school one day after lab when he decided to copy the contents of one computer's hard drive onto another one that got f@*$ed up (he accidentally copied the messed up one onto the good one, too) and I mentioned the Crusoe processor, and I also mentioned slashdot (the story was on here, I told him he could find a link here) - and he said something along the lines of "Oh, is that the Liiii-nucks place?" I have considered him a fool since then from his Ignorance and his mispronunciation of the word Linux.
Luckily, my physics teacher is installing linux-PPC on his Mac on school, so I have a friend around there. Maybe we can get some X-terminals someday (wait, even though that is cheaper than paying for all that windoze hardware and all the liscences, and it is smarter overall, the are scared . .
Anyway, just wait till you get to college! I can almost definitely assure that there will be some unix system somewhere there. I know that only then will I have knowledge about me. Others' Ignorance is not my bliss.
-Leo
I guess that he could bring some CDs for the whole class. Its hard to justify pounding someone who just gave YOU something.
My guess is that he would be more likely to get suspended for bringing "pirated" software to school. Back in my high school days this was a major offence, and the BCTFH kept his eyes open. I would bring a printed copy of the GPL just in case. If anyone there has two clues, they should be impressed by a high school kid handing out a legal document and a free clone of UNIX.
-BW
Your answer lies in the fact that Microsoft has been known to just throw NT at a school with a massive discount. At my school, it's happened in the EECS department. We're overrun with NT. We actually have two different EECS accounts. One's for the NT system, one's for the *nix system. The introductory Programming courses (Prog. I, II) are taught in Java (don't ask, that's another bone of contention), using CodeWarrior on kludgy NT boxes in the labs.
And using CodeWarrior was even a bit of a kludge. I took Programming I my first semester here, last year, and we used MS Visual J++. This was because Microsoft gave the Professor a free copy, and he decided to try it out. A lot of students went out and got a copy to put on their home computers, so they could work at home. Guess what happened next semester? EECS realized how bad J++ was, and switched to CodeWarrior. Those of us who'd bought J++ now had to go buy a copy of CodeWarrior. Not cheap, even considering the academic pricing. Ah well, such is the *business* of education...
I agree, the teacher is clueless. Unfortunately, clueless teachers seem to be all too common in this country. What you are up against here is *very* similar to the MCSE mindset that is so often adversarial to Linux in corprate settings. The fact that the hardware, software, and course materials may have been donated or subsidized by Microsoft (or an MS "partner") only makes it more difficult for your teacher to see that there is a non-Microsoft world out here.
Play around with Linux at school if you can, but be careful. Nothing scares a teacher more than a student who knows more than she does. You're gonna be on your own here, since the teacher can't teach it if she doesn't know it. Grab the zipslack distro from Slackware for serious stealth installs.
Grab as much Win32 GPL stuff as you can: ActiveState Perl, Cygwin GCC, even Apache. Show off any cool stuff you can do with them on Win32, and segue into the GPL that way.
Most of all, keep chiming in to questions like that. Let your classmates know that Linux is real, and that real people use it to get real work done. The ones who care will find out more on their own, just like you did.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
>Someone stole ALL the mouseballs from one of the
>computer labs.
Someone did that at my Uni a few years back.
So the Computer Services guys glued ALL of the mice shut. In ALL of the labs in that building. For all I know, the Uni is still glueing it's new mice shut.
So there are hundreds of mice that can't be cleaned and are slowly getting gummed up and unusable... All because of some asshole prank.
Since I am in a small school district, I was able to form an internship with our district technology coordinator. Our business manager is also a big fan of technology. I was given a small box to play with and me and another friend set up an ISP using the school's T1. It may be best to sidestep the teacher and go for their boss.
When we began hiring for a network technician, Linux experience was included on the app. Six months ago the coordinator told the business manager that Linux in schools was not posible because people did not know enough about it. After me fooling around a little he was able to see that the knowledge base was already in the school.
Currently we are looking at moving our webserver and mail server over to Linux. Paying a couple thousand for a cheap hardware is much better than paying the couple thousand for hardware and then ten thousand more for Novell's mail solution.
I have met with technology coordinators from larger districts who also take interns. I really think this is your best bet for getting Linux in use. Our coordinator even took a few hours of his last day to teach me about IP addressing. Good luck
The K12-Linux project, by PLUG (Portland Linux Users' Group) hosted at: http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/.
k12linux.org proper.
There's the k12-linux mailing list here.
I want a rock.
Linux ..... But there isn't a single teacher smart enough to set that up.
I may be missing the point here, but surely teachers are meant to teach, not sysadmin?
Nick.
Something's weird about this question.
I'm glad it's not just me who thinks that. The exact same thought passed through my head as I read the question for the first time.
I rather suspect the question was created to get somebody's name up in lights than for any other reason
Nick.
Um... It's also hard to keep MS-Windows running. It can be easier with Unix/Linux for classes where non-administrative logins are sufficient. For a class which requires system administration access then the machines become more fragile, although not as fragile as any Win98 machine with anything being installed.
You might have to also hand in printouts of screenshots to show the program running, and the teacher can view the source code to confirm that it looks like you're indeed doing some work. Or see if there's an old 486 you can put Linux on so they can test your work -- and if they end up using it as an in-house Web server then so much the better.
I was doing similar things in high school. Wrote a drug-identification program instead of an essay for Health class. Handed in Assembly-language programs in BASIC class. Handed in programs done on the TTY 33ASR at the college rather than the computer the high school was using (the college sold computing accounts to students). My FORTRAN programs had the required flowcharts, but they were on the right hand side of the printout because they were generated by a program on a magnetic tape from the manufacturer's user association (I knew FORTRAN, but wanted to sit through the course to get updated, and to get college credit).
Tell the story of Linux,
as the "child of the internet", developed
by thousands of volunteers.
Tell the teacher that there has actually been
sociology-studies on the field (people
working for free), and show her
a copy of "The cathedral and the bazaar" by
Eric S. Raymond.
This will especially work well if the teacher has
some sociology background.
Then some of the statistics for Linux. F.eks.
being second most popular server-OS in sales,
perhaps even THE most in actual use.
Present some of the reasons:
-Open standards and development
-Incredible peerreview
-fast development cycles.
Lastly share the fact that Linux is increasing
it's market share as a desktop-OS as well, and
tell her about the availability of a good Office suite (Star Office) and productivity applications.
Do not, I repeat not bash Microsoft in the process. This will make you seem like an extremist. Be calm, and open.
You can say that you and a lot of people prefer
it to Windowsplatforms because of speed, reliability and flexibility, and that it is
well worth a try.
Taking advantage of this, I talked Mr. Hamilton (the philosophy, history and computers teacher, who's vastly knowledgable in all three) about getting a Linux club and class going, got the club going, and about a third of the students in the Computers class executes thier studies on the Linux cluster I started.
Inside the building, we have our own TLD, .nrst, and two domains: strut.nrst for the technology recycling program and the main Linux cluster, and beowulf.nrst, for the small Beowulf cluster we're trying to pull together (If you've done this on Debian, please email me).
My recommendation: See if your district offers a tech school and transfer out to that. The plan will be much more well recieved.
Help us build a better map!
Perhaps you should leave this school, and go to a normal high school, with the old standby courses of Physics, Calculus, and Social Studies; instead of trendy-seeming courses called Software Development or Advanced GUI Mangling.
I don't expect a high school OR its students to be able to handle wacky classes like that.
Embittered,
R.NR
PS: High school students are smarter than their teachers. Don't you know that? (Don't they make you kids read Sideways Stories from Wayside School anymore? Sheesh.)
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
In my school, we have a physics teacher who often puts so much security on our computers, he locks himself out of every program on them. ...and then I have to get through the stacks of security software on them. (I'm getting good at it now. About 1-15minutes per app.)
Our tech/networking guy is a bus driver who owns a computer "and therefore must know about computers." He's an idiot.
Our computer classes are just the basics. "This is a mouse." "This is a window." "This is MS Works 3.5"... Our teacher actually believed that you should delete your programs after a week before they "evaporate and drip into a puddle."
If we had a programming class, it would be HTML. (Yes, I know it's not programming--they don't.)
M$ has that angle covered, they give them heavily discounted software and tell them what they would be saving if they were stupid enough to pay full price for licencing, the dumb shits then think they have a bargain. Salesmanship is alive and well!
Couple that with the fact that most of the dickheads that comprise these faculties are M$ drones, who really think they are a sysadmin when they can make their own shortcut on the desktop...
It has to come from the top, someone has to show the Industry, and subsequently these people, what Industry Standard really means.
(Not M$ $ubstandards!!!)
Just when I thought /. had gone to the dogs, along comes someone with a commonsense, no-nonsense, intelligent approach to the problem, that, if implemented globally might just start making inroads!
Dude, do us all a favour and don't log in as AC, let us know who you are so we can perpetuate the sensibility...
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym.
Most people at school (even the teachers running the computer courses) aren't equipped to deal with anything more complicated than Windows. Don't ask them to take on anything like linux in any official curriculum-based capacity. The brainpower just isn't there.
Think back to the conformist-dogma-teaching zombies that you knew in high school. I only knew two teachers who would be capable of networking with linux. My physics and my chemistry teacher. The guy who bought Apple IIe's for our school wouldn't have a clue as to what to do.
Regards,
painkillr
I am afraid not much can be done. In my high school experience, I have been blessed with a few good CS teachers, but that is because I am in a special program. Outside, I have not seen /one/ good CS teacher.
CS teachers are generally either conservative or foolish. The conservatives rever what they used in college, often something along the lines of Fortran. They are inflexible, and refuse to hear anything that goes against their ideas.
The foolish are followers of some particular trend. Some follow Java like zombies, others check up on every Visual Basic trend they see. Anything that does not follow this trend is bad and wrong, because what they do is obviously the right way.
If you are blessed and have a CS teacher that does neither, you have a chance. Otherwise, you are pretty much out of luck. Dealing with arrogant teachers is nearly impossible.
What kind of school is it? Are we talking high school/college/technical school/university? Each of these institutions has different needs, and correspondingly different reasons to use open source software.
Where does the school get its money? If it's government funded, it's likely to be relatively cash-strapped right now - open-source software isan excellent solution due to cost issues. The same goes for privately funded schools - the board would be remiss if it did not examine alternatives which can save money and protect returns/tuition.
What does the school teach? If it is a technical institution, like Devry etc. it is likely targetting its students at the (current) market-leader which is (unfortunately) Microsoft. One of the best ways to make this organizations see the advantages of teaching with open source is to show hard numbers. They make money only if students attend. They get students by showing that their program is relevant to current/future job markets. Market studies projecting Linux to remain the fastest growing operating system through 2003 can go a long way towards convincing these organizations to change. If we're talking about a University or college, these organizations tend to take a more academic view of their subject matter. Using Linux allows these groups to more effectively teach just about anything from OS design, through databases and UI. They can teach about complex systems using the code, rather than building toy systems from scratch.
As for your teacher, it is shocking to see a (technical) educator who 1) does not know about open source and 2) does not take open source seriously. Her credibility as an educator is shaken by a lack of knowledge of one of the most important currently used development models. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" has recently been prnited (along with "A Brief History of Hackerdom", "Homesteading the Noosphere", and "Revenge of the Hackers". These should be required reading for anyone who should (by virtue of their position) know something about open source but doesn't.
People have mentioned football coach history teachers and other similar things. If we valued public school teachers at a similar level to our doctors and lawyers we might have better public schools. Stop and think for a minute about the crap they have to put up with.
My HS Computer Science instructor did what all good teachers do. He inspired me to learn more about computers and programming in general. If it hadn't been for him I don't know what I'd be doing today. He recognized early on that my abilities far outweighed those of any other student in the class and allowed me to persue my own interests rather than be stuck repeating alot of the same stuff I already knew.
He had a natural joy and enthusiasm for the classes he taught. I wish more people had that. I supose you really have to enjoy what you're doing for that to come through.
now if you would have written a QSort, then it would have been correct...
but a bloated, processor heavy, inefficient bubble sort... recursive no less... think of the stack!
no wonder he marked it wrong
... hi bingo
Can you take this instead of metal-shop or home-ec to fufull your elective requirements?
Seriously, though, the best way to change people's attitudes is to repeatedly demonstrate that your way is better.
Bring up the GPL and start a discussion of why software released under this license may have less bugs, more features, more interoperability, etc.
Complete your programming assignments using g++. If applicable, point out how having the source code to LINUX, or BSD, or whatever, made you more productive, or allowed you to do something impossible on a closed-source platform...
I think the teachers need to become more aware of technology in general. Not just open source movements but also other venues. School are often behind times in technology. However, students could benefit from advance technology education. Programming is not applicable when you learn on a Mac. Linux / open source gives students a great opportunity to learn and participate. It once again stems back to the teacher to make the push to gain this knowledge.
Keep on pushing knowledge.....
Jimiz
A bunch of my friends and I decided to restart the school's computer club one day last year. We had tons of ideas at first- all of which were crushed by the school's adminstration. For instance, the school's programming lab has +30 Windows95 computers, all with networking cards, but none hooked to the network. So we got the idea of putting Linux on them and making our own small network.
But the school would hear nothing of it.
We tried explaining that they would still boot to Windows unless you had the Linux boot disk (so students wouldn't be confused or anything). And that it wouldn't take up much space (leaving over a gig or so left over for Office doc's and C++ programs). One of our main arguments was the fact that these +30 computers sat there after school doing nothing- except maybe wasting power. One or two computers were used by after school students and we would only use at the most five computers at a time.
These computers were sitting there just asking to be done something to. Network cards and everything! We even had the hubs and cables to do it.
But in the end the adminstration wouldn't allow it, and for very weak reasons too.
We tried other things (like fundraiser LAN parties to buy our own comps and helping teachers out with stuff) but everything we could think of was shot down by the school. See, schools like to tell the public/parents that they're "a technology educational model," but in reality, they are scared and hard-headed when it comes to technology.
(Also the explanation that if Computer Science teachers were any good at programming, then they'd have a real job making more money really hits the nail on the head about the situation)
I was intrested it what you sad about games what games have you for kids on Linux that are not DOOM types. Are there any that are native for Linux dont need wine or a dos/win emulator? this is the main reason for me not compleatly makeing the swithc over on all my home PC's this may also be a limiting factor for a grade school making the switch.
Caveat: My schooling was on the whole very enlightened. From what I have seen/heard/read the USA is quite different, much less inspired. Therefore you must use your own judgement.
Substance:
If your school has recreational type classes that are designed for students to do short term classes in constructive hobbies like photography, drama, public speaking, try use such a program to your advantage. If not, you might be able to do it outside class hours.
Regardless, we did extremely well in organising intersting stuff (like a genuine Unix class) because we did all the running around and organising. We then just found a sympathetic teacher and presented the whole thing allready running, "Hey, just sign this, and you get more classes listed on your roster and you don't actually have to do anything!". This gave the teachers concerned an easy ride since they knew that we could be trusted not to goof off.
As well as bypassing the bureaucracy, it'll also let you demonstrate that you're not a bunch of delinquent virus coders and pirates. And if they say no, you can always just not associate it with school at all. We ended up doing good and benevolent things to the library's loans computer, such as babysitting backups (onto 40 Mb QIC while playing Rogue/Nethack on a VT-101 as I recall, those were the days... sigh...)
X.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
You're right, they probally shouldn't be teaching software devlopment. But if they don't, then who will? All the good programmers are sucked up by high paying jobs in the private sector, we (the high schools) get the left overs most of the time. I'd rather have a poor teacher and maybe learn something, or someone else learn something (anything!), than no teacher at all and have to take PE or some equally useless class in it's place.
Hmmmm, that's a bit scary because that's what we basically did the first semester of CS. We still haven't ever used printf() in school, it's all cout cin. And yep, for most of the first semester a lot of our programs had to do with basic mathmatical stuff. NOt all, but a good chunk. Of course, the teacher isn't all that good either, so it doesn't suprise me much.
I agree that it is very unlikely. I think the most evil classmate I had in high school was the one who stole my code. Wasn't very bright, though ... he left my name on the listing.
K12Linux Project:
Several members of the Portland Linux Unix Group have volunteered to assist local schools in the Portland OR Metro area in installing and configuring computers with the Linux operating system and related free software.
The project is our way of saying thanks to Riverdale School. The school is very generous in providing a facility for a monthly Linux Clinic. Riverdale also proves to be a great example of how schools can cost effectively solve problems when entering the Internet.
More information can be found at The Linux Educational Needs Posting Pages.
Communicate with us:
Enough PLUG members have volunteered for us to seriously get started. However, we are always looking for more volunteers and interested parties to join us!
To join the mailing list, send e-mail to majordomo@riverdale.k12.or.us with the message "subscribe k12linux". You will then receive a welcome message describing how to use the mailing list.
You can help:
If you would like to volunteer your time and skills, please send e-mail to David W. Palmer dwpalmer@teleport.com with the following information:
This information helps us establish reasonable expectations of what we can provide. Of course, if you are on the mailing list, you can jump in at any time! As with Linux, our greatest strength is the diversity of people we bring together for the project.
David W. Palmer
dwpalmer@teleport.com
For More Information:
Why dose everyone assume that Linux is impossible at the high school level? Mexico and France are doing it right? We should be pushing the story that using microsoft products dose not really prepare you for any sort of real computer work, but using linux dose.. and the rest of the world will have smarter students within 4 years.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Do not use the word 'hacking' ever. EVER!
Wrong. Do what I do: use the word 'hacking' only in context where the wrong definition is impossible to assume.
If you have a particularly receptive group, feed them the appendices of the Hacker Jargon File. They are quite enlightening.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
Why wouldn't you want to look like a hacker?
Oh, I get it. You meant a cracker. (Think of it as a computer guy on crack).
Never mind.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
The only problem with running Linux boxes next to NT (or Mac boxes, in this case) are the people running it. I go to a school where there was a Linux evangelist in the administration that got an old computer set up as our school's web server. Soon after this, he left to get a 'real' job. This left a coach (in charge of our school's computers... mostly Macs) and a few students to finish setting up and maintaining the server. About a month later the server was hacked and the district's grade and attendance system was compromised. Not sure what to do (being locked out of the server) they simply shut it down, never to be used again.
I guess the point that I am trying to get across is that Linux boxes are useless unless someone knows how to use them.</P>
Your lucky they mentioned computers at all in your highschool. In my school, they had one course that used Apple IIe's, with no hard drives, and double sided 5.25 that you had to manually flip to read the other side. If you were lucky, you could use the 'high-end' machine had advanced fetures like a 3.25 inch floppy drive that could read 720K disks, and a mouse.
Toward the end of the class, the pased out pages of BASIC code and told us to copy it- they never bothered to explain what the language meant, they never even used the term "programming" or "language" as I recall. For this we got an official "computer literacy stamp" on our record.
And, if you were wondering, I graduated in 1999. So this is fairly recent. Although I should mention that during my senior year, power-macs (don't recall exactly what kind) were place in all the class rooms, they seldom did anything except collect dust.
Dionysus vs, Socrates! The greatest battle of all time!
I'm currently a Senior in HS, and took an AP CS class last year...big change, it was the first year they taught C++! The teacher himself didn't know C++, just Pascal. Besides the fact that he didn't make much of an effort to learn any more than the book taught us, he went so far as to mark down my perfectly good code because it wasn't the way the book taught a particular concept. I think the only benefit I got out of the class was having use of a computer ( albeit underpowered, with minimal RAM, with anything other than MS Visual C++ locked out, on a PoS NetWare "IntranetWare" network that crashed every day, taking down all client machines with it ) and the time to learn C++ on my own, as the teacher did nothing more than criticize my code (yet could never provide a better solution) and such.
I once brought up the issue of GPL and Linux with him, and he thought the idea of giving away source code was stupid. I took offense to the fact that he automatically assumed that nobody would want to release it for free, simply because that was his opinion. In this case, I think it was a combination of ignorance (about GPL and such) and whatever education he had received on software development (which was likely business-oriented, back in the day
Oh, yeah - I got a 5 on the AP test (highest score possible). Thanks for nothing, Mr. McMahn.
Daniel
---
you really probably cannot get schools to include free software such as linux in their courses. the school systems are fucked up, designed for mainstream, theyre ignorant and focused on the american dollar more than true learning.
"the only thing that interferes with my learning is my education" -einstein
I bet that showing your teacher this thread (and all of the great ideas contained in it) would go a long way towards educating them and impressing upon them that Linux is something worthy for you to be taught.
I'm a freshmen at our local high school, however I consider myself rather skilled in Linux. I've been using it for about 2 years. This year I took CS1. I got to know the teacher rather well. He's a pretty down to earth guy, and when we were doing our OS lesson I suggested that we do a lab on Linux. Linux was already installed as a dual boot on the labs computers, so yes we were already a step ahead, but he had no idea how to teach the lab. So, I volunteered. In short I wowed some people, and even gave away some burned cds of Linux.
I managed to effect a class of students. That's not too much. The problem with Linux is that school administration/teachers don't understand it and (gasp) hence fear it. You're best bet is finding a teacher and suggesting it to them. If they seem rather close minded (like yours), you might want to try showing them what it can do, or some of the licenses. Describe the Linux community.
IMHO if you start small, you'll get your point across that CS without Linux is worthless. Perhaps after you convince your teacher with his/her help you could approach the super intendant or CS department head and get it added to the curiculum. You might have to tutor a teacher or two, but overall I think your goal is possible.
Though the money angle is a good thing to try this could also be one of the biggest hinderences too. Its hard enough for schools to get windows machines up and running, even though that is what the vast majority of teachers are familiar with, and getting Linux up and running is even harder.
Hiring competent tech people is something most schools unfortuantly cannot afford, even though having lots of great hardware with no one knowledgeable in it is a big waste.
Unfortunately, at my school, we're also being inundated with free microsoft stuff. The motivation is clear: by hooking young developers to their tools and OSi now, MS is ensuring that when they graduate and move onto real life (and have money) they will buy the only products they know how to use. Reminds me of drug dealers. :)
(What really irks me is that there is a lot if Microsoft software that is, in fact, of good quality! Unfortunately, Microsoft can't let people decide based on quality (even though they'd win sometimes) and instead use these predatory tactics. They use the same methods in pretty much everything they make (browsers, streaming media, OSi, etc.) )
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
If you have access to DOS, you have complete control of the machine.
About the BIOS setup password: That has a simple solution, perform a software reset of the CMOS memory (set all 128 CMOS registers to 0), write 0 to port 70h, then write 0 to port 71h 128 times (this is a short program you can program with 'debug' in DOS)
About installing Linux 'secretly'. There are two options:
A) Install Linux with LILO and hope no Anti-Virus program detects LILO as a virus, and nobody noticing a short LILO prompt (can even be set to 1/10th second timeout).
B) Install Linux and load it with loadlin.exe, which can be hidden in a secret location in the DOS hirarchy.
Installing Linux should be possible with any normal Linux CD from DOS.
Couple of weeks back, the sysadmin at my school wanted to set up a WinNT terminal server for a lab of diskless workstations... 'cept NT refused to install on the server (SCSI probs).
;-(
After I explained to him that Linux would do the same (seeing as he only wanted to use StarOffice under NT anyhow), much better, and would also save him $NZ15k on licences for Citrix Metaframe... not to mention all the NT terminal server licences... he said "Go for it"
it's almost fully set up, just have to sort out the username policy
Does anyone have good, solid evidence of the reasons for this stability? The obvious one would be the relative number of bugs, but that isn't provable. My own guess, and this is easier to demonstrate, is that applications don't step on each other or the OS via incompatible versions of DLLs under Linux. Yes, Linux uses shared libraries. Any modern Unix variant does, AFAIK. But the architecture is designed so that different versions are easily distinguished and can coexist on the same system. So installing new applications doesn't have nearly as many unexpected consequences.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
That's right. Offer to put together a unit or a class or whatever on the topic you want to get more attention. Then offer to present it to the class yourself. It may not immediately get the topic into the standard curriculum but it will defintely get it to your class and teacher.
And who knows, offering to teach a class or two may win you some points. Be sure to work with your teach on the plan though, you are going to need some help in designing an effective plan.
These "teachers" are just pedants. They are not as smart as many of their students, and they know it. The only thing they can do to "keep control" is to never admit they don't know something, and never admit they are wrong. In the process, they ruin whatever education goes on in their classrooms because the students know (or eventually learn) that what they are being taught is inaccurate or just plain false. It's truly sad that tenured teachers can barely be fired for misconduct, and probably not at all for incompetence.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
point 1 is absolutely true.
i was in a class the other day, and we were talking about operating systems.. the teacher openly told us that unix and linux were full of holes and not secure.
-- ignorance aplenty.
OK, here's how I am working to get Linux into my school (Mid School, but part of a K-12 private school). I started by making friends with the computer department. Then I wrangled for a couple months to get permission to put an old 586 w/ Linux in the library to demonstrate. The next step is to get the unix-knowing comp teacher (there's one on every campus, trust me) to bring the iMac w/ MacOS and Linux from the Upper School to the MS Comp Lab. The cummulation of all of this will be a proposal I will submit to the head of the comp department proposing phasing in X-terminals instead of Win boxes (note that they're in the process of trying to upgrade the three comp labs). Anyway, just my $0.02
-Scott Fenton
Thi GPL is not mentioned in Linux articles. The source code availability is only sorta mentioned. I forgive the teacher. Still, I wish I could have seen that.
:).
You ever try explaining the GPL to a corporate person (who this teacher prolly was)?
"The source code is freely distributable."
"Okay...I think..."
"If you make a change to the code, and redistribute the binary, you have to provide the source code with the changes you made..."
"WHAT?"
"...or you violate the GPL and can't distribute the program any more."
"So how is somebody supposod to make money on that?"
"They're not. They can sell support."
"WHAT?"
"Like Redhat does."
"Nobody will write stuff for free."
You know where the argument goes at this point
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
I think the above mentioned idea of contacting Linux companies for any infomation and support is a very helpful one. Additionally, there are projects dedicated to supporting the use of Open Source software in education. I just did a quick search on Google and found some sites. This site, K12 Linux, is aimed at helping teachers and administrators use Linux in elementary and high schools. Another link is SEUL/edu, a sub-project of SEUL, the Simple End User Linux. It is a discussion group for those interested in using Linux for education.
Given that many schools are strapped financially, most teachers don't receive enough time for professional development anyway, is it worth putting effort to a more widespread adoption of Linux in schools? While GNU is free, the cost of tech support and training will be expensive!
Perhaps it's better to focus your energy on encouraging your school to adopt better methods of teaching and assessing. If your grade wasn't dependent on small homework assignments (busywork!) but instead on larger, more comprehensive integrated projects (on which you could use any hardware/software set up you'd like!), I'd bet that your education would make you more appealing to the IT world as well as more Linux-friendly.
... we had a room called "The Bill Gates Room"! Unbelieveable! Linux would be great (I got a secrete UMDOS-Linux computer going) but I don't think that the administators are educated enough let Linux be used in high school. As for hardware we have decent computers we have PII-500mhz and G3 macs. Not that bad. As for compter classes, we have several MS based ones, including our computer science class. Maybe it's a good thing that MS donated a bunch of hardware and software, then again it never worked and we got a grant for the 500's and G3's.
Something like:
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
One of the big reasons that schools don't want to use Linux as a lab OS is that most teachers are not used to it and do not know how to admin it. So, they rely on the students that talk them into running it. One problem, when the student graduates, they have linux boxen that no one knows how to admin at all. This causes a major problem and most likely the box is slapped on the platter with Windows.
The administrator dude at my school (HS) does not know anything of Linux other than me talking about it. I want to use it to host the schools webpage using Apache/PHP/MySQL but they would rather just use the provided space on the VAX that runs the proxy server for our Internet usage. He understands many things in Windows 9x but NT is foreign to him, yet he has to use it since a lot of the server software he uses for grades and such require it. He is self taught completely and is competent in every way, but if he were to allow me to setup this Linux server, he would not be able to fix it if it broke. That is the main reason they won't let me do it.
My school doesn't offer any Computer Science type courses either. Only a Computer Apps class which is a joke. If they were to offer a course on OSes though, i'm sure that Linux would not be included. None of the teachers have the time nor ambition to learn it. If we really want to have exposure to linux in the education system, the teachers will have to be taught or be replaced by someone more capable. Of course, what system admin in their right mind would quit his job to teach. Maybe one that hopes for a better day of computing.
Also, i am one of two people in my school that know about linux and the only one that actually uses it on a regular basis. Out in my area (rural), computers are well known, but the variety of OSes is not. If it isn't Windows, no one wants to touch it. Maybe my friend and I can change that thinking, maybe even start a LUG. Who knows. But as I am going to college next year, I wouldn't have much time to start it.
Anyway, enough rambling for now.
kc8apf
My school's magnet program's computer lab runs Windows 95, and my computer science (and electronics, and calculus, and just about anything else) teacher is assuredly an anti-Microsoft proponent, constantly griping about how "If we had a real operating system..." He uses UNIX or "real operating systems" anywhere he can; when I asked him about spam prevention strategies, he discussed killfiles, access keying, etc., and he mentions UNIX often, always in a good light.
Still, he doesn't bother to install Linux or UNIX on them, for reasons essentially amounting to "Too much work":
When the "professionals" are well-informed, there is really nothing special about the high school environment over the commercial environment. The basic argument against Linux on the desktop applies again: why bother? It's harder to install (Windows is bundled), harder to train, harder to configure, and harder to administer, and 99.999% uptime is not necessary. Why bother?
Admittedly, there are other areas in the school where Linux would be worth the trouble, e.g., the Windows NT 4.0 card-catalog/Internet access/database workstations that they've spent 6 months on and still can't configure properly...
BTW, anybody know how to bypass a censorware product known as Chaperon, running on MS Proxy Server 2.0?
Daniel J. Peng
. . . It just has to be said. I'm only 23 but I already feel ancient reading this. When I was in HS, we had a lab full of MS-Dos 286 & 386 boxes. There was one 486 box that had a soundcard and modem but you really had to fight to get access to it. The only courses offered were an intro to pc's class and a programming class in QBasic.
Point of the story is that at the time I felt that this situation was a significant improvement, as most other high schools around me still used Apple II's (or original Macs if really lucky); and had even fewer courses. So just be patient and keep fighting, linux may come eventually...
-JeremyH
As other posts have stated high school teaching does not pay well. This reflects a general underestimation of its importance. With the current high demand for technical savvy this means that very few people with technical savvy become high school teachers. The people who do become high school teachers have generally learned programming by rote. They know (have memorized) some basic techniques but lack the ability, desire or opportunity to understand what motivates those techniques. This tendency towards memorization is reinforced by the standardized testing process. The AP exam deserves credit for having a section that requires actual programming but it does little to counteract the general trend of the SAT, SAT II and AP exams. Despite the progress made in the last century high school, especially high school science, is still focussed on memorization rather than reasoning.
This is a pretty bleak picture but it isn't hopeless. Most high school teachers are starved for appreciation. Show some appreciation for whatever is being taught in a way that leads to open source. Visualizations are great for this and Python/TK makes them simple and cross platform. Whether you actually feel any appreciation is up to you but do keep in mind that high school teaching is an unenviable job.
the person who runs the macs *shudder* at my school dosent even know what shockwave is...
icq:=22921393;
It never ceases to amaze me how much trouble people have with these things.
Today I came into the library to find a person that had spent a half hour trying to figure out why nothing would save. Write protect tab was flipped on.
And you can't forget the people that trust those cheap ass little pieces of shit with their semester papers. It cost you less than a buck, but they trust hours and hours of work to a single copy.
Sad....
--Have a Johsonville brat.
Give me the address of the school and the name of the teacher. Enough talk, I am sending her a linux CD.
Where the only monopoly we support has a Boardwalk and a Baltic Avenue.
a) grammer. get some.
b) MkLinux is an old, nearly dead project which nobody cares about. See linuxppc.com for a RH6.x distro if you like redhat, debian or slackware both have PowerPC distribitions, and none of the above need macos to load except MkLinux or on a few subsets of extremely broken hardware. And even then miBoot should work, which doesn't need MacOS, just one 800k HFS (mac-style) partition.
Linux on the PowerPC is alive and well, thank you very much (as I go off to get a 2.3 kernel and Xfree 4.0)
The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
This being such a huge discussion I cannot possibly read all posts in the short time I have, so excuse me if this has already been answered and (if you wouldn't mind) refer me to a cid. I hate huge discussions...
But anyway, I was talking to someone involved somewhat with the CS department at my high school (well he's the school's webmaster and a producer for the school's closed-circut television show. But anyway... I wasn't even trying to do any advocacy, just talk with him about things, but as soon as I mentioned the word Linux (in fact it wasn't even me; it was one of my friends who was also involved), he immediately said that Linux is only for advanced users (he actually said 'programmers'), and that it is too complicated for the 'average' computer user (at least in high school, I am to infer). I could not come up with a satisfactory answer to this point. I mean, what really is in Linux [distributions] that the word-processor, net, and gaming user would really appreciate, as opposed to the geek hacker? Sure we like it when stuff that was originally on other, more mainstream OSes works on Linux, but is there more for this class of user than just "getting it to work"? (Note that this is completely circumventing what Linux is really good for, e.g., embedded systems and servers, which that class of user doesn't really care that much about [what operating system it runs on].)
It annoyed me that I could not adequately answer his question. Actually, 'annoyed' is a weak word. Really, this is quite important to me.
The first thing you have to remember about HS is that your teachers are Teachers. They have degrees in education not in CS or math or whatever it is they probably teach. Even the science/math/comp teachers are mostly users and not techies or programmers. This is how it was in my HS, I expect its how it is in yours.
Also, because of the budget drain computer systems usually cause, HS computers tend to be behind the times. My HS had 3 or 4 labs and it updated 1 per year. If you do the math that means at least one lab is using dated 3 year old equipment. It just costs too much to keep many systems current if you want a whole lab of them. A lab upgrade probably costs as much as 1 or 2 faculty members depending on their age, experience, and the current teachers contract.
However, linux has many advantages that a HS can exploit in some applications. Compiler access for teaching programming and the ability to run on legacy hardware to name only a couple. Remember while colleges only act poor, HS actually are poor. Free software is very attractive if the school thinks it can get away with it.
Strategies for talking about linux in HS. (1) Talk to someone who will listen, don't waste your breathe on an idiot. (2)Talk to science and math teachers, they have the most to gain from easy compiler access and free software. (3)Don't push StarOffice or productivity applications, because linux lags behind in them no matter what /. seems to believe. (4)Work your way up the ladder. Talk to a teacher first, then his department boss, etc. (5)Do not insult teachers or make them look stupid. If you question their authority or make them look stupid they will have to shut you down on principle. Don't do it. (6)Try leading on teachers. Ask your teachers about linux and try to get them to research it so they can teach it to you. It might work. (7) When in doubt, suck up.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
My background: I'm a 2nd-year Chemistry/Physics/Web Site Design teacher and Assistant Technical Coordinator for Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio. I've been using Macs for 6 years, PCs running Dos/Win3.1/Win9x/WinNT for about 7 years (on and off), VMS for about 5 years in college and Linux for the past 3 or 4 (I've only been trying to admin Linux for the past year or so). Our high school has a mix of hundreds of computers, mostly PCs running Win9x. We have two computer labs running WinNT Workstation 4.0 sp4 (a nightmare), several NT Servers (two of which I admin - NT isn't a bad print server or FirstClass server if you get all the extra crap off of it and don't run IIS; IIS resulted in all of our crashes while our main print/proxy server also served the school web site), and 3 Linux boxen (running various versions of RedHat (2) and Mandrake (1) - I'm currently too swamped to get into any other distro's, although we played with Corel for a while).
We've been running the school's web site pretty stably on RH for the past year or so, after inheriting a Pentium-90 Netware print server and replacing a couple parts here and there. I've been interested in Linux ever since I ran a couple large-volume websites in college for some rock bands (Smashing Pumpkins (unofficial) and Foo Fighters (official), among others), and I got into CGI/Perl. When I started working here, I had a Junior in my Chemistry class who was also signed up for the Web Site Deisgn class (which is an independent study course). After I found out he was a programmer, and did HTML/Javascript, I said "Do you know Perl?", which received a blank look. I then spent every day of the next two weeks after school with him and the llama books, showing him some of my old source and giving him 'assignments'. For a while, we did our CGI/Perl on MS's IIS, but it was such a nightmare that I would install Linux on any spare machine lying around and hope that it wasn't needed back soon!
Finally we got this P-90, which we upgraded, and we could start some serious CGI/Perl work. In October of this year, I got the idea that we could "computerize" our attendance, since we passed a levy and put a computer in every classroom. So, after some very very basic coding by myself, I set Doug on the project and more or less managed/coached him while we worked with SWOCA to get all of the attendance data prepared. This was a big deal - if you screw up attendance, the state will kill you and basically ruin your funding, among other things. We finally went live with the attendance script today, and we plan on releasing it under the GPL to other local districts. Of course, we're not going to port it - they'll have to set up a Linux server for it just like we did (we snuck out a Dell P3-450 that was waiting to be set up in a computer lab, formatted NT off of it and installed RH 6.1), but it will be there for their use. Maybe we're forcing Linux on them, but who cares, they should learn how to use it.
In doing all of this, several of my students have become interested in Linux. They borrow distro's, play around with a P2-266 running Mandrake 6.0 (which netscape seems to crash regularly), play around on the web server with the accounts I've given them, talk about their troubles/successes installing it at home, and generally act like geeks. They read User Friendly every day, and some of them have even started reading /. on occasion. The trick was to get them excited about it (they sometimes teach each other HTML and Perl during and after school - how cool is that?) and give them some space to play around with it.
Our future projects include upgrading/migrating the current web server to a faster machine, and starting a school-wide Samba server so that students can access their data from anywhere. I will say this, though: Microsoft (especially Office) still rules in this school and in the minds of IT professionals I've worked with in developing an IT pathway for students at our high school. Because of that, I'm going to be teaching A+/Network+ next year, and the year after that I may teach MCP. In the meantime, I expect Linux to get better and develop more support, and I really look forward to the day when we can start replacing labs with easy-to-admin Linux workstations with a slick Office clone. As more machines are rotated out of their life-cycle, more machines can be used as Linux boxen to re-introduce students to the reason they became interested in computers in the first place - they're fun, they're challenging, and when they work correctly, they can be really really cool.
-c
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Can you say "Teacher's Pet"? Sorry, my intention is not to belittle the idea, I'm just sitting here being amused by various scenarios. In the unlikely event that there should be a bully/jerk in this computer class, can you imagine how hard he'd want to pound someone who enters and gives the teacher what looks like a gift... not only that, but a gift only a geek could give? :)
By no means is that a scenario I consider very likely these days, but that scene just composes itself from stereotypical TV schools and students.
As a school administrator, the problem with implementation of new ideas is inertia from the faculty and administration (my group). I believe you have a great idea, and the merits of implementation far outweigh the initial time investment. Therefore, I would suggest the following steps to change the problem in your school. These are time consuming, and for that I apologize, but they are also the most effective. -Get a faculty member to support your idea. Try someone who isn't in the tech dept., even if they don't know a thing about Linux. Try the English dept. as they are always looking for causes. -Prepare a statement outlining the advantages of using Linux in the school. Do not discuss current problems, as tempting as it may be, or people will view this as an attack. Get students to sign this, especially those students who are known as responsible in the school. Administration will browse the signatures and decide if it is something to hassle the school, or really make a change. Administration is not the nicest job. -Submit a copy to the head of the tech dept. and the Principal. Try to do this 2 weeks before the next school board meeting. You will be attending this meeting, with a group of your friends. Do not wear clothing that will let the board write you off as hackers or students will ill intent. Bring parents if possible. Submit your proposal to the board. If you really want some attention, call all the local papers and ask for a reporter to be present. Sell it to the papers as an example of student involvement in the schools. You need to get the work out to people to force the board to act. -Have numbers ready. Nothing throws off an argument against change like facts. Linux is free, but to the school it isn't that simple. They might not have people capable of installing the software, or of even downloading it. Who will do this? Will you volunteer? Although this may seem like a waste of time, it should pay off. Worst case scenario, it will look great on a college application. Good luck.
The fact that this school has a software development program indicates some interest in scintific computing and there is where a LINUX cluster could fit in. Real "business" users of Microboft products would never think of programing much more than Excell. His physics, and chemistry teachers should know the overwealming importance of FORTRAN, C, and UNIX. In fact, one of them might be interested in teaching numerical methods alongside calculus. This may not be the kind of software development that our friend wants, but it's one that can engender support from some serious faculty members. Just ask for the older computers, and stick them on a LAN. No need for internet, equates to low threat to suspicious administrators who won't have to worry about you hacking into their crapy NT machines! Low or no dollar investment would make an easier sell.
Even if you're not interested in this kind of work, think of it as a wedge. Those supposedly unstable old computers will be remarcablly easy to administer...superiority shows, regardless of where you thought you were going yesterday!
Reviving your physics teacher's interest in computing can get your further. That dude, who might have been lugging boxes of punch cards before your parents met, could really be interested in this great OS called Linux. If you know something, share it. The old card puncher will appreciate it.
I hope you can find someone to respect near you. If not, I suggest you get your grades up and prepare for college where you will surely be humbled and might just learn something.
By the way, there is at least one school here in Baton Rouge where a pretty cool teacher is putting out students who know more than how to trash a hard drive.
When dealing with administrators, use the following three points.
Most school administrators are worried about already tight budgets, especially in the technology area. Convince them that nothing has to be spent on new equipment. Linux and OSS development environments would be ideal for a school which typically has a bunch of old (386/486/Pentium/Old Macs) sitting around. Stretching life out of these guys is *always* welcome.
Of course, as a student you might not have enough "pull" to get these ideas across. Get a clueful (and respected) teacher on board. Get your parents involved. Get a group (not just you) involved. Call your school secretary and get a spot on the board adgenda. (School boards are usually *always* willing to listen to ways to save money and possibly avoid buying equipment for another year or two...)
Try getting *any* teachers on board. (Is there a "talented and gifted" teacher around? They are ususally most receptive.) Actually, it will also help if you have a computer teacher that is clueful about programming languages other than BASIC.
Good luck...
I remember back in high school we always used to divide our time between cracking open the Mac systems and playing with the configs, and playing Bolo behind a Word or Clarisworks window.
:)
Does anyone know if there is a version of Bolo out for Linux? It's an old Unix tank game which should have been converted over.....basic graphics, but very powerful net play - and so addictive!
Personally I'm all for Linux in schools but it needs to become more user-friendly for the common folk. Most people don't know or care about the advantages of Linux because they can't see the fallacies of Windows
Digital Philosopher. Looking for work.
Hi My two bits. Another angle might be to invite people from the local Linux users group to make a Linux presentation at your school. Or even ask at your local IBM office if any of their techies would pay a visit. I ran into a whole slew of IBM people at a booth in the Linux section at Toronto Comdex last Aug, and they were just "dying" to go anywhere to spread the faith ;)
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
Ok. This is a little rant, a little info, and alot of junk all in one little thing.
;) )
First of all. Linux IS possible in a high school enviroment. I've proven it by doing it. It takes a little luck though. In order to have any success your going to need either a computer science teacher or a administrator on your side (either network or prinipal type). Then do some form of proof of concept. This will gain their trust. At which point it can start being mainstream.
I got somewhat lucky in my own experience of this. The CS teacher at my school has a policy of giving students the responcibility, and I was lucky enough to start attending when we got a t1 line. We started out with a NT server to do login (dang thing went down every two weeks or less). But I managed to get a linux firewall/router installed along with a proxy server. After much Proof of concepts that the nt box could be replaced, I managed to convert it over to linux to.
At the beginning of this year we were running a full blown linux network. Firewall/router, proxy, dialup, file/print sharing (smb ugh), intranet, and a few other misc services that I put up for various reasons.
Unfortunatly this isnt lasting. The district spent $300 million dollars (the actual figure is higher... but they wont give it out yet) to install a bunch of windows 98 boxes and nt servers district wide. The day they were implemented, the problems came right back, along with some more. (I'm up to about 10 pages of document with the larger of these blunders... and I'm not even done yet).
So it can be done, just is going to take alot of work. And alot of luck to be able to do it. Just gain their trust and show them how well it works on somethign non-mission critical. Then you might get a chance to implement it with somethign important. Any questions feel free to email me (especially if your someone I dont know from Columbus Public Schools then I could have alot of words
Atopian
Head Systems Administrator
Briggs High School
Hrm loving these
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
At the schools I've worked in Mac's were/are the predominant computer type. Where I am currently working of 7 schools 2 are PC and 5 are Macintosh and mklinux is not at the same place things like Red Hat and Mandrake are not mention even if you do get linux installed on them you need to keep MacOS installed.
--Justin
As can be seen from the previous comments schools commonly do not have the top of the line equipment, so for the use of linux I am relegated to using some old workgroup servers and currently LinuxPPC does not run on them nor does NetBSD. If I had the chance I would be running LinuxPPC.
I must say when I originally begin looking for a linux for Mac I was rather busy and did not have time to look very far. I thank you for the information on the other distributions.
--Justin
...not the one you want to be asked.
He's not asking how he can get the administration to switch from NT or whatever to Linux. He's asking how he can "...convince the faculty to include a unit of Linux, or free software, in the course."
I'd say the place to start would be with that teacher, if you think she'd listen to you and be open to the idea. If not, is there a "computing department" or some such? Where there's a department, there's a department head. Have a talk with whoever you go to about why the Linux phenomenon and the ideals of free software need to be discussed in a SD class. If you present your case well and they're a decent educator, they'll see the value in making an addition to the curriculum. Offer to help in any way you can.
Dealing with a high school has the possibility to be one of the most frustrating experiences you can have, but any HS that was forward-thinking enough to offer a SD class (most don't) might listen to reason. If not, perservere. If all else fails, all you can do is be sure you don't wind up at a university which has the same attitude. And good luck!
J
my admin, who should know a little about unix even, the most he did is installing red hat 5.2 on his old 386, i appriciate it, but till here, he didnt let me and my friend to install linux on an old P90 in the computer room, it's a boarding school. we wanted it just to compile things, this P90 is not even useable, we promised him to make it useable, but he didnt agree, and that's funny in my opinion...
Dan.
...learned to thnik before speaking...
...and spell before typing, and preview before submitting...
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It's not the rambling I object to, so much as the mumbled incoherancies...
You need to be careful with blanket statements like this. I would rephrase it as most history teachers coach football, because the fact is, people go into teaching because they like it, not to make money. My girlfriend is a first year high school teacher and she makes around $21K. Coaching is a way to make a couple extra thousand over the course of a year. If you look at job posting for high school teachers they ask for a history or math teacher and throw in the fact that they'd really like the applicant to be certified to coach.
My experience with high school CS is probably a bit different. My teacher was the science teacher and he spent more time on the computers than he did on anything else. He was a bachelor and pretty much lived in his classroom or the computer lab. That was back in the days when we thought we were hot shit because we got an Apple IIGS. He did quite alot of teaching in BASIC and also Pascal for the advanced students and he knew what he was talking about. That's why good teachers spend their summers in college. Also he was about 45 when I was in high school and that would put his college graduation in the mid 60's.
You also gotta remember that alot of teachers are old. Some ridiculous percentage of them (like 1/3 or so) will be hitting retirement in the next few years and that's gonna have some impact on their desire to try something new. If you really want to make a difference, head over to the Teachers' College and sit through endless hours of Ed Psych and Curriculum and Methods classes and then get paid crap for it.
One more thing. What does Linux have to do with pr0n or bombmaking? Last time I checked you could get all that stuff running Windows or MacOS.
I won't disagree about the state of computer education, but the assumption that a football coach doesn't know anything is stupid. My school had the football coach teaching calculus, and he knew EXACTLY what he was talking about. Same with most of the other teachers. The problem I had was that there weren't any advanced classes, period (except college-sponsored MSCE ones.) About the farthest you'd get in the HS system was MS word (although to be fair, they did teach wordperfect.) I heard they used to have a programming class a few years ago, but got canceled due to abuses. Too bad :(
Hello.
A friend of mine is the main computer person at his high school (pretty laughable actually). Almost all of their machines are really old and outdated. All of the machines run either Windows 95 or Windows 98 (one machine has Windows 2000 Professional on it). Their books they have on computers are so old just about everything in them is outdated. Due to this, the school asked my friend to write up his own books on computers. My friend asked for my help. In the books we do plan to have quite a bit of Linux and Unix information and resources. We believe this will help the students at his school learn more about computers other than just the normal Windows stuff everybody else knows. We have tried time and time again to convince his supervisor to let us put Linux or FreeBSD on at least one machine, but he refused to even listen to us. He is also the one who has the computer with Windows 2000 on it. I really don't see why he would have such a problem with having one machine with Linux on it. They have over 30 computers in the lab. They could easily just seperate it from the rest of the computers and let my friend teach other students how to use it and the basics of it. I think the main problem his supervisor had with Linux was he thought it was DOS! We tried to explain it to him that it was nothing like DOS and also that there is a GUI for Linux called X Windows, but unfortunately he still refuses to allow us to install Linux on any of the computers. Of course we will continually try to convert at least one of the machines to Linux until my friend graduates sometime in April. Just sharing the experience I have had with trying to get Linux or some other operating system besides Windows or MacOS into a school.
Hello!
This is a little offtopic, but it is also related to Linux censorschip in schools.
I study at IME, a military engineering school here in Brazil.
We have access to a computer laboratory, but, as we are at our first year, it is a Novell network, full of Pentium 100 running Win 95. That really sucks, but we can't go to the Unix or the Sun/Solaris lab until we get to the third year.
We don't have almost any permission on the labs computer... we can only write to a user directory (no writing to the windows/system one, which make really hard to install anything!). The BIOS Setup is also password protected.
I'm no hacker (in the bad meaning of the word) and don't wanna break into the windows security holes. I just want to install Linux on one of these computers. Can I? I think that, as long as I have access to the DOS mode, they can't forbidden me of creating a partition and installing Linux in it (and booting it from a floppy disk), but I want to know if it will become "invisible" to the system admnistrator, at least until he runs PQMagic or other partition manager program.
Am I right? Do you have any tip about doing this kind of thing?
---- Email is reversed
Well, YES! I have attacked Coca-Cola when I was in middle school. They were approved by the principal to set up a truck outside of the cafeteria and distribute SURGE, their newest drink. This pissed me off. Commercializing the school and taking advantage (monetarily) of the student body. I'll call it crack tactics (weed is too ubiquitous) - give it out free, then get 'em hooked so they buy more. When I asked the principal about this, she said that Coca-Cola was a partner of the Dade County Public Schools, and that she was away at a meeting when they were there.
Also, to the other replies...
I have sysadmind at this school, and yes, it does suck. However, I stand by my statement that this is not the result of real trouble, but rather the percieved notion that "all-kids-are-crackers."
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
Greetings Earthlinks... I'm a Freshman at the University School of Nova Southeastern University. it's a division of a large private school, and so we get pretty nice hardware for the most part (PII 450s are the fastest... We've P133s for the library and 486/66's for the teachers), but I'm pushing linux in the ACM chapter I founded this year. We were just chartered friday, as a matter of fact. We've a Celeron 333 @ 450 in the library as a server, running a mux of Mandrake 7.0, Debian, and TurboLinux 6.0. It is soon going to serve an attendance sheet so our school saves about 40 lbs of paper every day, and it will become an integral part of the school soon. Here's how I did it: I was lazy. sounds funny, but I just kept complaining that the computer people weren't helpful enough and they hired a new person to take care of the library. I got active. I tought the new computer lady about linux and showed her how I hid it on the PII450 in the back room last year (RedHat 5.2 - installed lilo to the partition and used a boot disk I hid... we all know you gotta be lookin for it to find it ;-)). I tought her more and started this ACM chapter. (USNSUSCACM... long ass acronym: "University School of Nova Southeastern University Student Chapter of the Association for Computing and Machinery") Work! It took me months to do anything and we're still getting there... I'm making a deal with Inprise (borland) to help us teach the C++ teacher to use linux... We're going to set up a network of Linux, SunOS, and Windoze computers for a demo for next year most likely... and we're selling pizza to buy a LVD RAID dual Xeon server with which to set up the 486s w/ remote X sessions / NFS. Life is finally good, but it's takin' a damn long time. always remember to question, for questioning will lead you to the solution. "What do they gain from using M$?" "How can I set it up so that they gain more by using linux?" "What do I need to do to assure that they will be able to do what they want with the systems easily?" "How can I set it up so that it's supereasy to get on, do work, and get off?"... but most importantly, "How can we make it work enough to not just make people happy, but to blow their socks off and ACTUALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE?" remember - in the world of marketing a product to replace one currently in use, if you don't impress 100%, it's gonna be damn difficult to get them to buy into it.
No one ever says, 'I can't read that ASCII E-mail you sent me.'
OK, the title of your post is slightly deceiving. So Microsoft has a deal with these schools...are you going to attack Coke and Pepsi next for having similar deals?
:)
But besides that, I'm VERY familiar with that above situation. When I was still in high school, the same no-disk policy applied...nobody cared though, and school officials never did enforce it. We also used CyberPatrol for a while, until the students found their ways around it. IIRC they're using WebSENSE now, which has also been circumvented. The machines were even worse. Nearly every student-accessible machine there was a 486DX2-100 (and a few DX-80's). The only exceptions were eight Pentium 166's in the library. God knows what our connection was. Now that's just sad.
The school also claimed that I had infected several computers with viruses and put porn on them. They searched me, and found nothing. It was a lot of fun when they had to call the parents to inform them they had searched me. My mother basically tore apart the principal over the phone, and my father actually left work to come into the school to threaten a lawsuit to the principal and vice-principal's face.
Ahhhh...satisfaction
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
I used to work in the computer support department of a college. Setting up Linux boxes takes a bit of work, but it definitely no harder to deal with than NT. It all depends on what you let people do with them.
We set up a number of web kiosks all over the place on old 386s. A bit of work at first, but in the end, all that could be done was surf on them. If they crashed, they rebooted and logged back in and only allowed the programs on them.
Since most colleges only want people to use authorized programs, it's much easier to do such things with linux boxes. If you set the bios so that it's not possible to floppy boot, you're set!
Oh well. Stupid Microsoft mindset. Well, I supported an NT system and the number of times students messed those things up was far more than any linux box.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
I'm in High School as well, and I know what you're going through. I just finished a basic C++ class, and now am taking a more advanced C++ class. My programming teacher thinks that Windows is king. But almost every day I stay after and talk to him. I, myself, am a Mac guy, and he seems to think they're the devil. Though, with a bit of talking to and convincing, he's warming up to them. My next step is Linux. If your school is anything like mine, they've got it organized to where a certain person/team makes the decisions about the tech stuff, and only the tech stuff. If you want to go for Linux in school, get to know these people and talk to them. I'm good friends with my programming teacher, and I'm trying to get to know the guy who sets up and adminsters the network. It seems that the smart thing to do would be to forget the teacher for your class, go to talk to the sys admin. He/She might like what you have to say and take the idea to the principal and you may get Linux. Also, a good point to make in favor of linux would be that it's more secure than NT. It turns out that my teacher had had some experience with Linux before and completely agrees with me. I'm hoping that he'll say something about it soon. That's all I have to say, and I hope all goes well for you. -NiTr|c
Try actually thinking for yourself. It's quite refreshing.
Ironically, many colleges that don't already have large unix systems, and even some that do, are going to a linux curriculum. Most of them have been using gnu untilities for a long time, my university uses gcc and gnat.
Colleges know that unix (or a variant) is the way to go for true, serious computer science. Most high schools are administrated by people who do not know well of this, and opt for a windows based curriculum.
Unfortunately, you will probably have to wait until college to truly be fulfilled. It is funny that high schools would scoff at a curriculum that most universities take very seriously, in favor of one that most professors would laugh at.
Eh...
One way to prove that their systems are inferior is to hack it, infiltrate it and take it down. No don't do this, it wont change their minds. As a high school senior whose been through all the crap that goes on with computers at school, I've come to the realization that you wont get what you want and need in resources from your high school because they don't have the ability to supply you with them. For the most part (at least from what i have experienced) the cs teachers and network administrators don't know what linux/free software/open source is all about so they are more likely to stick to windows and mac because it is easy and common, if they did switch over to linux they would either have to hire someone that knew *nix which would probably cost more than what they currently have or if they just learn as they go along they will find that the students know far more than the adults do and that only the people who can truly appreciate linux will be removed because they will be considered security threats. There is no point in bickering and complaining, just do what you need to do to make the grade and have fun later on.
Microsoft and Apple have a considerable budget that they set aside for the wooing of public education. Because of this many teachers may have been taught certain things about linux that are no longer true
Too right, they do !
This raises a number of interesting issues. The path that Microsoft are beating is one followed by IBM in the past. Educators see Microsoft products as 'industry standard', for three reasons - they are market leaders, they sell them cheap(er) software and tell them so, and here in the UK they are the only player in town really doing this (Apple don't to any extent). Pupils become familiar with the products, and a new generation is influenced.
The Open Source movement can and should learn from this. By reaching pupils and students young enough, the movement can be strengthened. The gate-keepers are the teachers, and you need to influence/de-programme/educate them first.
Any material produced for this market should shun excessively technical language - my experience of teachers is that most wil run a mile to avoid being exposed as less than omnipotent in front of their class (I realise it is wrong - but it is also a fact of life). The right package at the right price (and GPL and Open Source can most definitely compete on price - which is a big issue in education) could be a winner, and secure a new generation of converts for the cause.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
Re your point 5, most distributions are available PGP signed.
OS sanity test: click here.
The one wonderful thing about Linux: It's secure. In my High School, nearly all the school computers have somehow (I'm not part of it) managed to get Back Oriface put on them; people use it to mess with the work-in-progress of others. A friend of mine once had a swear word (a homophopic remark about the teacher) inserted in one of her papers just before she printed it. The crackers skip school, load up their BO client and search for the assignments of people who have gotten on their nerves. The bad stuff happens nearly weekly, and since our school district has only two computer people for 6 K high school students it often takes a great deal of time to remove BO from the machines. Anyone who has comments or suggestions, please contact me at pakNOSPAMaran42@hotmail.com I am perfectly aware of who runs Hotmail and flames on that subject will be cheerfully ignored.
OS sanity test: click here.
I just graduated from Yorktown High School in Arlington, VA, where I worked with Jeff Elkner. If you're interested in a model school, Yorktown is probably the place to look. They've been using Linux to teach Computer Science for the past few years and went from C++ to Python as the language for the entry level course. It's all very interesting to see this fall through, one may be interested in looking at their site, http://yhslug.tux.org/ The future of open source in schools is upon us!
-matt
- Someone sent out thousands of e-mails to all the teacher's e-mail addresses, which used up the little bandwidth that the network had rather quickly.
- Someone stole ALL the mouseballs from one of the computer labs.
- Letters on the keyboards have been rearranged to spell certain choice words.
- More recently, someone has been 'feeding' the computers. Potato chips, french fries, and other various food items have started showing up in printers, floppy drives, keyboards, etc.
- Someone managed to cleverly exploit Windoze Safe Mode to remove FoolProof Security, thus gaining access to all the other students' work. (Okay, that was me.)
Actually... now that I'm on the subject, students hacking into computers is another good reason to use Linux, isn't it? It's designed for multiple users, and to keep one user out of another user's stuff, and to keep users from screwing up the system... But there isn't a single teacher smart enough to set that up."Let me open these blinds so the snipers can see in." - Kevin Giffhorn
- My teacher was an idiot who couldn't even spell Linux.
- She lost the manual.
- The video card took a lot of encouragement to make it work.
- The network card didn't have any Linux drivers. And part of the assignment was to get it on the network.
- We had one week to set it up.
- We had to write five billion tiny reports.
Even though our project ended up coming out terrible, I ordered a couple CD's to try stuff at home, and I'm running it right now. My partner, however, now hates it because it was so hard to set up.Anyway, if Linux is going to be taught in schools, we need competent teachers, correct documentation, and compliant hardware.
"Let me open these blinds so the snipers can see in." - Kevin Giffhorn
Sure, they're meant to teach, but someone has to sysadmin. We don't have the money to hire someone else, and they could never let a student do it, since all students are lowly slime.
"Let me open these blinds so the snipers can see in." - Kevin Giffhorn
I am working at a computer lab at a university. We serve the students and the faculty at the Department of Computer Engineering. We are not that rich, but we have managed to keep the facilities in somewhat decent shape. I have seen plenty of cool software that can be used in classrooms, but it costs an arm and a leg to buy it for Windows.
:)))). When I asked him why he was doing this, he said that he could not log on because his NT (!!) password did not work. So I had to type eject floppy for him.
The faculty consists of some distinguished professors that have nothing against supporting the free software that Linux offers. So, where is the problem?
Here is the problem. Today I saw a dude trying to scratch his floppy out of the drive with a pen on one of the SPARC machines (the ones without a button on the drive, my favorite
Some people are SO used to windows (and PCs in general) that they would pay anything to keep things the way they are. I know that we need education in order to enlighten guys like this one. But in the school we don't have professors and able students only. We also have dumb students, secretaries, and all kinds of other people.
We can install Linux and spend the same money educating them how to use it, or we can simply stick with Windows and keep the dumb majority happy.
It is your choice.
I am personally for Linux. But who am I in a world of "ordinary" people?
"Those who can't, teach" is an overgeneralization. Education in the States isn't in the best of shape, but some of the teachers are indeed talented and in it for the right reasons.
I was damned glad to read your post. Although I'd have been more encouraged yet to see a public school teacher speak up... I guess I expect more from a private school teacher ;-) Keep up the good work.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Dang it, cut that out! You're making me wanna quit hacking, for crying out loud! rassa-frassa-frickin-commie-mumble-mumble-mumble.. .
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
You might want to acclimate your instructors by bringing in major media coverage of GPL, open source and Linux. You can do searches on CNN, New York Times, Newsweek, even USA Today, and present them with material from sources they know and trust. If your instructor has never heard of GPL, they probably won't take information "printed up off the internet" seriously, either.
"Linux gets so much press these days I have a hard time believing that somebody who's teaching a SD class hasn't even *heard* of it." Does it really? Can you recall the last time you sat down to watch the evening news and say a story about linux? The expansive coverage Linux gets is from sites such as this one, and is read by the computer (very) educated. By and far, the average Joe on the street doesn't know what Linux is, and probably doesn't care. Things must be kept in perspective is all I am saying. Do you care if some dry-waller gets to work in a Ford or Chevy, driven by gasoline or diesel? I don't give a rat's a**, and neither should you. Different things are important to different people. Some things are so transparent that a change is simply not warranted from their point of view. If all one ever used was Windows, then why change? "Windows works fine for what I am doing, why should I change. I have never had a major problem with it". The previously mentioned idea of MAKING something relevant is the way to go. Make them see that in the computer world, open source is here to stay, and that not using can put one at a disadvantage. As for the future, open source may the only way to go. Above all MAKE THE POINT RELAVENT
Umm many people seem to be forgetting this one small fact...
Many teachers and other people got here degrees in a time when windows was not around. They have learned to use it and so do not want to have to change. This I have found is the general opinion of many teachers in the area.
I think a fair portion of the teachers need to relearn the fact that sometimes students no best.
Disclaimer: Just IMO... Not Flame or troll.
- Stop praying for someone to save you, and save yourself.-
KMFDM
- Think for yourself, question authority.-
speaking of stupidity...any instructor of software development that still doesn't know about the GPL should probably NOT be teaching software development. this is a person who doesn't care enough about the subject to stay abreast of the latest in her field, and the GPL is by no means a late-breaking development. the GPL and open source in general is such a hot topic these days that there is absolutely no excuse for her ignorance. unfortunately, this only underscores the difficulty you will have convincing your school to invest in Linux. BTW, for those who insist that Linux is harder to install than Windows: i installed Mandrake 7 over the weekend. the install detected and installed drivers for both NICs and had me connected to the Internet to download crypto packages before the install was even finished. exactly one reboot later my network was up and running, my SB Live! was working, and I was printing. one reboot. period.
Computer Science - As had been said previously, HS CS teachers are not going to be the same people who could be out doing real programming jobs, becuase if they could, they would. Those who are lucky will have a teacher who at least understands the course mateiral in respect to the curriculim. My APCS teacher is a perfect example, she taught what we needed to know for the exam perfectly, but was a fish out of water elsewhere. And then there are teachers who are pretty much lost to beging with. According to friends of mine, they had a teacher who said essentially that, "I've never taught this before, so you guys are gonna be guinea pigs." Unless public schools were to start paying upper level science and CS teachers more than they would kindergarten teachers, this is pretty much the way that HS CS will be. If you can already program, it's an easy course otherwise you'll need help from someone who can already program.
Computer Use and Bureacracy - Even if Bjarne Stroustup (for example) were to start teaching HS CS, many problems would still remain. It would be almost inconceivable to get the Network Admins in public schools to be willing to run Linux boxes on the network. And even if that didn't happen, it'd have to go through so many levels of beauracracy that your head would spin. And again as stated before, any little infraction would completely destroy any progress made up until that point.
I don't want to sound pessimistic, but HS computer use above wordprocessing and web browsing seems a long way off. Unless schools can attract teachers who understand what they teach, science (especially CS) programs will continue to suffer. And even bringing school networks (and network admins) up to speed would probably require a lot of pro bono work from those who know what to do and care enough to do it.
Until then, I think high schools are going to be stuck where they are, in the past.
Eric
Look, you are not gonna get Linux into your school, ok? You might be able to get actual unix though, companies are usually happy to donate old terminals and stuff. Make it a project to get an old terminal working. Anyway, you can't get Linux in your highschool, IT IS NOT USER FRIENDLY, you use Linux right? Now imagine your Mom trying to use it,(I don;t know about your mom, but my mom couldn't even figure out how to check her mail with telnet when OutLook stopped working) now imagine Cheerleader Susie(with apologies to cheerleaders, som of whom are quite intelligent) or Joe Jock (no apologies, jocks are dumb) trying to figure out that "dir" doesn't work. You would definetly be able to start a Linux club, but don't expect to be given any equipment from the school
As one of the most knowledgeable students i get alot of special privlages and help make alot of important decisions regarding the computer situation.
My first year here the school was dominated by old mac(intrashe)'s, the next year a pc lab was opened. We are currently using Win NT 4 as a file server, and im working on a project to get ftp to work with it (im trying to use the war ftp server).
I pretty much run the schools web server, an ancuient mac running webstar. We have been trying to get the money to get new computers and servers as well as maintian what we have, but the budget keeps on shrinking every year.
Im also working on a test insallation of linux, (redhat/mandrake) but have had no sucess with it.
Anyway SCHOOLS NEED MONEY FOR CPU'S
and as i submited earlier but it wasnt posted...
SEVENTH GRADERS DON'T NEED LAPTOPS.
I have been out of school for a few decades, but my "school" experiences, my childrens "school" experiences, and my wife's "school" experiences (she is a high level public school administrator) renforce my view that many public schools are run like minimum security prisons. Children are warehoused while their parents work or whatever, under the guise of "education". The education, for the most part, is not designed to enhance and nuture the abilities and talents unique to each one of us. These are institutions, run by government bureaucrats, who are either in the waning years or a political career, or trying to jumpstart a a new political career. The status quo is what is desired and expect from everyone, including the students. Taking a view that could be considered disruptive can be hazardous to your future. Lay low, survive, and quitely proceed down your own chosen path and become the best at what ever it is you have chosen that you can be. You do not need the approval of these robots of the machine to be successful. There are those institutions and teachers who are the exception, however, and if you are or belong to one of these, you and/or your students are very lucky indeed.
The system administrator at my school is running RedHat 5.0 on our web server. The domain is www.fordhamprep.org. I guess that even if he kicks you out of the computer center for looking at "non-educational" material like /., he can't be that bad if he uses Linux.
I used to work for a school district that had 2 high schools and about 12K students. There was 1 teacher in the entire district who knew his head from his asshole about programming. In fact, as a group, the only teaching-type staff who were more clueless about computers were (as you would probably expect) the guidance counselors. The problem is this: In the public school system, most of the folx that are any good at what they do get sick of dealing with the bureaucracy and overpaid-and-underworked adminstrative-types and so they go where they can make real money and not have to deal with this sort of crap. This is especially true of computer-types.
A friend of mine was taking C++ from her. First, they skipped C entirely, and everything was taught with iostream etc. Meaning although all they were doing for the first semester was very very basic C stuff, they won't be able to understand even the most basic C program that uses printf etc.
Secondly, she seemed to think that the only purpose of software was to Solve Important Mathematical Questions Over and Over Again (tm). Although Algebra II was not required to be in that class, most of the problems involved such things as finding roots of polynomials. No actual algorithms, just trivial little tasks with no concept of what they were learning.
Also, her code was UGLY. I forget the details, but suffice it to say that I still have nightmares about it. =)
I only saw info from her class based on my friend's homework, so I may be getting an unfair impression, but she also ran the school network and computer systems, which have decidedly low performance and were installed in a rather interesting way.
I think the main problem is the tiny budgets schools are given forces them to press people who aren't neccessarily the best for the job into teaching classes that they perhaps shouldn't. Witness the constant miscasting of math teachers into CS teachers. Plus schools' general ignorance of computer-based stuff in general.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
I really respect your wanting to raise linux awareness in school - some sort of real-life implementation of slashdot.org spreading the gospel of linux - but high school often operates on a special set of rules and laws of its own. One rule, unfortunately, is that students must choose between mentioning the GPL in their CS classes or having friends. I'm glad to see you've made the right choice in the battle of Linux vs. A Social Life. Excuse the blantantly unhelpful nature of this post. Please moderate it to a 1.
I had the exact same problem. And, unless you are *extremely* lucky and have a teacher who knows Unix/Linux don't even try to convince them. Instead, it is much easier to go looking around your school for other students who know are interested in Unix/Linux and then go to the administration about starting a club. A mini-LUG if you will.
-Coolhand has gotten so bored as to program a 1500 line Operating System in Q Basic during Computer Programming I
Linux is getting better every day.. more support for a wider range of hardware, as well as easier to use interfaces. I am looking forward to seeing what the original creators of the Mac os software will come up with for Linux.. should be interesting.. who knows, maybe a company that is geared towards making software extremely easy to use will be the final kickstart for main stream at home linux.
Instead of investing in destructive methods to show underfunded school administrators what they already know, or ignoring the problem because it's considered 'bickering and complaining' consider the benefits inherent in assisting the CS department / administrators with transitions to linux. Admittedly, most of them will be about as experienced as blind person learning to touch type, and possibly unwilling to give any form of privileges to anyone still in the school system. But as a possible approach, suggest that instead of learning how to use Microsoft Word for the 99th time you spend your time converting just one of the computers into a linux box. Even a simple one. Then you demonstrate to them: 1) your ability 2) Your responsibility 3) The fact that you dislike the workload. This should get you somewhere
I wasn't surprise that the teachers in computer classes were lost and confused when I was in (1979), but it is really sad that little has changed. I would bring the data showing that Linux (and GPL software in general) is selling at a faster growth rate than commercial software in many cases. Once again, US schools have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into present day times. No wonder that GPL is so popular, people are busy teaching themselves since the schools can't. Bummer.
I work with an independent secondary school where we have mostly boarding students. As a result we need to handle not only the school's computer network but also the networked computers in the dorms as well.
We have MacOS,WindowsNT/95/98/2000,and Linux computers most of the servers are LINUX and our Advanced Placement CS classes are all done on Linux. We are fortunate in having very good alumni support of the school and it's programs. We have developed a program where alumni who own businesses give us their old computers which we then install Linux on and roll out onto the compus. We have found that we can get a good suply of used computers every year this way and Linux runs fine on them.
We have all of our buildings wired and have these computers in public areas for anyone to use. We have used Corel (good for putting Linux onto a Windows network and it comes with WordPerfet) and a small distro known as PeanutLinux for these general use boxes if something goes wrong we just wipe them clean and start over.
Keep at it. You can bring them around. I did not have the troubles introducing Linux that some have discribed here guess that what come from working in private an not public education.
I volunteer as a network administrator / hardware guy at my kids K-8 school. I have a RedHat Linux 5.2 server running as a firewall. I have also built a workstation on an IBM PC-350 pentium 60. It works OK but I have a hard time getting the students/teachers to use it. Shutting down improperly (the flip off the power) is a real problem. What it takes is an open mind on the part of the Teachers and Students. My PC-350 workstation works great with netscape and Staroffice, nearly the equivalent of much newer equipment with Windows 95/98. On the topic of your teacher, I feel that teachers must at least attempt to stay current in their fields. If your teacher is unaware of the open source movement, the GPL, or Linux, then this induvidual does not know what is going on in software development and has quite a bit of work to do catching up.
I am a High School student at Cumberland Valley HS in Pennsylvania, and I had a similiar situation occur. Under a project with the gifted program I, and a group of other students in the gifted program, we were to get a server for the school up dealing with students and teachers uploading and downloading homework. Our HS is run on Novel 5 (grrr!) and the school's net admin told us it would be a good idea to run off of windows NT Server 4.0 because it is more stable. I really doubt that he has ever heard of linux before. My teacher wanted to follow what the Network Admin at our High School suggested, but through some work with the school board I was able to get a Linux box up instead of a NT box. But as far as having all of the schools computers run off Linux, it would be very unrealistic at my school. We have over 6,000 students across 4 grade levels and well over 500+ pentium 3 500mhz compaq computers. Most of the students and teachers have a heard time saving documents in MS Word. So Linux would be leaps and bounds ahead of them
-- Spoony
I'm a student at a high school in Central Pennsylvania, and I set a linux box up for fun in the summer at the school out of a P 166 that the school was throwing out. Since i did that i've gotten much attention and they want me to set up a Linux based mail server for them, which i am in the process of doing. While i was in computer science class we got on the topic of Linux for about 5 seconds, all the kids think it's for hacking only, and a few kids who are "hackers" have no clue about anything anyway. I think Linux is great because i have been using it for a few years now, but i don't think the point and clicker teachers of most high schools are ready for it, some of them may have had unix experience but that was a long time ago. I think that linux would be a great class in high school but who would teach it????
I agree with rc-flyer. I am a sysadmin of a high school, by way of teaching history...go figure! I was introduced to Linux 3 years ago and would be absolutely lost without it...BTP Linux offers more to the education arena than any current commercial OS. It's GPL status allows the curious, and genuinely motivated to truely wet their hands in the code. At the current crossroads, Linux is even becoming a viable desktop solution, and as with most multiuser lab settings, the customization of a Linux workstation will walk circles around a buggy NT box (On my net...a PROVEN FACT ...winheadz). Garner support from others in your school, inform the uninformed, read slashdot, use freshmeat, even resort to RPMs if you have too, take your vitamins, and know that the days of the Commercial OS are like a declining empire...
I don't know about other schools but I've managed to gain the trust at mine (a small private high school) to become the network admin. I've even convinced them that linux is the best way to go for things like student email and student web pages. Right now I am in the process of switching all the schools servers (three) to Linux. I would love to run Linux on the workstation as well as the servers but the plain truth of the matter is that not enough kids would no how to use it (in fact I would be just about the only one). So the next step is not to put linux worksations in schools, but to get them into the homes (which is where most kids learn computer stuff anyway... tinkering around with daddy's new Dell).Once more students use it at home THEN we can start integrating linux into the client environment. Until then M$ will dominate the network clients at most schools
If your school is lucky enough to have internet access, setup Linux as a dialup server for students who don't have internet access have some way to get to the net from home. I know my old school had a BBS when I went there; it would be nice to set them up with a linux box to allow them to have internet access.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
Its easy to get any teacher to teach a subject. All they need to do is follow a text book and stay a chapter ahead of the students. I really don't think you want teachers in high school teaching you Linux when they don't even know ls. What you should try to get is a couple of computers set aside for you and some students to mess around with at lunch or after school. Computers where you can format the hard disks, install linux, re-install linux and do everything you want to without worry. This is the real way to learn Linux not have some teacher spout off stuff he/she really doesn't know. Call it a computer club and try to get a teacher to "supervise" it. Most likely they won't let you go unsupervised. And this is a good way to introduce other teachers to Linux. After a while you can do projects like doing the school's website with apache or something. You can convince them by using all sorts of market research, hip catch phrases, and jargon. Also stress that it will cost them nothing. Usually schools have old computers that they retire like I am sure there are piles of of 486s laying around after the whole Y2K thing. These kinds of computers can be ideal for Linux.
True True
:(
In high school, there were only a handful of teacher that i respected, and those were the ones who treated me as a person. not as a child with no opinion. The rest could go to H E double hockey sticks. In college, the same thing, some professors made me sick to be in their class, others were a joy to be in. My C++ professor was one of my most respected educators ever. why? cause when i did the work, and he saw my potential, he gave me more work to do, and spent the extra time showing all the cool stuff that could be done with a programming language. Plus he wasn't afraid to learn, he was constantly taking courses to advance his knowledge of computer science. And he was the first person to introduce me to unix. I wonder if he is okay, i should try to keep in touch with him.
Damn, i can't even remember his name now....
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
Perhaps if there were free course material from GNU (or maybe LDP?) this could change some minds. I think the best way to get positive attention from the teaching community is to give them something like this. Even a few freely distributed handouts could go a long way. Now if it were published as a book by O'Reilly, that would be cool and would give it some legitimacy (not just downloaded and laser-printed).
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
True story: I have a close friend who graduated with a degree in English and was one Biology course away from having a double major. Enters the public school system teaching, not Biology -- he didn't have ``seniority'' -- but ``Sports and Auto Literature''. I had never seen him more depressed than he was that year. He was fortunate that the school system lacked the funding to hire him back the following year. (He's in IT now.)
...And here in Illinois, these ``fast-track'' certification programs come under fire from, you guessed it, the teacher's unions. The main complaint is that these fast-track upstarts lack the background in teaching methodologies to be good teachers. On the other hand, the teacher's unions have no problem, whatsoever, with placing someone in a Math classroom with four years of education in a subject totally unrelated to the subject they're asked to teach. The fast-track programs are attracting bright, energetic people to teaching. I thinks that's the problem that the unions have with these certification programs. They're bringing in people who see the student's interests and education as job one and the union's interests way down on their list of priorities.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
To begin, let me state that I hate MS, precisely because of their business practices (not to mention their mostly crappy/buggy/uninspired software) That being said, I would hardly call providing schools with relatively cheap, or even free, software unethical. They are not forcing the schools to make this decision. Microsoft is doing nothing that the competition can't do by offering it at a given price. If anything, more companies should do this. Furthermore, many already do (e.g., Sun, Borland, etc.). While it is true that these companies are doing it out of self interest, these companies are providing an additional option for the schools (and the students). How is giving cheap software away intrinsically bad? It isn't.
It is one thing if, because of their monopoly position, Microsoft were only to offer software this cheaply, in the short run, to price gouge up-and-coming competition, with the intent to raise them as soon as the threat is beat into submission. But, to the best of my knowledge, this is not the case.
In regards to the other practices you alluded to, those are very much unethical (not to mention illegal). Because MS flexes their monopoly power here, and is using it to leverage its way into new, or to preserve, existing markets, it is unethical. They are vastly different.
Our local LUG (PLUG) has volunteers helping any school set up Linux that wants to do so. A PLUG for Education, they call it.
The home page for the K12 Linux in Schools Project is http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux
Check it out, drop em a line..
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
Most importantly, grab a few articles about Linux from non-technical publications: for example, Forbes ran a great cover story not terribly long ago on Linus Torvalds. Once you can demonstrate that "big-media" is covering Linux, your teachers will be less likely to dismiss it as some weird geeky fad.
There are some people in Ottawa, Canada, doing just that with the schools in the region with varying degrees of success. The project is organized by Milan Budimirovic at milan.budimirovic@sympatico.ca or Dave Neil cricket@storm.ca
More info can be obtained from OCLUG: Ottawa Carleton Linux Users Group
cheers,
El Malo
A truth that's told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent. -- William Blake
OK, personal experience follows. Expect long windedness.
What the person who started this thread failed to realize is that there are a few distinct types of people who are in computer classes in HS. And some more types who will just be using the computers in the library.
First, background. At my HS, they had some bass ackwards deal worked out with Compaq. The school had one technicial who dealt with network issues on the Fancy New computers. That was 2 labs, the new Programming lab and the Library. There were 4 other labs in the school. Drafting, Business and the 2 Applications labs. These other labs were FILLED with old stuff. Note I avoid using the term 'junk.' Why? Easy. The drafting computers were 286's running CADKey. It did the job smashingly. A row of Compaqs was also in this lab. You could literally watch them crash sequentially down the row, every 20 minutes.
Of course, who was maintaining these old labs? Myself and some friends of mine. We overhauled donated computers, replaced whole labs, maintained them. This kind of group is the first group in my list. Good users. The kind of people who respect computers and have fun with them. We would eat our lunch as we wanderd the labs, checking out system problems, making printers work.. Basically the things a tech should do but never did. The teachers couldn't do it. They were business teachers, not computer teachers.
One of the other groups that stood out in the labs was the Kiddies. People with a little knowhow. They would be the ones doing the viriing, pr0ning, etc. They were steaming headon through adolescence and just had to be destructive. I got so damn sick of these ****s. They would whine to the teachers because we were allowed to eat in the labs while we fixed stuff. They'd try to install shit on the old machines that we could only *BARELY* scrape enough harddrive space onto for Windows and Word. On the fast machines a few of them even played Warez Kiddies, chatting from telnet connections to their Shellz. People like these make teachers assholes. My little revenge came from BO'ing every computer I had authority over and smoking them from a distance. It was petty but it was all I had. After all, I wasn't getting paid.
Last was the Clueless. They would be the people who knew how to run IE, Word, etc. They weren't taking classes but rather they were the library users. And of course, with the filters there, everyone just *HAD* to try and see what would happen if they put in a naughty URL. Scary how many people actually FOUND porn, the filters were damn near useless.
Now, out of everyone, there were maybe 10-20 Good Users in the school. Of them, only 8 (me & friends) thought it worth their while to help the labs out. There were a lot more Kiddies. And they were active. And a lot of people who would just try to get porn and virii because the filters were supposed to stop them.
So you tell me, what groups stand out? Screw the good users. Sure, you can trust some of them, but everyone else? You have to be a Computer Lab Nazi.
I spoke a bit to my DBMS teacher (who is also the school's DBA) about Linux last year when Oracle became available:
I just told him, I've tested Linux, it's a really powerful system, you should try using it for Oracle databases. If you want, I can set up a Linux server for you and teach you a bit how to use it...
Now, one year later they moved ALL their Oracle databases to Linux...
At the sysadmin course, we were only doing some NT stuff (click here to add a user, click here to change his name) so I asked the teacher if we could do some UNIX (notice no Linux here...) he told me that he would like to, but that he had no UNIX server on hand...
I was more than happy to install linux on an old 486 for him....
So my advice is: Find a good use for it, and don't forget to always advocate it positively... The standard "It's windows, it's just normal if it crashes" just doesn't work...
Slashdot has a discussion about this kind of thing on their front page: Voices from the Hellmouth, More Stories from the Hellmouth and The Price of Being Different
d
(In my HS days I got asked to "Write any sort routine you want." I wrote recursive bubble sort. Teacher marked it wrong because he didn't understand my code. :))
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Algorithm was basically the same as bubble until you get to the comparison, which said "If you find two indices that are swappable, swap them and then recursively call this function again." Teacher marked it wrong because he didn't see a terminating condition. I guess he expected to see something like "if sorted then return;" at the top. I explained to him that it terminates when there are no more swaps, thus it falls through. So he marked it right.
This is what used to happen in high school when the only programming class that was available just barely covered the stuff you'd taught yourself 3 years previously, and you were bored by the first day. When we had to write Conway's Life, I made mine 3D. It was a real bitch to print out my results to hand them in, let me tell you. :)
d
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Ten years ago, you would have been right. But as a sophomore in high school now, I can attest that there is way too MUCH money in computer science education. Cisco donates hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment, as does Microsoft, quite routinely. There's an obscene amount of money from goodwill organizations that want to see an inner-city school with top-quality technology. While teachers and core classes are basically being ignored, there is a river of money flowing in to computer labs.
Around the middle of the last school year, a coupla geeks started the Computer Club. I walked in, figuring I might be able to teach them something about Linux. I was completely surprised to discover that there were five or six other guys who had been messing with Linux at home too! In a fairly large high school (2000+ students) there were a respectable number of real l33t h4x0rs, despite any particularly official teacher involvement.
Pretty soon, we taught the Tech Coordinator Linux, and after skipping a few days of school to read through a massive Red hat manual, we had the school Web page running on Apache (instead of a Mac) and a brand new RAID server with 256 MBs RAM, all running on Linux. Soon we had a FreeBSD server as well.
So what do you need to get Linux accepted in your school? ORGANIZE! Get all your Linux friends together, andd convince all your other friends to start learning. Found a club. Meet during lunch hour and after school. And get your teachers to dig Unices!
Good luck!
P.S.: If there are any Garfielders out there who wanna learn Linux, come to 312 at lunch and ask for Dan any time.
I assume that you were tweaking the pitiful instructions from the teacher, and aren't really the sad consequences of a biology experiment demostrating the hazards of siblings having unprotected sex.
So, tell us, how *do* you write a recursive bubble sort? The only thing I can think of is replacing the iteration with tail recursion -- and that code should have been pretty clean even though the runtime performance would suck bigtime.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
DISCLAIMER: Post is not flame or troll. Please do not moderate as such - is simply my opinion.
The money angle is something I have tried on the college I attend. They (the staff) are all for it. However the computer people are against it.
The problem is tech support. As a college/high school the computer techs say that ordinary students will not know how to use Linux and other open sourced software and could impede their grades as they (the students) do not have computers at home that run Linux. I then pointed out that quite a few students run Linux, I was told it would be unfair to those that don't because the computer programs that are used to created documents, powerpoint presentations and such are not "compatable" with current Linux programs 100%.
I think the fact that Linux can be as very cheap is nice, but without trained tech people and teachers, getting it installed at a high school is something of a near impossiblility. Needless to say the college did not adopt Linux because it would mean the retraining in of their staff and students they (the dean of tech) said.
I don't mean to be pessimistic but... I don't think you have much chance of getting Linux installed on your high schools computers unless you can convince the community (parents and others alike) that it is far better then windows... and that means educating a whole lot of people with no knowledge in computers at all (to the average non-geek high schooler - Linux is just a word if they have even heard of it)
On new schools or places that emphazize degrees that involve computers and such their is much more of a chance that Linux can get installed on some computers. New schools especially should be focused on because they are trying to save money when they build the school... so there is an extra chance.
Until Linux conquers the desktop world or becomes fully compatable with Win32 programs and files, putting it on computers in public places will be quite a task unless the population suddenly wakes up to the advantages of open source.
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
Interestingly enough, right now Wired has an article about this topic running right now called "Open Source Opens Education", which mentions the Linux In Schools Project. The article gives several examples of high schools and middle schools that have made the move to Linux, and outlines several reasons for doing so (cost, stability, etc). There are also some good pointers to other sites.
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
One of the comp-sci teachers at school let me use an old machine, so I installed Linux on the machine. She supported me 100% at it, and thought it was great that I was learning something other than windows, and rolled off all the job possibilities. After wind of what I had done got to the higher ups in the administration, they gasped, the computer consulting firm that they hire to work on the machines called Linux an "evil hackers system" and that if I learn Linux I will hack all the school computers and change my grades.
The point is, many schools will fear it, because they do not know anything about it. The best thing to do to for this situation, in my opinion, is to spread the word about Linux.
The solution for this type of thing is to set the computers up in a dual-boot, so they can still use the Windows hardware but you can get the educational benifits of Linux.
Incidentally, stressing the educational benefits of Linux to your teacher, especially in computer science, is another great way to convince him/her about how great Linux is. I mean in Linux, and open source software in general, you get to see exactly how everything is coded. Show a teacher, say GIMP and how it works, then show him/her the source for GIMP and he/she is liable to be impressed that you can actually look at the internals of such a complex program to learn how it works.
Now the next step is choosing a distribution... you can either pick one based on fame and news articles about it (that you can show your teacher) or use this as a way to get everyone hooked on your favorite distribution.
Oh, and I suggest you show everyone how to use .xinitrc to set up various window managers, and then make a few example logins using Gnome, KDE, WM, AfterStep, etc. so people can see one of the great things about Linux, ease of customization.
Good luck at school.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Seriously. Think about schools these days. Most high schools these days are run on shoestring budgets and often computer science departments are an absolute joke when it comes to the state of their hardware. With Linux, you get two big pluses:
1) It runs just fine on old hardware.
2) You don't have to pay software licencing fees for any applications, development kits or compilers.
As an added bonus (I suppose I'm cynical as to school's priorities these days) they'd be giving their students a leg up on the competition, since students could take anything they use at their schools home to their own computers, and experiment to their heart's content. That was one thing that I was disappointed about in my comp-sci courses in high school. I couldn't take a copy of the software home so I could experiment on my own.
Does this teacher do no research or read any current IS news? It's almost impossible to avoid the topic of Linux in even today's mainstream business or computing publications. Heck, even CNN.com runs Linux stories constantly. As someone whose job it is to educate youngsters on computing practices of today and of the future, you'd think that this teacher would have at some point wondered just what this "Linux" thing was that she kept seeing in headlines, on magazine covers, etc. and wondered just how the whole idea of a free operating system worked. Maybe I'm giving teachers too much credit. After all, doesn't the saying go "those who can, do; those who can't, teach"?
Understand what the Free actually means though. You don't get any benefits from free if you buy packaged systems (even from VA - their hardware seems to cost just as much if not more than MicroTaxed boxen). Most likely, though, your school will maybe have an old box to try it out on. That's fine...Linux shines on old hardware.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
When the local group i belong to started talking about linux, people... well... laughed. They kept on laughing and nagging about the lack of money while we helped them with one job after another. They kept laughing at us when we helped them for free, even if they had problems with win9x. But they started asking us for help, even when they knew that we preferred linux, and we helped them out. Sure the top people still laughed at us when the little people came to us begging for help when the money was spent and there was no other support to get. And we helped them stay with the systems they knew, windows mostly, and helped them get more out of the old boxes that companies and people donated to us as samba servers. They laughed at us for not taking a penny for the job we did, but we kept on doing helping them, even when the topdogs came wondering if we could help them stretch the budget a bit the next year. And we were there answering their questions and explaining how we did what we did. They still bought the expensive stuff, and laughed at us for trying, but we helped them get the reports ready and the fancy words out. With linux tools and apache servers. And they laughed at the silly students that installed linux themselves on some of the boxes (dual boot in stealth mode they called it) and they laughed especially loud when the students started helping others the way we did and joined us. They still laugh, but we know how we'll make things happen, because we do what the money doesn't care about. We are their friends and we'll laugh with them through good and bad... It's not about the money at all. *
My cohorts and I are currently involved with Linux based computer labs in two schools, here in Tucson, AZ.
/the/ NFSroot. All eleven stations share the same NFS filesystem.
One is a public elementary school(~800 students). The project here, I'm told, started because a local company donated a lab full of used computers to the school. The district tech department bas just going to dump it, becase it didn't fit into their plans.
The systems are Compaq P75's and P90's(all at 90Mhz) with their RAM upgraded to 64M. SoundBlaster Vibra16's and cheap PCI 10/100 NIC's(~$6-12 now) were also added.
The systems boot Debian GNU/Linux into a gdm login prompt. Once they login through gdm they get an icewm desktop. We're using icewm because it's small, fast, and comfortable. We run as much native(Linux) software as we can find, but the pickings are still a little slim. So, we have to use wine to run the windows educational software(It is an elementary school, you gotta have the educational software). The native apps run off the local harddrives(540M-1G), while the wine CD-ROM apps run over NFS, like the home direcoties, to the main server(PPro 200, 128M ram).
We just brought up another PPro 200 server yesterday. We hope to use it to handle the bulk(wine) data better through multi-daemon, read-only NFS.
Also today we figured out that the only reason we havn't had AppleTalk access to user data until now is the NIC in the server(s). We now have netatalk appearing to behave itself, on the new server. After a little more testing we'll let the teachers start using it, through the large quantity of Macs allready in the school.
It all works pretty good. The students walk in and sit down at a station, any station. They login and have access to all their personal data and preferences. Even better is that OpenSSH is running on each and every workstation. So we can administer each and every system without having to go to the school. With a little script, we can also send commands, like halt, to all of the systems with one commandline. It's really handy for bringing the lab down at night, and for maintanace. Not to mention that it's incredibly neat to watch the screens flicker down to the console to halt, in sequence, through the whole lab of 31.
To maintain homogeniaty, and sanity, in the lab we occationally reclone it. Meaning we update one system and do whatever work needs to be done on that systems, then copy it to the rest. Thanks to bootp there are no system specific config files
The other school is a charter middle school. It's conciderably smaller, and cleaner because of it. The lab itself is ten stations(Same PPro 200's), and a teachers station. With a big, scary, tree eating HP laser, and another PPro 200 server.
The server at the charter school handles the internal school homepage, the caching/filtering squid proxy, and print queuing. But that's just the boring stuff. It also serves the etherboot images for the lab, and
Sharing the NFSroot gains us a lot of things. Not the least of which is being able to replace harddrives in the machines with $3 EEPROMS. It also means there is one *1* system to administer. Run and apt-get dist-upgrade on one system, and the entire lab is brought up to date. And thanks to Network Block Devices each station has 128M of swap space, without any moving parts in the case.(Well, ok, the CPU and power supply fans still spin).
The entire network at the charter school is 10/100 switched ethernet(1 24port NetGear FS524). So, through the wonders of etherboot and NFSroot's the entire lab is ready and waiting at a tweaked gdm login in a little over a minute. Well, if you hit all the power strips on a once(we did to time it). The tweaked part of the gdm login is that it shows a picture of the classical composer that particular system was named after, using only the one shared config file.
The whole lab runs off of one IBM 9G LVD SCSI drive. We also took one of the existing 4.3G ide drives and put classical music mp3s on it to be played in class. The net connection is a DSL line, thus the squid caching is very important. It also gives us the oportunity to keep the students from wandering into places on the net that can get the school sued. Oh yeah, banner ads are just as easy to filter, or at least redirect to a 1x1 transparent gif.
Both labs work great. The second a little better because it's smaller and all new hardware.
I'm sure my cohorts can explain it a little better, and in more detail. They'll read this thread and answer any questions there might be. Anything I forgot, or just plain got wrong, etc.
- kimo_sabe
--
Programming is like sex; one mistake and you have to support for a life time.
"2. In your favor most colleges use some form of unix..."
The college I'm majoring in CS at (a fairly large state university) has precisely one UNIX/Linux box that I know of. It's an x86 running Red Hat 6.1, and only CS students can log into it. Furthermore, the machine is a fairly tightly-kept secret... a student or faculty member has to go ask a certain professor in person during his office hours in order to get a password. Why so secret? You tell me. I've never been able to get a satisfactory answer out of anyone.
Once upon a time, the campus network was (I believe) VMS, but about four years ago the switch was made to NT. With the exception of a few MacOS boxes in the open labs and a few Win9x boxes in faculty offices, everything on campus runs NT. Why sell all the terminals, switch to NT, and buy expensive PCs to replace every VMS term, when students have already been using VMS, and therefore could probably stomach Linux? Again, you tell me; I've never been agle to get a satisfactory answer out of anyone.
J
The main positive (from the school's POV) point about the fact that GPL'd software is 'free' is that, by using it they can sidestep the whole problem of allowing corps like MS and Apple to use the school as a marketting tool.
The corps know that if they can get their product into the schools they are garunteed a market in years to come.
You should be aware that Apple (and later Microsoft) targetted the education market for precisely that reason. 'Get'em while they're young', so to speak.
Oft times the software selection criteria schools use is written with the 'help' of software sales reps. You should ask for copies of the software selection criteria for your school, and examine it with a critical eye.
The instructor is (usually) just parrotting back what the mandated 'training' courses (madated meaning the teachers are usually *required* to take them -- often at their own not inconsiderable expense) told them to they must teach. Note that these 'courses' are supported by Microsoft -- e.g. taught by a 'Microsoft Certified Professional', using 'donated' Microsoft software. These sessions are no more 'training' than television infomercials, but that's what they're doing...
Most CS courses are NOT intended to produce savvy computer users or programmers; they are intended to keep the school from looking bad. They need to be able to say 'Yes, we teach computer skills.' and they will do the absolute minimum they can get away with to be able to say that. Convince them that teaching Linux or BSD is easier than teaching Windoze, and you're done; they'll do it.
All in all, the schools should be ashamed of themselves for selling out the future to billionaire facists whose only interest in "education" is to keep their victims dumbed down enough to keep purchasing product. It is this kind of brainless, sheep-like behavior that will keep computing in the dark ages for the next 30 years...
Your real enemy (being a student forced to use inferior software) is (usually) the local (and maybe the state) board of education -- NOT the instructor. Instructors are frequently open to learning a bit themselves, if you handle it correctly. In general, school boards prefer to authorities on any given subject, and are unwilling admit they don't know everything. If this is your situation, you will need to enlist the help of other students, teachers, faculty, and perhaps the local news media, in order to accomplish anything.
Familiarize yourself with the rules that govern acquistions made by the school district. If you dig around in the charter and by-laws of the school board, you may find clauses that explicitly prohibition the use of the school system to pander commercial products to the students. For instance, you may find that they are prohibited from requiring you to buy some specific product in order to pass a course. Also, they should not be allowed to market brand-specific products to their captive audience (the students). (This last came up when cable television companies offered to install cable t.v. in public school classroom -- complete with ads for Coca-Cola(tm) and McDonalds(tm))
(tread lightly around this, it is a real sore point most times) You probably know more about computing and software than the instructor. I have seen this repeatedly in my children's classes. Don't embarass the instructor. If you do, you will never be forgiven, and your cause will be lost. Talk to them one-on-one.
If M$ or Apple has a stranglehold on computer education in your area, your best chance of success (imo) is through the courts, so don't do anything stupid that could be used against you (e.g. don't riot, and don't take over the computer lab in the name of The People).
"The Internet is made of cats."
Consider getting assigned some independant study credits for comp sci at your high school. Come up with some educational and infrastructure building projects that will benefit the school (like an IRC server, or a new mail server, or an introduction to installing one of the "free" OS's.
This is a great way to get the teachers involved in learning something new, under the guise of it being your coursework.
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
However, there are two levels to this:
- Having some knowledge and not knowing that there is more to know
- Having enough knowledge to know where the holes are in your knowledge-base.
I'd just have assumed that when teaching technology, the teacher would be almost expecting people to come up with new things they've not heard of before. Maybe she didn't see licensing as technology, per se, so was surprised.I guess, just give her some URLs to read up on the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/ being the starting point, I guess!). At least that'll show her that it's not just you who'se loopy, but there are loads of us out here!
Steve.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
If you really want to start a Linux in the classroom trend at your school, then just do it. I recently did the same thing at my high school. All student accessible computers are running NT, and most teachers have macs for grades, Internet, and e-mail. My friends and I started our own LUG. I donated a 486 system, and someone else gave an old mac. We installed RedHat on the 486, and its doing well. We plan to network the two computers together.
We also tried to get funding. Our PTA asked teachers to submit proposals for grants up to $350. We sent in a request, but we were denied. The PTA said we were classified as an extra-curricular activity, and they only give money to teachers for in class purposes. So, basically we are a stand still right now, as we await our next opportunity to apply for a grant.
Setting this up depends on your teacher. My CS teacher is laid back and wants to learn about Linux. He let us set up the computer in his lab and always gives us support.
Hope this helps.
Unfortunately, it's true. In most high school cases, it is impractical or impossible to add Linux unless some fundamental changes are made - and those changes usually do not resonate well with long standing administrative staff or current technical support requirements.
.dll's or programs on machines) - to jamming printers because people cannot read directions and so on. They simply do not have the time to just look and see it.
I was a research Ceramic Engineer for the longest time before I decided to quit to take a break from the real world and hide in the unreal world by teaching - and try to make a real difference.
Not to mention also go broke in the process (went from a 6 digit salary to a low 5 digit one. rather sad actually - but that's another point i'll tack on later)
In most schools, you have in general 3 major types - those who are in the know (5% if that), those who have an idea (25-45% depending on area), and those who have NO idea (50-70% depending on area). This is including faculty, staff and students. The ones who definately know whats going on, are either swamped out of their minds, or have better things to do than simply just try to upgrade or help things - because of workload and/or school 'culture' (I.e. Politics).
If any of you actually have not been in a school environment, I would suggest that you ask someone who's there at the moment - with whom you know has more than the marginal share of basic computer knowledge. They'll tell you that the bulk of their fellow classmates/teachers are computer illiterate, and ask insane amounts of 'no common sense' questions left and right about them because they cannot simply solve problems ON THEIR OWN! Common sense AND logic is severely lacking in many cases. Think back to your own high school career - how many teachers can you recall had that sense to really solve problems and questions on their own? How many have you forgotten that have not even done so?
now, having identified one major problem - people's inability to solve problems - lets move onto the 2nd major issue. Administrative perspective. Most of the administrative staff are overwhelmed as it is with their normal load of material. They also do not have a technical background - I mean, how many school admins do you remember and/or know that have a physical education background for crying out loud!! - to even remotely understand what linux can do for them. It is actually rather sad.
From a within perspective, you really have to hit the ones who actually know whats going on. And even then, you have to make sure you are not making them look bad or clueless - as most of them feel like masters of their domain - as they are treated as such by the non-techies. Make sure you have stuff you can show, material at hand they can look at. While a lot of schools these days have Internet access, most of the technical staff are swamped doing stupid stuff, ranging from trying to make sure systems are running (I.e. clueless people somehow managing to wipe out
From an without perspective - 'hit' the school boards and so on. Bring in ideas, show them how they can save money (mentioned earlier) by recycling older machines, downloading what they need, and making it all work by simply getting 2 or 3 people REALLY in the know - and not people barely qualified - in what they are doing.
In my case, I am ready to give up. I have sought to make a difference, but am hampered continuously by clueless and non-supportive administrative staff. With all the change of focus on students, I'm sure most of you will run into roadblocks somewhere, somehow - whether by politics (mostly), loopholes, self-interest, lack of funding, or whatever. It is rather a sad state of affairs.
I'll go back to doing nothing and getting paid big bucks for it, than trying to make a difference for people - because there is very little attitude towards REAL and positive change. They may talk the talk, but very rarely do they 1) ponder the consequences of the talk, and 2) actually give enough support/backbone to walking the walk.
-victor
The computer teachers I have run into in the local (Berryessa, San Jose CA.), school system seem to have little knowledge of Linux, *BSD, or Beos... As an experiment, I recently set up the computer that my 10 and 12 year old daughters (who have average computer skills) use to dual boot both Win 98 and Linux, to see if they could adapt to 2 operating systems and to see which they would prefer...after about a week they were spending about 90% of their time using Linux, mostly for Star Office and games, but also because they enjoyed the level of control afforded by the KDE desktop. Anyway, apparently my 12 year old told her computer teacher that she was now using Linux, and he replied that he thought it was "only for adults". My 10 year olds home room teacher apparently cautioned her that "Linux was very hard..." (and he advertises himself as a former private school computer technology teacher...). I think the problem is that these people just don't have much experience with anything outside of what the school system provides them. The teachers realize that the kids need to receive at least some computer education, but they lack the knowledge to work outside of the curriculem supplied by the school. I think the root of the problem may be that the typical Grade/Middle/High school teacher is usually not that computer savvy, perhaps the answer may be to bring in outsiders, (such as the people that teach the extension courses in the UC system) to teach computer classes instead of relying on the teachers to do it.
Most public schools are desperately short of computer/networking help. The only reason Macs and PC's are so prevalent is a)thats all they know and b) Apple and Microsoft donate heavily to the schools so of course thats what they use. I would be willing to bet that most schools have a pile of old 486's that have been donated to them that are lying around gathering dust because they have no help getting these machines going and on the network. So volunteer! And get Linux into your public schools.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
On top of schools not realizing the potential economic benefit of GPL'd software, my first thought when I saw the Free Documentation Liscense was to use it for textbooks. Any college student knows about the outrageous prices of textbooks. I think the FDL would be perfect for all sorts of Math/Physics and other science texts. They could easily be updated, students could contribute, and I can't imagine the high schools would turn away from the opportunity of getting free texts.
Talk to other members of the staff and try to find someone who is sympathetic or at least aware of GPL/open source/Linux and have them champion your cause. Then, go with them and approach the department chairperson with your ideas. Use all the research as suggested in the other threads. At the same time, begin asking your friends to do the same. The more people that show interest, the more likely the curriculum will change. Also, if there isn't one already, start a Linux club after school. Again, you'll need a faculty member to sponser you. It will take time to make the changes but the result will be worthwhile.
Most high schools have the football coach teach history, or some such. Your computer "coach" is probably a math or science teacher. The average high school teacher makes under $30K in most states, and the average CS graduate starts at significantly higher than most high school teachers with advanced degrees will ever make. If they understood computers they would work in computers--if they wanted to teach computers, they would have an advanced degree in CS and work at some college. The computer class instructor got drafted into his job, just like the coach teaching history. S/he may be sufficiently motivated to do a good job, but the nearly universal experience will be that they are limited in their understanding, and don't want to get involved with anything which is not canned: they will stick with Apple and Microsoft products, because they at least have confidence that they are predictable and there will be a good manual somewhere. They attitude of everyone in the school hierarchy will be the same, and anybody in the school district who understands computers will probably not be in the loop when __educational__ decisions are made. It takes a lot of time to learn any field, and most of these people are interested in other things, and afraid of getting involved in something which might be held against their careers--why the hell should __anybody__ in your schools hierarchy risk their job over something they don't understand and aren't even interested in. And let's face it--if they pushed a decision to go to Linux and some student pushing the envelope logged a lot of time on porn sites or got into trouble bombmaking (learned at school), he'd be selling tires at Sears next semester after taking a serious pay cut.
I work in a K12 school district, another issue will be. "But NT is what the kids are going to use in the Real World."
Yes...you will be hard pressed to have a Macintosh or Linux server or workstation because "NT is what the kids are going to use in the Real World."
You will be defending yourself against idiots for monthes...no years...why?
Because MS has flooded teachers and administrators with advertising. "Where do you want to go today?" If you want something other than Windows...be ready to fight.
As someone who worked closely with a high school, its administration, and its tech staff I don't have a lot of promising advice. First and foremost, there's nothing you're going to be able to do on your own, directly.
That aside, get a teacher with you. Obviously, it's best to get one from the tech department of your school, and preferably someone who is actually teaching. The best would be a department head or someone with political clout in your school. Look for union people. Talk to them and get them interested.
If you want a course devoted to it, good luck but suggest they propose it. Most schools work in such a way that once a year (usually around this time) they take proposals from teachers for new courses and one gets selected for the year. If you want curriculum to include the GPL and free software, talk to the teachers who teach those classes, or the head of that department. COnvince them of your point of view first, then suggest the curriculum change.
All that being said, I'll reiterate that you don't have a good chance at getting anything done. Most schools technology programs are so pathetic in the first place. Many are merely token gestures to satisfy grant requirements and are taught by teachers who took a summer or night course and were told they were qualified to teach the course. Most of them aren't.
If you want, you could always try selling it to the schools IT department (if you have one). The arguments you use will change depending on the situation, but there are three key things to keep in mind.
First, support. Take some time and find out details (cost, response time, etc) for your school to get a support contract for Linux or whatever free OS you want to advocate. This is a HUGE issue for most school IT departments because typically they're run by people who used to be teachers but took some courses and got elected sys admin. For the most part they bank on support services.
Secondly, of course, cost. Schools love cheap. They're often so tightly funded that they spend large percentages of their budget on software and support. Then they get criticized because "look at all this money we give you, and where are the new computers?" Just a tidbit though, don't overly stress cost to administration if they look like they'll go for it. If administration think they can cut money from IT by doing something, they will and IT will be no better off.
And finally, of course, is stability, performance, etc. Be sure to mention it's ability to run on older hardware. A lot of schools, because of stupid regulations on state, federal and grant money, tend to have computers sitting collecting dust, or thrown in dumpsters. If they're NT/Netware shops stress stability and reliability. Particularly the "once you get it working, it doesn't break for no reason." (The netware admin at my school would love to hear this given the trouble he's been having with Netware 5.1 recently.) Also, compatability is a good touch to add in. Netware and NT both rely on proprietary technology and software for some of the things they do, particularly Netware.
Well, thats enough from me. Good luck. Feel free to email me with questions or whatever.
Regards,
Marcus
jghrfa@home.com
> It sucks for the admins, too, y'know. Most of >them don't want to be assholes, but it's sheer
> self defence.
You just need teeth. e.g., if you do any of those things, our netadmins *know* you did. And you're expelled from the school, fined (and/or your parents are fined), and you get a failing grade for the semester.
It can't just say that in the policy handbook for the school. It has to actually happen, even (especially) if you're the son of the principal or the captain of the football team.
Then you won't have two incidents of people stealing mouse balls or installing virii. You'd have one, the newspaper article about how they were expelled failed and fined prominently framed by the door to the lab, with the empty frame right next to it for the next moron who tries it.
If, as you say, a sysadmin must be a n@z! for self-defense, go all the way with it, or not at all. Otherwise you just create even more motivation for people to mess with you. (They know they'll get away with it.)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
For a short while I was on a committee responsible for spending vast sums of money on undersupported machines for a rather large school district. I'm assuming the situation was no different than others. The committee had two computer knowledgable members and about a dozen teachers.
Pick your battles. Many of the decisions made about computer equipment in a school district will be largely political. There will be a strong push to use ALOT of Microsoft technology simply because it appears to be a good business decision. Don't argue for particular items so much as general goals. Getting them to agree that a WinNT only network has less future than an open network would allow Linux machines to run along side MS boxes. This is much more worthwhile than convincing them that they need linux terminals with RedHat installed.
Make compromises. Everyone wants to see their input have affect, they don't want to see someone overpowering the group.
Back up opinions with other sources. Your crazy opinions aren't so crazy if they've been published elsewhere.
Good luck!
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
At my old high school we had one large computer lab filled with antiquated Macs running OS 7.5. The programming class offered was Turbo Pascal. I waiting until college to take a programming course (C++). While in high school I tried to explain Linux to the teachers admining the place and all I got for my effort was dumbfounded looks. These teachers were by no means stupid, they just seemed apalled by an open source code licensing scheme. They had been raised in the 100% proprietary days of programming before anyone listened to RMS. In relation to this kid's problem, a good deal of computer science teachers in high school have been teachers for a number of years and are used to doing things the same way year after year. Some of them keep up with trends and new stuff but for the most part many high school instructors are "behind the times". College instructors usually have been outside the confines of schools and actually applied the stuff they are teaching. The most effective way to get new dogma into schools is wait for it to trickle down. I hate reading on here "force them to do this", "I'll send them a Linux CD", ect.. None of that helps, when the next generation of teachers comes in they almost always bring a new set of ideas with them.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
>Furthurmore, someone has everyone believing that
>all students are computer virus carrying know-
>nothings whose sole intent with respect to
>computers is to infect them with virii after
>using them to send death threats to government
>officials, find little kids to stalk, and look
>at hardcore porn.
Ever sysadminned in a educational environment? You're pretty much described the exact problems that anyone looking after computers in a school/university has to deal with.
You forgot setting up hardcore porn http/ftp servers, IRC hijacking, and stealing the fscking mouse balls.
If you're not a Nazi about your computer labs, then Very Bad Things tend to happen. As you say, it's a few people ruining it for everyone.
It sucks for the admins, too, y'know. Most of them don't want to be assholes, but it's sheer self defence.
How can I possibly change this situation?
:-)
Post her email address and let us all send her a brief message, complete with a copy of the GPL (or better yet, all common open licenses) and representative code.
When the school's mail server (or her personal account) collapses under thousands of messages containing tens of megabytes, the situation <b>will</b> change. But probably not to your advantage.
Unfortunately, the real question is the credentials of your teacher. Most teacher unions are extremely strong, and extremely exclusionary. (E.g., you have a master's degree and 20 years experience and you want to help out? Sorry, but the school system (and teacher's union) assert you are unqualified to teach the subject matter - but the 21-year-old who just got her education BS *is* qualified to teach the material. A few states are experimenting with "fast track" certification of domain experts, but they're the exception.)
Could the teacher have had strong CS exposure in college? It's possible, but the colleges of Education and Engineering tend to have very little overlap. Any C. Ed class using computers will focus on using them as teaching aids, not software development models. At most, the teacher might have had a year of "CS 101" -- and be considered an expert by her teaching peers.
Could the teacher have gotten her education credentials, worked in industry, then returned to the classroom? It's possible, but unlikely due to fiscal reality. An experienced coder will probably earn twice what most teacher makes. An experienced coder with technical leadership or management experience (who will actually be dealing with software licenses professionally) will make far more than most teachers. A few people will earn a nest egg then return to their first love, but software salaries aren't *that* high. (Stock options change that slightly, but it's still the exception.)
In other words, the teacher would probably be dismissed as a flake by any working software developer. This is why many of us have qualms about collegiate CS programs - and outright hostility towards secondary CS programs. If you're lucky, you'll learn the skills appropriate to a 70's era IBM 370 programmer - and you'll know it's a 30-year-old development model which is *not* followed today. More likely, you'll get a hodge-podge which makes no sense but makes it *far* harder for you to learn how software development is actually done.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
There are probably many "established" professionals in your area who would be more than happy to come in and give a presentation on Open Source in general, or Linux in particular. Check for a local Linux users group, or even a local branch of a related user group (like Perl Mongers, for exaqple). Even if the presentation is just for the teachers, it would probably be well received. If you are in the Boston area, contact the FSF. See the Linux User Group HOWTO for more info.
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
I would show the benefits of GPL software. Or in other words, the disadvantages of closed-source software.
Namely, I would start with:
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/philoso phy.html
And then print out this article for your teacher as proof of the GPL, since {s/}he didn't believe you.
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.ht ml
http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html
Come on people, lets build up a collection of papers we can use to show the un-educated _WHY_ GPL software is better.
Cheers
Well, given the fact that 99% of the teaching and administrative staff in the schools know either Macintosh or Windows, it isn't surprising you got that response.
You need to educate them the same way they educate you. Get together statistics about the usage of Linux and Apache. Put together a packet of information describing what Linux and free software is. Get a copy of the GPL and the LGPL, and find a good, non-technical description of what they are and why they are good. If you have a Linux system, arrange to demonstrate what Linux is and what it can to. You might even have an extra credit project here. Try contacting RedHat, VA Linux, Suse, and others and see if they have any literature they can send you.
Good Luck!
-- Error: Cannot find file REALITY.SYS - Universe halted, please reboot!
I'm not sure that there is anything you can do. First, in my experience, schools have very old computers- circa 1988. I learned to program on TRS-80s. I was told that Pascal was an ideal scientific language, and COBOL the language of business. They'd heard of C and C++, but considered it 'too difficult' (after COBOL, no less!) This is current as of the early 90's.
The old saying that 'those who can't do, teach' isn't usually true, I find. CS in public schools is one area where it is. If you want to be rewarded for doing a good job, not be bullied around by your union, get paid decently, not be micromanaged ridiculously by the state, and feel like you are actually accomplishing something, try the private sector.
Are there solutions? Yes, but they're out of the scope of your question. Your immediate problem is giving your teachers some clue about what has been going on in CS in the last 10-20 years. Which is virtually everything.
One possibility is to try to get the high school equivalent of a special topics class. Or a co-op program-- which some High Schools support. If these options aren't available, start a club. Especially in the Open Source field, you'll find programmers LOVE to talk.
If you want to push programming on the linux platform as the solution for your school, you'll have a tough sell ahead of you. Obvious selling points:
Free, works with hardware already procured and destined for trash.
Includes sample code (the source) and developement tools for dozens of languages (don't try to explain the differences between bash, Perl, HTML and C-- they won't get it.
Out of the box internet ready.
Procure it for a linux club first. If you have a teacher who knows linux already, you are in a very small minority. Just a machine or two for the geeks in your school. Do not use the word 'hacking' ever. EVER! Sure, it isn't cracking or illegal, but it raises a red flag. Present it as something to make and serve web pages with. Teachers like that and can get it quickly. Good computer teachers will appreciate the chance to dust off their C skills while watching normally uninterested students ooohing and ahhhing over the web page stuff.
If possible, make it part of something that is already budgetted (like programming classes or a club). Don't let them 'study' the problem-- that means they are waiting for you to graduate. Don't let them try to hire someone just for this-- they'll be cut out of the budget over the summer. Instead, keep it cheap, minimize teachers' time committments and keep a low profile.
First of all, I think it's great that your high school offers a Software Development course. I graduated from HS in 1995, and went on to study CS. All I could squeeze out of my school was a little pascal tutoring from the Computer Lab Nazi (tm).
As for raising awareness of the GPL, you can do it with words and with actions. Simply mentioning it in class is great. It's unfortunate that your teacher dismissed it as crack-pottery. A better educator would have been interested, and asked follow up questions, IMHO.
If you've got a big project to do for the class, and I'd hope you would, you could do one of several things. You could make something useful, and GPL it. This is nice if you don't have real options for choosing your project. Another option would be to find an OS project that interests you, and spec a specific module. Present the specification to your teacher as a project proposal. Include some good ol' fashioned OS propeganda in there for good measure.
If your teacher looked at you like you're crazy, it begs the question: does she know anything about Linux? Linux gets so much press these days I have a hard time believeing that somebody who's teaching a SD class hasn't even *heard* of it. Working from this, I'd assume she's heard some Linux hype, but doesn't know what makes it free software, exactly.
Aside from integrating your classwork and open-source development, you could go the talking route. Give her some URLs, and explain to her why you believe in Free Software. Discuss the educational oppurtunities - you can see the source! You want to know how to organize a large project? Look at the Mozilla CVS tree, or GIMP, or any other large project.
Maybe buy/burn her a Linux/*BSD disc or something.
Has she heard of Perl? Python?
After some of these comments, I hate to admit that I am a HS CS teacher and systems director.
I would recommend you find some schools using Linux and see if they'll talk to your school. I'd be happy to. Show them our site or Beacon School and then have them email us.
I would suspect that the reason you don't learn about Linux in the classroom is because your teacher doesn't know about it. Offer to do a presentation on it for extra credit or no credit at all. If the teacher turns you down, then you've found your problem.
We've been running Linux for about 3 years now and I couldn't be happier. Our students and faculty benefit from the increased services and especially the uptime! Linux has lowered cost and headaches.
Also, the first three weeks of my programming class are devoted to Linux. All assignments are done on the Linux server.
You could also start a LUG and get interest that way.
Good Luck!
Remember, these schools have been using windows since before the big antitrust suits. I know that my school (a big one in the Dade County Public School System, Florida) has a contract with Microsoft. They use Windows 95 on every computer in all the labs, library, and other rooms/offices. They are Nazis when it comes to free anything (as in speech). Lemme put it this way, you're not allowed to bring 3.5" disks into the library. Surfwatch is used along with Microsoft Proxy server to filter what is accessible through the (OVERKILL) T1 Line that the school has. Furthurmore, someone has everyone believing that all students are computer virus carrying know-nothings whose sole intent with respect to computers is to infect them with virii after using them to send death threats to government officials, find little kids to stalk, and look at hardcore porn.
This is (IMHO) either the result of few ruining it for many, or several chain-linked knee-jerk reactions to exaggerated local news broadcasts. Of course, it's probably both.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
You will have several things to consider when informing your high school powers that be about linux and the GPL.
1. Microsoft and Apple have a considerable budget that they set aside for the wooing of public education. Because of this many teachers may have been taught certain things about linux that are no longer true.
2. In your favor most colleges use some form of unix. Most teachers have attended one of these colleges. Therefore somewhere in the back of their experiences they might remember unix. You could try to explain that linux is just a form of unix.
3. Obtain a copy of a standard GPL. Include it with any other information you choose to provide. Getting a factory printed GPL from a boxed distribution would probably be more impressive than just printing one out on a laser printer.
4. Teachers do not like to appear foolish in front of students. Most distributions include a technical support line for a certain number of days or months. Make sure that the teachers know they have somewhere to turn when the installation goes south.
5. Beware of talking about how you can "get it free on the internet". Teachers and schools are very cautious about anything to do with downloads from the internet. If the teacher is knowledgable then this should not be an issue but if that were the case you would not have written your letter.
6. Make them aware that an office suite is availabe for linux. Star Office comes with many distributions and it makes the transition from other office suites much easier. It also makes it posible to teach wordprocessing and spreadsheet operation using a linux system.
7. Telling the teacher that it is better because it is free might not have any effect because Microsoft and Apple may already be providing the school with free software. Choose other points in Linux's favor.
That is all I have time for now.
Good luck!
Dave Zimmerman dzimmerm@columbus.rr.com
Jumping to correct solutions slowly is better than jumping to incorrect solutions quickly.