Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Moonbase, Schools, Entropia
Perhaps in a bit, though. texchanchan writes: "From the BBC: 'China will not be launching a manned mission to the Moon in the foreseeable future, according to Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's Moon exploration programme... he said he wanted to clarify news reports in the Chinese media that Beijing would be putting a man on the Moon by 2010..."We will explore the Moon certainly," he said from his office in Beijing, "but with unmanned spacecraft."'"
Can I sign up to be a robot brain surgeon? ascii7 writes "Remember that story a while back about Project Entropia, the free MMRPG? Well, now it's in the commercial trial phase, and free for all to download. Get it at www.project-entropia.com"
Free Software Entrepreneurs, take note. llywrch writes with more information on the Microsoft effort to crack down on licensing in Northwest public school districts, as reported by Oregonian columnist Steve Duin, writing: "Most intriguingly, Microsoft's heavy-handed tactics have already started a backlash, with 16 school districts in central Iowa having 'completely dumped' Microsoft and migrated everything to Linux."
He sends some background details not in the column:
- This column generated the most feedback Duin has seen for any one of his columns to this time. (He has experienced the Slashdot effect first hand.)
- The Beaverton And Hillsboro school districts, two that have been targeted for the audit, apparently will comply quietly. Beaverton will because they have kept close enough tabs on software licenses to make it feasible (as well as officially banning all non Mac & MS Windows machines from their network). Hillsboro will because a certain microprocessor manufacturer based in that city can subsidise the costs of Microsoft software.
- Paul Nelson (one of the forces behind the Linux for public schools movement) has been urging more cooperation between public schools and local Linux user groups. ``My hope is that other LUGs out there would start hosting clinics. If you are from a school, contact your local user group and offer to host a clinic!" He is planning a demonstration of what Linux can do for schools this July 4, calling it Software Independence Day."
Apropos that, JDALaRose writes: "While it was discussed at some length in this Ask Slashdot, the Washington Post is running an article wherein a columnist gives his take on making the switch from Windows/MS Office to Linux/OpenOffice."
Doubtful. You'll only teach them that computers are 'hard' and useful only in behind-the-scenes processing.
Windows and Mac environments lead them to explore their creativity (Mac especially) without needing to fuck around with an OS that fights you at every turn.
Teach them Linux and watch the future of computers die.
I have been pwned because my
My highschool doesn't own one piece of educational software, except some geometry thing that's liscense has run out. My school, and probably most schools, have student-accessable computers for word processing, web research, and the few computer courses offered (BASIC programming, CISCO, etc). A lack of educational software isn't a big deal.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
Yes both mysql and postgres are superior. Is there a problem with using a superior substitute? If so, maybe since it's open source, we could dumb it down to the level of Access.
Seriously, they also provide features that let users make tools to use the database. Those tool-making features are called bash and perl. Duh.
As a teacher, I can say with great sadness that database use is not a priority among most middle or high school classes. I can't think of any colleague who has used Access all year -- in fact, even the training inservices had trouble developing situations in which it would be useful in the classroom (due to time constraints on lab use and a the greater efficiency in using simpler textbook-based strategies to teach the same material).
Word processing is by far the most common use of technology, followed by the web browsing (for those deluded into thinking that reading a book is a waste of time and that the interent, home of frauds and nuts a-plenty, is the best possible source for valid information on any subject).
Giving schools tools liks scilab or mysql (or the internet) is easy. Training teachers to teach useful ways to implement the technology -- to use the right tools in the right way for the right job -- is harder. I know some who struggle to save their gradebook spreadsheet files in the right place or keep their printers running; these will never figure out how to teach children to use sql queries to track data.
PowerPoint is used often in classrooms as a way to produce projects for presentation to classes -- things that once were called "oral reports" or "posters." Even worse, children are encouraged to use as many sounds, animations and transitions as possible to "arouse interest." The lesson taught: bells, whistles and shiny baubles are interesting, not content. Again, the more fundamental problem is not finding a replacement for PowerPoint (KPresenter would do nicely), but finding the right way to use it (to present content).
I became a teacher because I saw in it, and still see, an opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of others, and thus on the world, that will last far longer than my own mortal dust. I suspect that attracts most teachers. Certainly it's not the pay (I make $30K/year), it's not the hours (I was at school from 7:30 this morning until after 8:00 tonight, grading papers until 6:00 and then attending a varsity girls' softball game), and it's not the prestige (ha). Sure, I get two months off in the summer, but I'll be taking classes then at my own expense at a college three hours from my home. Honestly, the only reason to teach is to satisfy a desire to help others.
The ability or lack thereof to implement databases doesn't really affect such a motive, unless your field of specialization is teaching computer science. I teach Latin, and frankly there are more effective ways to teach vocabulary or history than with Access or mysql.
Teaching children to value content over presentation, on the other hand, is a broader and more fundamental lesson, part of learning to filter signal from noise -- something each of us does every day, some more successfully than others. Personally, I have a problem with colleagues who don't teach children to sift the useful from the shiny, but I realize they do so from a lack of analysis of their own actions rather than from intent. They still *want* to help children learn, but they need to be shown the logical consequences of their implementations. And that, of course, is why we have inservice training.
Right now, your average distro just loads on the options. Eight different text editors, six different shells, five ftp programs, and countless other duplicate items.
This is in general a good thing (tm) but when it comes to putting it in a school or giving it to a home user, it's overwhelming. I know because I am not an average user and all those options in the toolbar menu drive me up the wall.
Advice to distros. You want to put your product in schools and on home desktops? Make a distro that let's you pick (and set up for automation) one text editor, one word processor, one shell, etc... and then display the installed options prominently on the desktop and in the toolbar menu.
And on that note: call the text editor "TEXT EDITOR" and the word process "Word Processor". Don't call it Emacs unless you call it "Emacs - Text Editor" or better "Text Editor - Emacs".
If you look at a MS PC (even one that's been used for years) it's usually got one program for each task. Why? Because everything costs money, so the user picks one, pays for it, and sticks with it. It's not economical to buy multiple products with overlapping usages.
To make an analogy that's close to my heart, imagine you're driving a long way into an unfamiliar territory. The highway you're travelling on lists every possible route to any destination at each exit. Even if that route involves driving around back roads or dirt trails. Even if you knew what you wanted to do, there'd be so much signage and so many options that they'd be at best worthless and more than likely damn confusing. That's what Linux looks like to the new user.
Meanwhile, Linux is perfect for the classroom. It's a native programming environment. It's a lab in a box. A place for experimentation and exploration.
Kids don't want to make powerpoint presentations. Challenge them, do CS 101 in elementary school. Do Algorithms in high school. Then you'll be graduating problem solvers, not flow-chart-dependent middle-managers.
While I'm telling them what to teach in grade school. Teach English! Well! Enforce mastery and require that all your graduates can write a two page essay that could, say, get them a job or a raise or an A in college.
Those two things, if you taught kids computer programming and english and that's all, they'd be ten times as prepared as I was. They wouldn't need to go to college to get a good job, because that's all employers are looking for right now. And college can go back to being a place for future scientists and researchers (and rich kids who have nothing to do after high school).
Argh! I'm all riled up now!
Sweat
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Err, you mean "zero if by LAN, one if by CD"
Windows and Mac environments lead them to explore their creativity (Mac especially) without needing to fuck around with an OS that fights you at every turn.
Fuck that, as a young child stuck with DOS I found my creativity in manipulating config files and making BAT files to do repetative tasks for me.
Windows just teachs kids how to click the blue e to get on the internet and check out the scores of their favorite sports team.
Hell even on the old AppleIIs I have more fun playing around with the various system disks then I did with the various traditional 'artsy fartsy' disks that were availble.
Developing innovative methods of solving problems involves creativity to you know.
Those students who are good at art already have control over EVERY OTHER DAMN SUBJECT, let us mathmatical / logical people keep something damnit.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Programming classes at the high school level, epecially in conjunction with a concerted effort across disciplines to emphasize analysis and logic, could be enlightening. On the other hand, they can indeed by drivel. It depends on several factors, including the preparation of the students (have they been taught logic, or have they been taught that systematic thought stifles their creativity?) and the teacher's approach (teach with specific examples, step by step, or assign the whole book to be read and then start applying everything at once halfway through the year, like one teacher I know).
And the system is now too big for it to ever fix itself successfully. Shame.
No system ever fixes itself. People create systems, and people have the power also to destroy, subvert or fix systems. Yes, life often sucks -- so find a small corner of it, make it yours and make it better. Inspire others to do the same. That's the whole point behind becoming a teacher -- good teachers always work to improve their schools and the educational system.
Microsoft is a huge system. It's not immune to change. The Justice Department and the States are working on it through legal channels, and the Linux community is chipping away at it by providing an alternative and demonstrating to the masses that the alternative is viable. If these school systems can expose Microsoft's licensure scheme as the extortion racket it is, if they can demonstrate that alternatives to Office and Windows are feasible, and if they can teach those two points to children, the parents and the media, they too will have changed a system.
That subject line is, incidentally, as infuriatingly grammatically incorrect as the original quotation. ROFL. Early this year, I used a Flash version of the "All your base are belong to us" game intro to demonstrate why grammar is important to understanding a language.