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Week-Long Free-Software Class for Kids?
mmol_6453 asks: "I have the opportunity to submit a plan for a week-long class about 'Alternative Operating Systems' to our local community college's Computer Camp. The students will be aged 8-16. We've had classes attended by students who used Linux, but we've never set up a class with alternatives as options. We've found that students in this age range, when interested in the material, can absorb a great deal of information in a short time. This means there's a lot of potential to teach them about Linux, *BSD, and open-source. We often get extremely bright students here, the kind who are likely to go out and earn $80,000/yr in a post-90s economy. Some of them are even on Slashdot. I want to give the rest a boost in the right direction."
"Considering that the great deal of material to choose from, I need to ask the Slashdot Community its advice:
- Do they need to know how to install the OS first, or should I let them look that up on their own while I make them power-users?
- What distributions of Linux and BSD should they be first introduced to? (I'm only familiar with Debian, and I know virtually nil about *BSD.)
- Initially, do they need to be more adept at the GUI, or do they first need to know how to use the shell?
- Should I give away Debian CDs no-questions-asked, or should I talk with the almighty Parents so little Daniel doesn't install Linux over Dad's 'work computer.'
- Are there any other key issue I need to think about?"
Start 'em off by teaching them to set up a dual-booting system. That way you're introducing the OS to them in less of a "sink or swim" approach.
Stay with a simple-to-install distribution to start, like Mandrake. Once they're comfy with the KDE screens, you can introduce them to the wonder that is the command line.
no gui, no. Most of the slashdot generation prolly started on nongui systems...Mine was apple][ tandy1000...I would hate to know how I would've turned out if I only had touched something from win95 up....there is something fundamental about not having the gui there.
Start with the CLI, back when I started work on appleII and dos machines, CLI was all there was.. and it was a good thing, because I learned early on, that you don't ask "what am I supposed to do", but rather "what can I do".
Viewing the CLI, and computers in general, as an open book with nothing limiting what you can do with them is a key to making people use computers properly.