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Setting up Linux in an Inner City Public School?
Richard Finney asks: "I have a friend who is retired. He was the chief scientist on the Landsat program. Instead of just belting down scotch and cashing social security checks, he is volunteering at Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School #122, in Baltimore. He's trying to set up some old donated computers from the Windows 95 era. Rather than fight with Windows, he's decided to install Linux. How would you set up these systems for these little kids to use and learn about computers using Linux?"
I've tried pushing Linux in inner-city schools. It's hard to get support for anything new or different, even with the price advantage. If you've gotten past that hurdle, I'd suggest trying to make a good first impression. Choose a very friendly distro (Ubuntu perhaps) and configure it as trasparently as possible. Ensure that the basics (web, email, productivity, multimedia) just work and ensure that getting help is not a task in itself. While we would all like to seee opendocument being used, it's probably best to set openoffice to default to the M$ formats to easy compatibility.
The trick is not so much teaching Linux as ensuring a good first impression. The OS is there for those who want to learn, don't force it on the others or you'll risk rejection and difficult times in the future.
Let us know who it works out too.
-Tim Louden
OK,I have to say it. No modding me down just cause!
Is it really of the most value to teach elementary school kids about using Linux? What benefit do they have here? What percentage will ever use that knowledge in a IT type job, and what percentage will go up to Windows workstations later in life(or high school) and declare that they have no idea how to do anything because they've been using CLI to do everything up until junior high! Ok, so that may be an exaggeration, and I know how similar Windows and many popular desktop environments are, but you have to admit, there are differences.
One value to be derived would be that there are
alternatives to windows.
Personally, I dont think kids should be learning
computers just to learn Excel, Word and Powerpoint,
that they learn the basics of the machine. The
sentence preceding should not be construed as saying
that there is no value to learning Excel, Word and
Powerpoint, before anyone jumps on me about that.
I would say, personally, were I chosing the class
curriculum, put on an apple or commodore emulator
on whatever minimalist OS can be found ( including
freedos, or leaving win95 on the machines ( I dont
know if either support such.. ) ), and let the kids
learn that they control the machine, that they can
program and make it do what they want. Leave the
OS out of the picture for a while, then teach a
variety of operating system ideas, such that they
would not be lost anywhere. I note that that is
probably a multiyear curriculum.
emt 377 emt 4
Having helped install some of the new fiber/CAT-5E networks in schools like Lombard Middle in Baltimore, I have to question the goal here. We built a basically state of the art network and there isn't ANYTHING in the building really worth hooking up to it, including the administrative machines.
What is the point of using PCs for grade school kids? I don't understand the reasoning.
Unless the classes are about computers, the platform doesn't matter, its the apps that really count. So what applications are desired?
Adorable urchins in inner city schools do not need computers, and they do not need Linux. They need TIME. Time from adults who care, time from adults who can mentor, be debate team coaches, chaperone kids on field trips to the Aquarium, etc. Frankly, some engineer who worked on Landsat has about nothing in common with these kids, and it shows:
Impoverished children with no family life and no school supplies? Why, I'll install some trendy Linux distro, walk away, feel smug, and leave the PCs to ultimately rot!
Those schools are resource starved, not Intarweb starved. Give them books before you give them shitty old PCs.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
1) Try to work with the district IT people, but if they aren't responsive then continue to go it alone - WITH the support of the principal which hopefully he's already gotten. Having BEEN the red tape wielding corporate goon, don't necessarily expect a lot of help and possible some resistance. But you never know. In particular he needs to be aware of significant liability if the computers are connected to the Internet. He *MUST* provide filtering, or blocking of "unwholesome" sites otherwise it risks the school's federal funding. Typically he should be able to get Internet access either through the district or other routes including the filtering for close to free.
2) There are quite a few charitable groups that should be able to supply solid computers of better vintage, and possibly some support. At the very least check with the National Cristina foundation (www.cristina.org) Machines in the 300Mhz-800Mhz range are pretty readily available. 5 year old servers can also be gotten via charity and these days are monsters like dual 1Ghz XEON's with 2-4GB of RAM and frequently several hundred MB of SCSI RAID - more than enough for the server for this.
3) I'll second the recommendation for the k12 linux terminal server project. Also check out edubuntu (www.edubuntu.org) as it comes pre-packaged with a LOT of good stuff, but he'll need machines like those mentioned above. edubuntu site has some good getting started and how to do this type of guides.
4) Check with www.eduforge.org - there are a lot of experienced people there in the discussion sections to help out.
5) Forget about "teaching about computers". At the K-5 level it is more about using the computers as learning tool for other more practical subjects. Any learning about computers should be distinctly secondary as a result of the computers being used. Kids will pick up basic keyboarding, mouse and other skills as the use the software that helps them with other projects. No need to "teach about Linux" or any other technology as such. You want kids to be able to read, write, figure, and think, not turn out 9 year old Linux sysadmins. The national (and state and I'm sure local) standards for kids need to know about technology are a joke. If the kids are useing the computers a couple hours a week from 2nd though 5th grade, they'll meet the standards, or at least as much of them as make sense.
6) Target two specific types of activities for different purposes:
a) Drill and kill. I hate to say it, but this works for things like basic phonics, letter and word recognition, and arithmetic skills. Doing it on a computer isn't any more effective than work sheets in the classroom, in fact some studies indicate it is less effective for time spent. BUT, doing it on the computers gets the kids excited so they actually do the drills. These kinds of drills are particularly important for the children likely to be in these schools since they are starting off "behind" and typically don't get the necessary reinforcement at home. Not the most popular way to use computers, but you have to deal with reality.
b) Constructivist activities. Using a word processor to write a "paper" (typically 2 sentences qualifies in 2nd grade) and illustrating it with a basic drawing program (e.g. tuxpaint) is well within the capabilities of the machines and students. They will pick up those computer skills as they use these programs for class related activities.
7) Programs like tuxtype not only teach touch typing - something they don't really need until middle school, but help a lot with letter and word recognition. Therefore they can be used even in lower elementary grades effectively, just don't worry about typing speed.
8) Finally if for some reason you absolutely positively have to teach "computers"; Again, forget about teach "linux". Instead starting in the 4th or 5th grade look at one of the great Logo implementations (e.g. education.mit.edu/open
Right, because all of us who learned on Apple IIe's and 286s running DOS were completely at a loss when Windows 3.1 came out, Windows 95 shook our faith, Windows 2000 pushed us to the edge, and OSX reduced us to pathetic, babbling morons who beg for change on street corners.
Everyone my age went from the Commodore 64 era to the OSX era in twenty years. It wasn't that hard. What will these kids miss if they start out with a text interface? Easy stuff:
- multitasking (possibly)
- using a mouse (possibly)
- WIMPy GUI idioms
What will they *not* miss? Important stuff:
- computer basics (turning it on, watching it boot, shutting it down safely, handling the hardware)
- program concept (running, stopping, crashing)
- file concept (opening, saving, copying, overwriting, losing)
- communications methods (email, chat, file transfer)
- hyperlinked text documents
- typing
- basic office software (word processing, spreadsheets, and basic database concepts)
- whatever CS concepts you want to teach them
I say the elements they miss will be easily picked up later, and text interfaces offer plenty of opportunity to learn the fundamental, difficult elements that cause big problems for people who don't get them. Some adults just never master WIMP, but these are elementary school kids. They have ten years before their minds turn to concrete.