Followup To "When Teachers Are Obstacles To Linux"

An couple of anonymous readers wrote in to let us know about a followup to last Wednesday's story of the teacher who didn't believe in free software. The Linux advocate who posted the original piece has cooled off and graciously apologized for going off half-cocked (even though the teacher had done the same), and provided a little more background which, while not excusing the teacher's ignorance, does make her actions somewhat more understandable. Ken Starks has talked with the teacher, who has received a crash education in technology over the last few days — Starks is installing Linux on her computer tomorrow. He retracts his insinuations about Microsoft money and the NEA. All in all he demonstrates what a little honest communication can do, a lesson that all of us who advocate for free software can take to heart. "The student did get his Linux disks back after the class. The lad was being disruptive, but that wasn't mentioned. Neither was the obvious fact that when she saw a gaggle of giggling 8th grade boys gathered around a laptop, the last thing she expected to see on that screen was a spinning cube. She didn't know what was on those disks he was handing out. It could have been porn, viral .exe's...any number of things for all she knew. When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling. Coupled with the fact that she truly was ignorant of honest-to-goodness free software, and you have some fairly impressive conclusion-jumping. In a couple of ways, I am guilty of it too."

Comments

Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[bruce_the_loon]

Don't rant first and ask questions later.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Ethanol-fueled]

There was a lot of unnecessary foaming at the mouth from both sides about this.

Though the teacher grossly over-reacted, why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards? Sure, in a perfect world kids would have exposure to a variety of platforms in school but teachers have to see to it that their students stay on topic using the class materials, otherwise too many disctactions will arise and that'll make things harder for the teacher to do their job. One shouldn't show up to a guitar class handing out trumpets to everybody and then expect the teacher to teach to both the guitar and the trumpet. As I said above, teachers usually aren't censoring for its own sake, they just don't want distractions.

And call me old-fashioned(and I'm mid-20's), but what the hell is a middle-schooler doing with a laptop at school and why would it have been okay for the student to break out a laptop in class if it were running windows? When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[InsaneProcessor]

My boys go to high school near Austin (not in AISD) and they aren't allowed to bring laptops to school. There is some softening in progress though because some classes are going to have to allow it.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards? POSIX _is_ a standard! Now, why are they learning Windows? >_>

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LMacG]

In Henrico County, Virginia, the school system supplies laptops to all middle school and high school students. They used to be MacBooks, but I think they use Dell now.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

Yeah, well, when I was in high school, things like cell phones, digital cameras, pagers, and laptops were considered science fiction. Now get off my yard!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Jim_Maryland]

what the hell is a middle-schooler doing with a laptop at school

Some "special needs" students are permitted to bring in laptops for use at school. My son is on a 504 education plan to help with his ADD and ambliopia. He qualifies to use a laptop or a typing device (Alpha Smart) but refuses to use either (for some reason using a laptop makes him stand out in a negative way but his blue hair was acceptable to him...still has me confused on that one).

Oh, Howard County Maryland is the school system. I haven't heard of any plans to allow laptops in general but they do have special exceptions as I mentioned above.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[icebraining]

Here in Portugal (a small country near Spain) the government is giving cheap laptops to all children from 7 to 18 years, for them to use during classes and work at home. On the other hand we have one of the worst education levels of Europe. Yes, something is wrong here.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

for some reason using a laptop makes him stand out in a negative way but his blue hair was acceptable to him...still has me confused on that one

Anyone can dye their hair blue, but only retards carry laptops at school.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[armanox]

I do know that Baltimore County allows laptops to the general students as long as they are not disruptive...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ZerothAngel]

Posting to invalidate mod point. I blame the scroll wheel.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mcgrew]

Though the teacher grossly over-reacted, why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards?

Windows != "standards". And, by the time a 7th grader enters the work force, Windows will be less like the XP he's using now than Mandriva is like XP.

There are, of course, businesses that need some sort of proprietary, Windows-only software (e.g., Photoshop) but a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, a word processer is a word processer. Each new version of Microsoft Word is less like the previous version or Word than that previous version was to Star Office.

Microsoft software in schools is a pitiful, ignorant waste of my tax money.

One shouldn't show up to a guitar class handing out trumpets to everybody and then expect the teacher to teach to both the guitar and the trumpet

But your analogy is completely flawed. More accurate is the kid is showing up in a guitar class with a Fender and the teacher is complaining that everyone else has Gibsons.

When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

That was the case when my daughters were in high school (my oldest is 23), and I and others fought that policy tooth and nail.

When I was in high school a computer needed a whole building, and it had less computing power than a Hallmark greeting card. But I'll get off your lawn anyway, Grandpa.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Portugal (a small country near Spain)

I love how you felt the need to clarify where Portugal is. I don't doubt that plenty of people reading that still said "huh, I wonder where that is?".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[shawb]

his blue hair was acceptable to him...still has me confused on that one

He wants his personality to stand out, not what others will perceive as deficits. Besides, these days having your natural color of hair is more likely to make you stand out than blue would. A lot of people are honestly surprised when they learn that I don't have any tattoos... even to the point of asking "why not?"

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[TrekkieGod]

Another conclusion can be to not believe an online blog like it's God's word. I've never actually seen a blog yet that was not one sided on the issues it cared about. This one especially screamed of flamebait, but I'm glad that they were able to open up communication channels and come to an understanding.

Actually, when I read the teacher's original e-mail, my first thought was that Ken Starks had been trolled. It's not that I don't think people can be ignorant of free software, it's that I the teacher had said she "experimented with Linux in college" which made it sound like somebody got greedy with their trolling, but Starks bit anyway.

His reaction was way over the top, but it's cool he calmed down and resumed discussion. Especially since it turned out to NOT be a troll, and that there was an actual teacher, who actually did confiscate frigging Linux CD's. In the end, looks like everyone gained something, even though all of this could have been avoided if the respective parties had kept their composure from the beginning: The teacher could have done a simple googling for linux before sending an inflamatory mail or, failing that, Starks could have not been an asshole with his original reply.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[njfuzzy]

I brought my first laptop to school in the early 90s. (PowerBook 140) Is that not allowed now?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[stry_cat]

Yeah how could anyone forget their infamous surplus sale?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[cashman73]

Yeah, and that worked out really well until the school board decided to sell the outdated macbooks for $50 apiece, resulting in a bit of a mob scene,...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[khellendros1984]

(a small country near Spain)

OK, granted there are a lot of Americans on this site, and we sometimes have a reputation of being ignorant of geography and other countries, but I think most people have heard of Portugal. I mean, for goodness sake...the *pope* gave you guys half a continent...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[shawn(at)fsu]

Windows-only software (e.g., Photoshop)
ahem... Photoshop is NOT windows only.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ThreeE]

...like I need someone to tell me where a South American country is.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[KeithJM]

Wow, do people honestly not know what Portugal is? I'm not criticizing you at all, I'm sure you have a better feel for people's awareness of Portugal than I do. I'm just shocked that all literate people in the Western world wouldn't be familiar with any country in Europe. That seems like a reasonable baseline expectation for any adult in Europe or North America.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[bill_kress]

Or, rant first and ask questions later and bring everyone's attention to two issues instead of one. Not a bad accomplishment.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[HTH NE1]

Don't rant first and ask questions later.

Oh, I don't know. A mutual misunderstanding can lead to a meeting of the minds as long as you don't stray into maliciousness and neither side resorts to taking up arms.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[triplecoil]

Your Gibson and Fender analogy is also flawed. Anyone who can play a Fender guitar can also play a Gibson guitar. With zero additional training/learning. They're essentially same damn thing. However, the average person cannot pick up an operating system that is totally foreign to them without having to figure out a lot of new things. While Linux and Windows can essentially do the same thing, a new user on either system will have to spend time gathering their bearings.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[nabsltd]

When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

When I was in high school, cell phones and laptops were basically science-fiction.

One way pagers did exist, and so did cameras, but they required this non-digital stuff called "film" in order to store the images (and few cameras could store even 40 images at a time).

Despite all this, I'm nowhere near ancient. It's amazing how fast technology moves.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[eonlabs]

In the same breath, if there was a way to mod this article up, I would do it.
Nothing like someone taking responsibility for this sort of thing. Its rare,
and very very welcome. What people don't notice are the vast number of half
assed articles out there which lack in research and don't apologize for that.

I approve.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Ethanol-fueled]

Well put. He is kind of right about the guitar-trumpet analogy, so I see his Fender-Gibson analogy and raise him one guitar-violin analogy :)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[morgan_greywolf]

When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

Pffft. When I was in high school, cell phones were the still size of a small suitcase and laptops were still called 'portables'. They didn't even have color displays. They either had orange monochrome plasma displays or, if you were lucky enough, you could get them with of those newfangled 'TFT' displays. They were still passive displays and they were monochrome as well.

Not long before that, 'portable' meant neither bolted to the desk nor chained to an alarm system.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[triplecoil]

I think your analogy is definitely heading in the right direction. Well done.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LWATCDR]

Why this is Slashdot?
The I actually posted that I thought that the student was probably being disruptive because I couldn't see any way to demo an OS in a classroom and hand out CDs without being disruptive.

The key thing is if how much better if both sides had talked and not screamed. Equal blame and what could have been a great moment for FOSS education could have been a serious black eye. Thank goodness it turned out ok.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[DutchUncle]

...why don't some people understand that ...teachers have to teach to the standards?

Windows != "standards".

"teaching to standards" == "what the school district told the teacher to be teaching, and what the teacher assigned the kids to be doing during class". Nothing to do with the content.

And cell phones shouldn't be on during the school day, any more than they should be on in meetings at work. Be here now.

My son is also 23. My high school had an IBM 1130. It was the size of two large desks. We used punch cards. Chaff is fun.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Curien]

You've made a huge mistake.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[wmbetts]

I know what you mean. My wife and I look like an odd couple she's got pink hair and piercings and I just look like a normal computer geek.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Curien]

One way pagers did exist, and so did cameras, but they required this non-digital stuff called "film"

What kind of "film" did you use in your pagers?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[penguin_dance]

Though the teacher grossly over-reacted, why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards? Sure, in a perfect world kids would have exposure to a variety of platforms in school but teachers have to see to it that their students stay on topic using the class materials, otherwise too many disctactions will arise and that'll make things harder for the teacher to do their job.

But sometimes distractions can HELP them do their job. Learning shouldn't be just a one-way road from teacher to student. If something positive like this has captured the attention of several of her students, a clever teacher could use this to get the attention of other students. How about if she set aside 5 minutes one morning and let him show the class what he was doing and explain what Linux is. It doesn't mean she has to start teaching Linux, but encouraging students to explore or research OUTSIDE the classroom isn't a bad thing.

I think all of us can remember at least one teacher who had a positive impact on our lives, maybe even on our future career. Chances are, that teacher both thought outside the box and encouraged our interests.

And call me old-fashioned(and I'm mid-20's), but what the hell is a middle-schooler doing with a laptop at school and why would it have been okay for the student to break out a laptop in class if it were running windows? When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

I like to perhaps be the first to welcome you to adulthood. You'll find yourself saying, "In MY day...." a lot more often. Of course cameras, pagers and phones are hardly learning tools compared to a computer. But believe me, a lot of people were saying, "How come they get to use calculators? When I was in school...." a few years after I graduated. I am concerned that there is too MUCH emphasis placed on computers. I'm concerned whether these students are running before they walk. If the cash register breaks down, checkers no longer know how to add or give correct change. Students need to learn the principles of math and work problems without a calculator and to write without a spelling or grammar checker.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in high school from 1994 to 1998, and pagers and cell phones were strictly prohibited. I heard later that one reason for the ban was because administrators, having seen one movie too many, didn't want student dealing drugs.

I was a high school teacher from 2004 to 2007, and I must have spent half my career taking cell phones from students who talked on them in the school library. We had a very sensible phone policy: they're allowed, and can be used only outside. Oddly enough, when students answered phones inside and had the phones taken from them, it was frequently their parents calling. When I was in high school, I was able to go a whole day without my parents calling to check on me.

During a standardized test (during which cell phones must be off and in backpacks), students would ask to use the bathroom and sneak phone use in the hallway. These confiscated phones were given to me [the school sysadmin] to "search them for test material"--of course, I didn't find any.

The most pathetic cell phone story was a morning when the air conditioning had trouble starting. We eventually got it to start, but some classrooms were 80F during first period. Students got out their phones, called their parents, and parents were removing their children from school for the day because classrooms were 2 degrees over the thermostat set point.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[FiloEleven]

How about synthesizers? Say, a class full of FM synths and one kid with an analog synth. They all look pretty similar, the keyboard portion is exactly the same, and you can immediately play the same tune on either instrument, but the way you go about generating and modifying the sounds is completely different.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[jellomizer]

Your analogy would be closer teaching say Windows 2000 with XP even Vista.
Or if you are a Linux shop teaching different distributions perhaps even Unix (depending on the type of classes)
But Windows to Linux is more like teaching Guitar and and a Bass Guitar.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

And there is a hacked version that runs on all platforms called "gimp".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[causality]

There was a lot of unnecessary foaming at the mouth from both sides about this.

And I'm sure that the large number of verifiable stories and news pieces in which young children were expelled from school for "crimes" like pointing a french fry at another student and saying "bang bang" had absolutely nothing to do with this.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[skiman1979]

Windows != "standards". And, by the time a 7th grader enters the work force, Windows will be less like the XP he's using now than Mandriva is like XP.

There are, of course, businesses that need some sort of proprietary, Windows-only software (e.g., Photoshop) but a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, a word processer is a word processer. Each new version of Microsoft Word is less like the previous version or Word than that previous version was to Star Office.

Microsoft software in schools is a pitiful, ignorant waste of my tax money.

Exactly. It doesn't make a lot of sense to just teach elementary/middle school students soley about Microsoft technology (or any other single technology for that matter) because that technology will be WAY outdated when the student gets into the 'real world'.

Perhaps it would be better to expose those children to a variety of technologies (e.g., operating systems).

My 2 and a half year old daughter has no problems playing with a Barbie doll for a while, then moving on to a Care Bear, or a Weeble Wobble, or any other toy. You interface with each toy differently, and they each have their different features, but you can use ALL of them to play house.

Variety keeps their imagination going. Isn't that what we want with our children? It'll help them later in life to be more inventive instead of making everything (for example) be "just like Windows".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Shardis]

You really need to check your links for corruption. Not only is the wwbt.com link in your source expired - the NBC footage posted in the article found elsewhere is also expired.

In other words, your supposed evidence & link is more than worthless. It just wastes people's time. kthxbye.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[snspdaarf]

Everyone get back! I've got a Mini-Moog, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[SnarfQuest]

Let's see, you've given your clildren access to free porn and video games, and they're doing worse in class? Just what could the problem be? What could they be doing instead of classwork?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[fwarren]

Teachers fault. She should have written a better letter. His posting took her letter at face value. She said she saw linux on the computer, the kid said it was free and was passing out disks. She confiscated them.

She could have made more of the situation clear. But yeah. Actually talking to her first before posting would have been a smarter thing to do.

Then again this is slashdot, we have ALL posted first then read the article. Nothing is a much fun as getting corrected around here when you don't have all the facts

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[jedidiah]

> However, the average person cannot pick up an operating system that is totally \
> foreign to them without having to figure out a lot of new things.

Total BULL.

You see a new OS, you poke around the GUI. You explore the thing and
you use your ABSTRACT UNDERSTANDING of what you need to do to help you
figure out the details.

This applies equally well to Linux or the next version of msoffice.

If I can use the Gnome Archive Manager for the first time in my
entire life today, then so can anyone else.

If you don't treat the GUI like wordstar with a cheat sheet than none
of this alleged "culture shock" or "learning curve" is a problem. Now
oddly enough, a SCHOOL should be concentrating on negating this very
problem.

Nevermind Linux. These kids should get some exposure to the Apple II
just to give them a broader level of understanding.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[MichaelSmith]

(a small country near Spain)

OK, granted there are a lot of Americans on this site, and we sometimes have a reputation of being ignorant of geography and other countries, but I think most people have heard of Portugal. I mean, for goodness sake...the *pope* gave you guys half a continent...

From now on I will describe myself as being from Australia (a small country near New Zealand).

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[TheCycoONE]

How about synthesizers? Say, a class full of FM synths and one kid with an analog synth. They all look pretty similar, the keyboard portion is exactly the same, and you can immediately play the same tune on either instrument, but the way you go about generating and modifying the sounds is completely different.

So what you're saying that an FM synth and an analog synth are kinda like Windows and Linux...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LandDolphin]

"Portugal (a small country near Spain)"

This made me laugh. I would like to think that you would not need to say that, but then I remember that you probably do.

And yeah, the education is pretty bad there. Just look at how poorly people in Portugal speak Spanish, it's almost as bad as Brazil!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[MichaelSmith]

Wow, do people honestly not know what Portugal is?

Not that it actually matters. The airline takes care of finding my destination for me. I just have to know what it is called.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[triplecoil]

You do realize you just confirmed what I said, don't you?

Going between different guitars, there is no need for "poking around," "exploring," or "figuring out details." You can just play the thing. A guitar is a guitar.

I completely agree that if you know one system, you can figure out another. But that's the thing...you have to figure it out.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[MichaelSmith]

One way pagers did exist, and so did cameras, but they required this non-digital stuff called "film"

What kind of "film" did you use in your pagers?

No I think the "pager" used a carrier pigeon.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Omestes]

Thank you for that. You just made my day!

In before the humorless pedants.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Shadow7789]

Microsoft software in schools is a pitiful, ignorant waste of my tax money.

If the function of schools is to prepare students to survive in today's world, and Windows/MS software area part of that world, shouldn't schools be teaching kids to use such software.

I understand that there are indeed free alternatives available, but as similar as they might be, they are not the same. Open Office is nothing like Office 2007 for example. Sure, the basic functionality might be the same, but if all you are going for is a something that can take text input, why not just use Notepad?

Anyone who has seriously compared Office to Open Office knows that there really isn't a comparison. Office is substantially better piece of software. What you are really trying to advocate is using schools to force your standards upon youth. Get 'em while they're young you might say.

Well, sir, I personally don't believe schools should be used as a place to advocate social change. But if you want to disagree fine. I am sure there a great number of dictators throughout history who would take your side.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[FlyingBishop]

The GP was clearly making an oblique commentary on the teacher's assumption that any analogue of a utility-level piece of software software must be pirated.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[butalearner]

I'm just shocked that all literate people in the Western world wouldn't be familiar with any country in Europe. That seems like a reasonable baseline expectation for any adult in Europe or North America.

It may seem reasonable to you, but as an American I can tell you we rarely hear anything about most of the European countries. If you're in a country that hasn't significantly affected anything in our history books or on our news stations, the only time we might even hear the name of your country is during the Olympics, or if some famous person hails from your country. If that's the case, chances are you'd be left out if you asked us to list the European countries. Scrolling down this list, I could probably have named about half if I thought real hard. Some of them I'd never even heard of before looking at that list, and I probably won't remember.

Portugal, however, is one of the more well known ones here, if only because they turned down Christopher Columbus' request to fund his voyages here, and their famous explorers are always featured in our typical elementary school curriculum.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mixmatch]

Are you really surprised? From the an article.

Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[JohnnyBGod]

...500 years ago. But really, you'd be surprised how many people think Portugal is part of Spain.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Smauler]

I'm just shocked that all literate people in the Western world wouldn't be familiar with any country in Europe.

Really? There are many countries in Europe which I know little to nothing about. For example, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Which way round they are geographically I don't know, and culturally I know _very_ little about them. Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia I have little knowledge of, apart from the recent (comparatively) wars. Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan I've got basically 0 knowledge of (though I did meet someone from Georgia a while back, coincidently when the whole South Ossetia invasion was kicking off, so I know a little about Georgia). Slovenia? I wouldn't be able to find it on an unmarked map. Then there's Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and the Vatican which are all countries technically. And Kaliningrad Oblast, which I just found out about now, which is a part of the Russian Federation I never knew about.

Europe is a complicated place, and not knowing a country in Europe is not a sign of gross ignorance. However, I do agree with you that not knowing about Portugal would be a little weird. They were one of the most important countries on earth a few centuries ago. A hint for those who don't think so - why do you think Brazilians speak Portuguese? That being said, Lithuania used to be a very big force in Europe too, and no one knows about that.

Back on topic.... This teacher seems to not be in the wrong at all. She confiscated CDs that she knew nothing about that were being given out in class. Now she's learnt that they are not harmful, she's is interacting with the OSS community. If I were in her shoes, and even knowing about Linux etc, I probably would have taken similar steps. You just don't know what is on a CD or DVD, and if they are distributed in your class, and something nasty is on them, you will be held responsible. Even if nothing nasty is on them, I can just imagine someone going home and trying to install Linux on their home computer, and there being problems, and parents getting annoyed. When Linux tries to install on my system, for example, it boots up and show 2 unformatted hard drives, and would ask to create a partition on one of them, not recognising any existing partitions. I've got a fakeraid stripe over those two hard drives, which everything of mine is on.

OT on RAID etc : I back up everything I will be _really_ annoyed if I lose, on an external web host in the US, and back on my parent's PC... I actually have very little data which cannot easily be downloaded again if lost. RAID is Useless for home systems. RAID 5 is slower than single disks when writing, and little faster when reading. CPU usage is not the problem with fakeraid 5, it's the infrastructure bottleneck with having the CPU doing parity calculations. Look at the benchmarks people.

Ok, I've just looked at the benchmarks and it seems I'm a little out of date in some cases. Low bus bandwidth is a killer when it comes to RAID 5, and recent consumer motherboards (especially seemingly by Intel) seem to have countered this problem to some extent. I've not seen full analysis yet, so I will reserve judgement.

However, if you just buy a stock motherboard and expect great RAID 5 performance, be prepared to be disappointed. RAID 0 (striping, should be AID 0, there's no redundancy here) will always give you very significant speed increases (ie. double for 2 disks, triple for 3, up to the throughput of the interface), both in reading and writing (though not seek times obviously). If you _really_ want redundancy and speed increases cheap, _not backup_, consumer RAID 1+0 is a good choice in my opinion - it comes close to the performance of striping, with redundancy, at double the HD cost... Is redundancy that important? How OT am I.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Attila Dimedici]

Yeah, doesn't every body know that Portugal is one of the states of Europe?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[HTH NE1]

malice is the word you didn't need to invent.

Strange then that maliciousness didn't trip the spelling checker. Can one not give more weight to the adjectival sense of an adjectivized noun by renounifying it?

Now "adjectivized" and "renounifying" on the other hand, they are flagged as not being words. But it did keep me from throwing the extra "i" in adjectivial.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[theaveng]

Yes I don't think the blogger was being too harsh (remember the teacher threatened to SUE him - an attack without merit), especially when you read what OTHER teachers have posted. Like this one:

I am a school teacher in the Austin Independent School District and while I don't know any "Karen", I am intimately familiar with the rhetoric and attitude. The author here is uncomfortably close to knowing what he's talking about when he speaks of the NEA. We are "encouraged strongly" to discourage the use of anything other than Microsoft products in the school district and between the Tech folks fearing for their jobs and the ignorance of all the "Karens" I deal with daily, it's a wonder the boy wasn't publicly flogged.

I have been trying to get our school district to use Linux for 3 years and I've been told that I am to desist with this quest if I want to keep my job.

Those who questioned the email's authenticity owe him(?) an apology. Of course as I peruse the comments of the sort, I note with a wry smile that you don't have the courage to sign your name to it.

Cowardice is easy. I wish this author well.

        Tim Daily

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ShadowRangerRIT]

You're honestly claiming that Linux and Windows are as similar as two competing guitar brands? I'd think a lot of enthusiasts on both sides would express umbrage at that statement (to be clear, I mean in the OS camp, though some guitarists might disagree as well).

While I'm fairly familiar with both OSes, and I'm a CS theory guy who likes to look at the underlying basis of computing, a middle school class is not going to be operating so abstractly with computers that Windows and Linux could be taught in one curriculum without both sides suffering.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ClosedSource]

"Pffft. When I was in high school, cell phones were the still size of a small suitcase and laptops were still called 'portables'."

Actually, they were usually referred to as "luggables".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Com2Kid]

You think this is a bad thing?

You should have seen the back of my CS classes. A good 50% of the class was playing World of Warcraft on any given day.

Seriously though, Laptops are just one more source of distractions. Could PCs potentially be used to help improve education? Perhaps. Applications such as OneNote are great, I went an entire year without using any paper at all (I emailed my HW in), but I had plenty of trouble paying attention in class and staying off of /.

The current education system in America is by no means perfect, but throwing a bunch of laptops into the mix is not going to help things any. Teachers will still assign busy work, students will still pick on each other, and the majority parents will still be too lazy/busy to ensure their children complete homework assignments.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[RancidPeanutOil]

I'll see that, and raise it by going all-in with an electric guitar-acoustic guitar analogy, with no specification of which OS is which.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mcgrew]

And cell phones shouldn't be on during the school day, any more than they should be on in meetings at work

Agreed, but they shouldn't be considered contraband in a school any more than at work. There's no reason why a kid shouldn't be able to use her phone during lunch or between classes.

My son is also 23. My high school had an IBM 1130. It was the size of two large desks.

A minicomputer! I'll bet you were a lot younger than I was when my oldest was born, I was 33 before I became a dad.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[thtrgremlin]

Yeah, that is one thing I have at least really appreciated from Microsoft is standardization. Wait...

I think I have heard exactly your argument as to why schools and government need to advocate for Linux, because open standards mean there is much less worry about compatibility, what software people have, and such. Loosely advocating or quietly necessitating Office 2007 for every student is absurd. I would much prefer "you can use the schools free and supported open standard, or get whatever product you like and it should be compatible / be easy to comply with standards". And subsidizing kids that just can't afford windows / office is a terrible "patch" to the problem. At my school I have had kids bring in documents for Claris and Correl Works, and honestly, the most difficult to work with till recently was .docx.

And yeah, things have changed. Some rooms now have "class sets" of laptops. The cell phone war was won by parents, but kids are asked to not be disruptive in class, technology related or otherwise, which usually means put on silent.

Many kids can stay more organized with a computer, not to mention that, particularly with FOSS, tools and educational games on laptops are cheaper alternatives to paper material. In my very small district of less than 2 dozen schools k-12, >$8M is spent per year on printer paper. Laptops are also much lighter weight than what I remember carrying in my backpack at that age. Extra money could be spent on development of any number of things that might help improve FOSS educational software.

oh well, I know I am dreaming.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[rohan972]

I completely agree that if you know one system, you can figure out another. But that's the thing...you have to figure it out.

When I showed my mother my linux box, I said "You click that for the web browser, click that for email, click that for writing documents" opening each one to show her. Her response "It's exactly the same as windows!".

Ok, so maybe she is a little below the knowledge of "average computer user" but from my experience working in a computer store catering to the general public, maybe not. My guess is that there is a group of least knowledgeable people to whom it makes no difference what operating system they use because they need it set up, maintained and repaired for them anyway, and must be told what icon to click on to do the tasks they require. A second group of slightly more knowledgeable people who can find their way around windows to an extent that leaves them befuddled when faced with Linux because of the differences, then a third group who have enough understanding to become familiar with any OS they choose to use and the ability to make that choice on feature/benefit rather than fear/propaganda.

I think the "least knowledgeable" first group is the largest and can be most easily migrated to linux by targeting the third group on whom the first group depends. Which is pretty much happening, slowly.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Forrest Kyle]

"But your analogy is completely flawed. More accurate is the kid is showing up in a guitar class with a Fender and the teacher is complaining that everyone else has Gibsons."

This is straight up terrible analogy. As a guitar player, I can play a Fender and then switch to a Gibson without having to learn anything or adjust my playing style in anyway.

When I switched to Linux, I had to read a huge book and several hundred man pages along the way, and it was a big paradigm shift in how I managed a computer system.

If we are determined to use musical instruments as an analogy, the best way to describe it would be switching from a finger-picking classical style, to a standard rock guitar style of playing. Same instrument, totally different paradigm of operation.

Pretending that switching to Linux does not require a huge investment of time, interest, and effort is not going to help it penetrate the traditional desktop market. Not everyone who doesn't use Linux is ignorant; they're probably just too busy being productive.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Com2Kid]

If the function of schools is to prepare students to survive in today's world, and Windows/MS software area part of that world, shouldn't schools be teaching kids to use such software.

The function of schools is to each students how to learn.

To accomplish this a basic foundation must be built up, literacy of both language and mathematics, an understanding of the principles of science, and the ability to apply critical thought to problems.

If you are merely aiming for survival, then just pass out billy clubs the first day and send everyone home.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Cro Magnon]

While I'm fairly familiar with both OSes, and I'm a CS theory guy who likes to look at the underlying basis of computing, a middle school class is not going to be operating so abstractly with computers that Windows and Linux could be taught in one curriculum without both sides suffering.

True story. A bunch of my cow-orkers & I went through some training, and the instructor was an "MS is teh suxor" guy. So, the first day he did the course in OS/2 (that was when it was actually being used by some people). I think there were 3 people in the whole class that had ever used OS/2, including myself & the instructor, so most of the day was wasted showing people how to get around in the strange OS. After the first day he switched to Windows.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[morgan_greywolf]

Only by the marketing types ... hey, what are you doing in here?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Hal_Porter]

add isn't retarded either some of the smartest pe ooh a kestrel! look out the window!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mcgrew]

If the function of schools is to prepare students to survive in today's world

It's not. It's to prepare them to survive in tomorrow's world.

Open Office is nothing like Office 2007 for example

And Office 2007 is nothing like Office 2000.

I personally don't believe schools should be used as a place to advocate social change

I agree, and it irks me that they are. But my arguments for schools using FOSS are not societal, but monetary and practical. KDE is as much like whatever Windows will be like in ten years as XP is.

Our schools are in terrible shape and they need to pay teachers more (and administrators less).

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Hal_Porter]

I think it was an attempt at self deprecatory humour.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[TheThiefMaster]

Photoshop is Windows only? Since when?
It's an Adobe product, that means that it is primarily MacOS software, and Windows software second.
That's quite a way from "Windows-only".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mcgrew]

Give a modern distro using KDE as an interface a try. There is very little difference (e.g., KDE has a picture of a gear where XP has "start")

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[BlackPignouf]

Well, when I lived in Madrid, my US roommates asked me why TV channels wouldn't bother including this "south-west region of Spain" in weather forecasts.

They swore to god they never heard of Portugal...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[jmoo]

Well it's not standards, its just that all the text books, hand out material, and tests are centered around Microsoft Office.

My wife teaches computer science to 8th graders and the IT Manager wanted to switch from MS Office to Open Office. He got a little ahead of himself and installed on it on a few PC in her class. My wife was none to pleased. Her problem with it wasn't that he wanted to change, its just that all her teaching material was centered around MS Office (specifically the 2003 version). When they go for new text books and materials she will be more than happy to work it out with him.

Now, before all of you start hitting the keyboard telling me there is no difference between one word processor and another, hear me out...If you would have asked me a few years ago before my wife taught computer apps I would have agreed with you. I believed that younger generation, raised with computers, would have no trouble with such things. Sadly I was wrong. I have watched these kids and many are just as lost in a spreadsheet or word processor as my 60 year old father is with his PC. My wife still has to go through step by step (and lots of screen shots).

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

...500 years ago. But really, you'd be surprised how many people think Portugal is part of Spain.

Yes, but most of them live in Spain...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Tubal-Cain]

...I think most people have heard of Portugal.

Hard to graduate elementary/middle school without covering early seafaring and Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. Portugaul is brought up a lot during that period.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[cayenne8]

"Yeah, well, when I was in high school, things like cell phones, digital cameras, pagers, and laptops were considered science fiction. Now get off my yard!"

Yep, in my day in high school, if you wanted entertainment, it was smoking a joint in the parking lot before/between classes....and then throwing the frisbee around...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[CyberLord Seven]

Well, it is!

Look at the thing on a map. There it is tucked into the side of Spain.

Have you ever listed to Portuguese? It sounds so much like Spanish that it may as well be Spanish.

Therefore, Portugal is "part" of Spain! :)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[thegnu]

And yeah, the education is pretty bad there. Just look at how poorly people in Portugal speak Spanish, it's almost as bad as Brazil!

ahahahahahahahaha

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[moortak]

Cashiers usually still know how to add up your purchase, but are often forbidden because the registers are tied to the inventory system.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[CarpetShark]

And, by the time a 7th grader enters the work force, Windows will be less like the XP he's using now than Mandriva is like XP.

Of course, the ex-7th grader won't care, since he'll have grown up associating Microsoft with "fun" via X-Boxes, and will be well conditioned from their monopoly on that same machine. When he's old enough to work, or to make other people work, Windows, or any other closed Microsoft platform, will be the next logical step to his mind.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Bert64]

As you would with many other devices...
TV equipment, particularly the devices connecting to tvs often have different interfaces like cable boxes and dvd players etc, microwaves often have different interfaces, cars can have different interfaces...

All of these devices and many more can have lots of different interfaces to achieve the same thing, tho there is usually still some level of commonality between them.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[operagost]

Wow... my grade school didn't even have air conditioning. We had to open all the windows and sometimes turn off some of the lights in June and September.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Hurricane78]

I think the major difference is, that in European countries (there is no such country as "Europe") you learn the history of the world, while in the USA, you learn the history of the USA. At least that's how I heard it. We learned about conflicts and events is nearly every country in the world during our school time. We even have to draw outlines of continents with the countries in them. It's actually pretty easy. You do in once, and then you always remember that image when you hear the name.

Additionally, a big world map in a child's room helps much. :)

I wonder if in the USA, children really don't learn about things like rome, the russian empire, the discovery of america (including the killing), china, the nazis, and so on... Hard to believe...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[severoon]

Two people, the school teacher and the blogger, spend their days as educators. One educating people on the benefits of certain technology, the other kids. For what it's worth, I found the teacher's email to certainly be more threatening than it needed to be given the amount of research she'd done into the matter. And the blogger's response had a bit of bite to it, but it was through much of it making real, valid, informational points. Maybe he shouldn't have indicted all teachers...but it's certainly true that this teacher's attitude isn't exactly unique in the industry either.

What's disturbing to me here is not that the teacher wasn't aware of free software or not up on technology...rather, it's her overreaction to the kids. Everything about the way she handled that situation was wrong, wrong, wrong. Did she put the class back on track and then ask the kid in a non-accusatory way to explain what was going on?

No, she flew off the handle, smacked down on the kid, fired off a threatening, uninformed email...pretty much an out-of-proportion, emotional reaction to a kid being a bit disruptive in the classroom—and being disruptive because he was actually excited about learning something at that.

What's even more troubling is that, even after the fact, she's crying and clearly sorry, but I didn't get a strong indication that she even knew exactly what it was she did wrong so she can fix it and respond more rationally next time. It's hard to say from the little bit of the blogger's follow-up post...but we really, really need our teachers to be adults in the room. The way she initially reacted was more like how kids treat each other.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ZeroPly]

You're making the academic's assumption that because you are intelligent and logical, that the people you argue with will be intelligent and logical.

Sometimes you have to break your foot off in someone's ass to get the message through. This teacher was a lazy moron who couldn't bother to do a little research on Google. She got her just deserts as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[operagost]

And how many rods to the hogshead could your car do?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[woboyle]

But ranting feels so good... at least at first, then the "Oh s**t, did I say that?!" sinks in. ;-!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Hurricane78]

I know you were joking, but some of us are a little bit sensitive about that "Europe becomes one single country" thing. Mostly because the European parliament creates a basic constitution, when most people in Europe strongly oppose it. On the first try, the people voted against it. On the second try they simply did not let anyone vote.

So if Europe becomes a country, they already set in stone the fact that it will become a dictatorship. I hope by then the USA went to normal and China got nice, and they invade us. :)

I will be far far away from what they used to call the first world by then.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[isorox]

This is straight up terrible analogy. As a guitar player, I can play a Fender and then switch to a Gibson without having to learn anything or adjust my playing style in anyway.

Peraps the OP was talking about a car fender/bumper?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[JohnnyBGod]

Have you ever listed to Portuguese? It sounds so much like Spanish that it may as well be Spanish.

'Listen' to Portuguese? I AM Portuguese.

And sorry, no. Even with all their similarities, the languages are quite different.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Ioldanach]

If the function of schools is to prepare students to survive in today's world

It's not. It's to prepare them to survive in tomorrow's world.

I thought it was to prepare them to pass a government test and become worker drones? We're talking about the public school system, right?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Bert64]

MSOffice 2007 is also substantially different from 2003 and all previous versions...
And companies run a variety of versions, schools are also likely to have older equipment running older software...
And by the time these kids finish school, MSOffice 2007 will be horrendously outdated and replaced with something else in many organizations.

So you can either teach the current version of MSOffice, which by the time kids enter the workplace will be obsolete and replaced with something different...
Or you can teach the current version of OpenOffice, which by the time kids enter the workplace will be obsolete and kids will be using something different...

You have the same issue either way, but OpenOffice is considerably cheaper to obtain, cheaper to maintain license compliance, and places less demands on what you can run it on.

Also in my experience of using both suites, i would not say MSO is better at all... Admittedly, most of my usage is restricted to the word processing components of each, i have found OO (since version 2, i didn't like version 1) to be more robust especially at opening damaged files, have better pdf creating capability (its there by default, and creates a proper index etc), have better macro capabilities (you can reuse your existing knowledge of existing languages, dont have to learn a new specific language), have better regex find/replace, have a more sensible file format that is easier to manipulate using external tools, have the ability to export to latex, and generally seem to have a more sensible layout of options (changing the paper size is under format/page for instance)...

I don't like either of the spreadsheet apps, as whenever i've used them they came up with (the same) inaccurate/incorrect results, i can only imagine OO is trying to copy MS bugs for the sake of compatibility... Gnumeric has fared much better for me and is a lot less resource hungry.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[msuarezalvarez]

And we all know school kids simply cannot live without CMYK separation...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Mr Z]

A not-so-small country near Greenland?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[idontgno]

Well, it is!

Look at the thing on a map. There it is tucked into the bottom of Iraq.

Have you ever listed to Kuwaiti? It sounds so much like Iraqi that it may as well be Iraqi.

Therefore, Kuwait is "part" of Iraq! :)

Signed, Saddam Hussein (FROM THE GRAVE!)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Bert64]

We had a portable, it consisted of a desktop pc and a crt monitor on a trolley, portable because you could unplug it and push it around. It actually had a UPS on the trolley so it could continue running as you moved it too.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[cayenne8]

"Open Office is nothing like Office 2007 for example. "

But in that same vein....no previous version of Office, is like Office 2007.

I just got office 2007 dumped on me...and I can't find shit on there....whereas the older versions were all pretty much the same with menus and the like.

I know it will take some getting used to....but, really, I wish they had a 'classic look' option...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Atroxodisse]

Analogies are useless. People who speak in analogies are like cars whereas those of us who don't are more like autos.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

It depends on the kids though. I have friends that are teachers, and some of them if you give an inch, forget a mile, they'll take a light year. I don't think overreacting can really come into the picture until we actually know what the class is like.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LingNoi]

The Woosh thing was funny on slashdot, only once. Now everyone is using it and it sounds really lame.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LingNoi]

You're right, gimp is better.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LingNoi]

I disagree because the type of things the school kids would be doing on both Windows and Linux would be Open Office and Firefox.

In fact that is what most average people do so you're point is wrong. By the way just to clarify, you and I don't fit into "average". Doing anything other then Web browsing or Office isn't average.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[downhole]

It kind of annoys me to hear people say that Americans are ignorant of geography and other cultures. In my experience, my fellow Americans are no more ignorant than Europeans are. Yeah, Europeans tend to know more about Europe (gee, imagine that), but how many US States and South American countries could the average European name and find on a map? The last time I was in Europe, I spoke to a guy in Norway who didn't know where Florida was, which kind of surprised me. I could understand if they couldn't find, say, Kansas on a map, but Florida is a pretty big vacation destination; you would think the average European would at least know which coast it's on.

I would say that, in general, most people only know about the geography and cultures that are around them and which affect their lives. For most Americans, Europe has no more influence on their lives than China, Japan, India, the countries of Africa and the Middle East, etc, so they have no more knowledge about it than most Europeans know about the US cornbelt.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[ljgshkg]

I always get annoyed by some people who ask "why not" whenever I ask "why". While there're things with alternate ways to execute, or alternate ways to think, "why" is the correct way of asking if one have no intention to do something "extra" or "meaningless" etc.

"Why do you have tattoo?""Why not?" Er... that's just not an answer, you do something for a reason, no matter if it's for a logical reason or psychological reason.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LingNoi]

Yes they are. These are school kids, all they're doing is office and web browsing.

When you factor that in you realise it's very similar.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Thanus]

Back when I was high school (2001 grad) in a decade-behind-everyone-else state, I took a laptop to school for a couple of years. No fuss was made because I used it mostly during off-times or asked the teacher permission before firing it up.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[db32]

While it does depress me seeing how ignorant my fellow countrymen often are of the world around them I have to agree with you here. The U.S. of A. is a pretty large place with a lot of people. We have a variety of cultures and even regional dialects of english in our lands. We have more states and territories than Europe has countries. I have met tons of people foreign and domestic that still think Kansas is some wildland place with no indoor plumbing and indians running wild. (By the way, I am keenly aware that they were not in fact indians, but that was what a bunch of ignorant Euros called em and the name stuck).

Also...despite the idea that all American TV is ignorant crap...I present to you some classic performances.
States and Capitals
Countries

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LingNoi]

The original blog post seemed fine to me. His reason for posting it was to show the ignorance of people, not the blame the teacher in question.

However, this teacher made threats. She was going to take legal action and she lied, "I have used Linux in college", completely made up.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LingNoi]

I'd like to add that if it wasn't for the hordes of angry Linux users wanting to burn her at the stake she'd probably still think she was right.

It's lucky she has remained anonymous otherwise she'd be getting phone calls and letters for the rest of her life.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[lordharsha]

Blue hair == rebellion == cool
laptop == geeky == uncool

Hope that clears the confusion.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[lordharsha]

The views expressed above are those of the current generation of high schoolers, not of the authors (ie, me).

(Just to make things clear)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Jazz-Masta]

By "standards" the poster meant teaching standards.

Each government or educational board outlines a teaching guide or "standard" that all classes/teachers/schools must follow. This is to ensure all students are taught the SAME thing regardless of location.

This is to ensure educational quality.

In Alberta, for example, all students in the province have the same classes and educational quality regardless of whether they go to school in the poor areas or the rich areas. In grades 6, 9, and 12 (maybe grade 3 now too) there are governmental exams which test all students with a single government written exam. This is used to test the effectiveness of these "standards." By reviewing the grades on these tests, the government is able to find schools that are not teaching effectively, or not following the "standards."

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[HiThere]

If a person can't switch from MSWind to Linux without a problem, then that person hasn't learned ANYTHING about computers.

OTOH, my wife uses a graphics program for writing letters, because "Word processors are too complicated". She's learned to use a graphics program. That's not learning computers.

It's true that I fought for 6 months to get Linux working right before I finally switched, but I did this in 1998. It's no longer the same process at all. And I had to install the system. (Well, of course, that's a lot easier too.)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[quarterbuck]

Starks could have not been an asshole with his original reply.
I still fail to see how he was being an asshole with his reply. He thought he was doing a reasonable job or even a charitable job with his Helios project. He then gets an email calling his work illegal and asking him to go beg his competition for free OSes. I can understand how that would throw almost anyone off. His reply was to the point (even if based on assumptions and guesswork that turned out to be faulty) and without inflammatory language.
He did not use any four letter words, did not publish the teachers real name or ask for a real life DDoS on the competitor and did not make comments on offtopic points.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[severoon]

No.

Up through middle school, which is the age of kids we're talking about, children's brains have not yet fully formed a strong self-identity, meaning that they are still being socialized. If an authority figure exhibits certain behavior, children at this stage and younger will respond to it and tend to reflect it. Which means all of your teacher friends, by refusing to give an inch are teaching their children that uncompromising behavior is reasonable...in effect, telling them to take a light year when the opportunity presents itself. That's what you call one o' them there "self-fulfilling prophecy" type things.

The fact that your friends are teachers gives them no more authority to speak on this topic than the teacher that instigated this mess, particularly since they apparently agree with the way she handled it, and I think we all agree that she handled it poorly. The very point I was trying to make is that it's distressing to me, and ought to be to you, is that I couldn't see any evidence that this teacher who's in charge of kids all day didn't seem to have any inkling of exactly how she should've handled it (though it is also equally clear to me that even she would most likely agree she dropped the ball).

The fact that you know teachers doesn't give you any special authority on the topic. I myself claim no special authority either...so with a total absence of special authority to go around, why don't we all just agree to discuss it as equals and assess the points on their own merits and reasonableness. Appeal to authority is always a fallacy, but it's particularly absurd when there is no actual authority present, wouldn't you agree?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Elektroschock]

It is upon the teacher to apologize and get educated.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Elektroschock]

So what do you expect them to say: Good work with the genocide, most Indians killed??

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Elektroschock]

I think Columbus was an Italian?!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Elektroschock]

Which way round they are geographically I don't know, and culturally I know _very_ little about them. Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia I have little knowledge of, apart from the recent (comparatively) wars. Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan I've got basically 0 knowledge of (though I did meet someone from Georgia a while back, coincidently when the whole South Ossetia invasion was kicking off, so I know a little about Georgia). Slovenia? I wouldn't be able to find it on an unmarked map. Then there's Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and the Vatican which are all countries technically. And Kaliningrad Oblast, which I just found out about now, which is a part of the Russian Federation I never knew about.

Kaliningrad is the core of East Prussia and was invaded and overtaken by Stalin, actually part of Russia, the rest of the territory was stolen by Poland. Thanks for the f*cking Americans for the destruction of Prussia who didn't understand the political role of that nation! The other nations are leftover of the Soviet Union, not really "European". None of them has significant economic importance or would be a travel desination, it is second world, more bandit territories under Russian influence than part of the European culture. Kosovo, FYROM etc. are leftovers from Yugoslavia. The Baltic nations are more economically relevant and European but all you need to know is that they are Baltic nations.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Elektroschock]

The European Parliament is institutionally very weak and a democratic counter balance. It is a power game: EU/nation parliament vs. executive branch.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[rogue780]

(a small country near Spain)

OK, granted there are a lot of Americans on this site, and we sometimes have a reputation of being ignorant of geography and other countries, but I think most people have heard of Portugal. I mean, for goodness sake...the *pope* gave you guys half a continent...

From now on I will describe myself as being from Australia (a small country near New Zealand).

And I shall describe myself as being from The United States, (the big country all you small countries are next to.)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[gregbot9000]

Exactly. Thats one of the things that always pissed me off about Euro trash, you get these guys who are 'like dumb Americans don't know geography' because people don't know what countries border the Black Sea, yet when you ask them what states border the Great Lakes they are like 'whats it matter.' I hate ethnocentrism, especially when its ethnocentrism bashing other countries for being ethnocentric. Maybe people just don't stare at maps all day?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[rnelsonee]

To the OP's defense, I think it people sometimes can't tell how well-known their locale is to people outside their geographical area because they don't interact a lot with people from other areas (and when they do, the chances of their own city coming up in conversation may be low).

For example, I grew up in Annapolis, and I expect that most Americans will know this is in Maryland, but only because it is the capitol. But non-Americans? I don't think they really know much about it, but why should they? Now I live in Baltimore, and I wonder how many Americans know where to find it on a map. I mean, it was once the largest city in the country, and it's near other very prominent cities, so I think most Americans know where it is. But it's not terribly exciting currently and has no foreign policy significance, so how many Europeans know where it is? Everyone around here can point to it on map, but until you see other people talk about it, or hear references to your home area on TV shows or movies, it's hard to tell how aware others are.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[shellbeach]

The fact that your friends are teachers gives them no more authority to speak on this topic than the teacher that instigated this mess, particularly since they apparently agree with the way she handled it, and I think we all agree that she handled it poorly.

That's not exactly what he/she said: to quote the GP, "I don't think overreacting can really come into the picture until we actually know what the class is like." Their point was merely that some school classes are pretty awful in terms of behaviour, and for many teachers the only way to prevent things getting completely out of hand is to rule through uncompromising strictness. Sadly, rational argument is not often something that works very well with a class of rebellious children!

Going back to the original mail the teacher sent (quoted here), all she did was confiscate the linux live CD (fair enough, since it was apparently causing a disruption at the time), and then talk to the student about the issue after class. Whilst her preconceptions about free software were deplorable, and her email to the HeliOS maintainer obviously an overreaction, her actual handling of the matter in class seems perfectly calm and reasonable.

The fact that you know teachers doesn't give you any special authority on the topic. I myself claim no special authority either...so with a total absence of special authority to go around, why don't we all just agree to discuss it as equals and assess the points on their own merits and reasonableness. Appeal to authority [wikipedia.org] is always a fallacy, but it's particularly absurd when there is no actual authority present, wouldn't you agree?

From the wikipedia article you just referenced:

"The second form, citing a person who is actually an authority in the relevant field, carries more subjective, cognitive weight. A person who is recognized as an expert authority often has greater experience and knowledge of their field than the average person, so their opinion is more likely than average to be correct. In practical subjects such as car repair, an experienced mechanic who knows how to fix a certain car will be trusted to a greater degree than someone who is not an expert in car repair. There are many cases where one must rely on an expert, and cannot be reasonably expected to have the same experience, knowledge and skill that that person has. Many trust a surgeon without ever needing to know all the details about surgery themselves. Nevertheless, experts can still be mistaken and their expertise does not always guarantee that their arguments are valid."

The fact that the GP knows teachers who have experience of unruly classrooms seems a valid point to me. After all, the GP wasn't suggesting that this was the case with the class in question, only that it was a potential factor that ought to be considered.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[gregbot9000]

Umm... I just switched to Ubuntu 3 months ago and well, you're fucking wrong, you are very, very, fucking wrong. Ubuntu was easier and more familiar to use then vista, and what MS did to word is still causing me to pull out hair.

I guess you were one of the guys who were hanging with that teacher in college "trying Linux" behind the gym.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[drsmithy]

Windows != "standards". And, by the time a 7th grader enters the work force, Windows will be less like the XP he's using now than Mandriva is like XP.

Rubbish. There hasn't been a major change to the way the Windows GUI functions since Windows 95. Even Vista is immediately recognisable as a derivative.

To put that in context, the "Linux GUI" in the same timeframe has gone from fvwm95 to KDE 4.x. Heck, there's probably a bigger functional difference between KDE 3.0 and 4.0 than there is between Windows 95 and Vista.

Compared to every other remotely mainstream platform, the Windows GUI has been a rock of consistency (for over 13 years). The OS X GUI has probably changed more since 2000 than Windows' has since 1995.

Each new version of Microsoft Word is less like the previous version or Word than that previous version was to Star Office.

This is, similar to the above, utter garbage. Word 2008 is probably the first big change in the way the Word interface actually functions since the days of Windows 3.0.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[drsmithy]

You see a new OS, you poke around the GUI. You explore the thing and you use your ABSTRACT UNDERSTANDING of what you need to do to help you figure out the details.

The average person doesn't have an ABSTRACT UNDERSTANDING of how an OS [interface] works, any more than they do about a car. Pull here, push there, turn that.

That anyone even considers (let alone carries out) "retraining" between Windows or Office releases is proof that the average person hasn't the vaguest level of "abstract understanding" when it comes to computers.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Larryish]

That is why I bought a "Jumping To Conclusions Mat(tm)".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Doctor Faustus]

Anyone who can play a Fender guitar can also play a Gibson guitar. With zero additional training/learning.
Well, sort-of. Fenders have longer necks and correspondingly higher string tension, so you'd need to watch your left hand a bit more when changing positions, and your pre-bending (stretching a string before you play a note, so the pitch can slide down) would be a bit poor for a while.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[kerohazel]

I wonder where you heard this from. In standard US public schools, we most definitely cover world history. The focus is overwhelmingly on Europe, especially within the last 500 years, but other parts of the world as well as antiquity are covered.

The problem is that world knowledge of most Americans tends to peak at this age. Once you graduate into the "real world", you find that most news doesn't cover world events, unless it's something sensational like war or terrorism.

If you've never watched mainstream American news broadcasts (CNN, MSNBC, or god help you, Fox) give it a try. I'm curious to see how well it might match up with your idea of American news.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[vawarayer]

where is spain?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Sigma 7]

Ubuntu was easier and more familiar to use then vista

Vista is familiar to me since I've looked at based comparisons between Windows XP and Vista before launch, and because I've also been using Dos/Windows for quite a long time. They also didn't change anything too critical. If Vista is less familiar than Ubuntu (even when you've been using Windows), there must be something else to your opinion.

Like the GP said, switching from Dos/Windows to Linux is a paradigm shift, in the same way you switch from Wordperfect 5.1 to Microsoft Word. The only difference is that ALT-F4 reacts very differently in Microsoft Word, as opposed to the expected behaviour of selecting a block of text.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[quacking duck]

From now on I will describe myself as being from Australia (a small country near New Zealand).

And I shall describe myself as being from The United States, (the big country all you small countries are next to.)

I'll simply settle for describing myself as being from Canada, your even bigger neighbour to the north that everyone in The United States (okay, okay, not Alaskans) have to "look up" to.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Maelwryth]

And that would lead me to be from New Zealand (a small country near......Oh, $%#@!)
Actually, in the words of one of our P.M.'s, we are a,"dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Smauler]

Writing on consumer level "hardware" RAID 5 is very slow depending on the hardware. Like I said in my post, it is entirely dependent upon the implementation, and most implementations are very slow. It seems some motherboards are getting a lot better recently, primarily because of bus architecture presumably. Anyway, my point still stands - RAID 5 _is_ slower writing than single disks generally on consumer hardware. Sorry you got an offtopic mod, and I didn't. I deserve one more.

Anyway, like I said before on topic... this woman did little wrong except from being a little bit ignorant. She took the safe course, which she had to take in the circumstances, and now is perhaps exploring other possibilities. It would be really interesting if she actually helped explore FOSS solutions as a result of this incident.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Opportunist]

Ouch! Don your fire proof vest and take cover, if anyone from Portugal gets to read this.

Never ever say someone from a country could as well be from a country it shares a border with, especially if the second country is bigger. Chances are good that they have some common history, and not one that the smaller country enjoyed.

I mean, Belarus, Russia, what's the difference, the languages sure sound alike they could just as well...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Randle_Revar]

No need to use that kind language!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Randle_Revar]

*of

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Randle_Revar]

Now I'm depressed. Everyone should know those things before 7th grade.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Opportunist]

Stereotypes are nothing that's limited to a certain area of this planet. Neither is ignorance.

I am from Europe. Amongst the oddest questions I had to hear when I was in the US were whether we have electricity now finally after the end of the cold war (with my country not having been behind the iron curtain being the lesser oddity about the question), whether I know how to operate high tech machinery like a toaster and whether I'm some sort of nobility or member of the mafia because I could afford flying to the US.

Those are the exceptions, though. Most people have a fairly good grasp of geography. They might not be able to find a certain country on a map of Europe without searching for it, but they most likely know that it IS the European map they should be searching at. With Austria being the noteworthy exception, that's usually put into the vicinity of New Zealand...

What I have to say, though, is that the average person I met has little to no knowledge about history outside the US. Most just couldn't imagine that we have buildings, e.g. cathedrals and the like, dating back to 12th century and even before. Many people I met in the US have little to no grasp of the time before the beginning of "American" history. It's mostly a big lump of "time before the time".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Hal_Porter]

This page may help you out

http://www.exile.ru/transient/151/europeans-chart.html

The one for the Balkans is hilarious.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Opportunist]

To be fair, it's no shame not knowing half those countries. A fair lot of them didn't exist until about 2 decades ago. Some were part of the USSR, others were lumped together into Yugoslavia.

Europe about doubled its "country count" in the last century. :)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Opportunist]

To be fair, we have to hear about world events because until about 1950, anything that happened in Europe affected the rest of the world somehow. The Napoleonic wars were global wars due to colonies, as were the Spanish and Austrian succession wars (actually the latter being the first "true" world war, IIRC). We had our fingers on every continent, so of course anything that happened here rippled through the world. From the moment we even heard about the rest of the world, we started meddling with it.

The US didn't really concern themselves with the world until the beginning of the 20th century. Anything that happened there had only local effects, even wars that crossed borders, even the Spanish-American war had no noticable global effect.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Opportunist]

Asking what countries border the Black Sea is unfair. That changes every other week.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Opportunist]

So the CDs were after all about gratuitous sax and senseless violins? Damn good she confiscated them!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[the_womble]

"Portugal (a small country near Spain)"

This made me laugh. I would like to think that you would not need to say that, but then I remember that you probably do.

It may not be enough.

A friend of mine was working in a hospital in the US (I cannot remember where exactly). A patient once came in to the hospital and asked to see the Spanish doctor. There was no Spanish doctor at the hospital. After a short conversation it turned out he meant the Sri Lankan doctor, to which he said "Oh! I knew it was one of those 'S' countries"

It is not just the Americans either. My wife was recently told (by a German) that someone was Greek, who turned out to be Syrian. Someone else who we were told was Uzbek turned out to be Tajik.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[MichaelSmith]

And that would lead me to be from New Zealand (a small country near......Oh, $%#@!)

Norfolk Island!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[gregbot9000]

Not really, I used XP for years and the biggest shift was having to click a tool bar at the top of the screen instead of one at the bottom. Trying to use Ubuntu was easier then trying to use vista. Setting up my home network is easier, interfacing with external hardware is easier, and installing drivers is easier. I know in the older linux's you had to install things from the console, but I've never had to do that.

You and that other guy seem to be thinking about the files or whatever goes on inside the OS, but I don't give a shit about that. I know I click things and they install, and with less trouble then vista. And when I need to find something its a easy text directory, not some esoteric mediaglyphs. Maybe the engine between XP and vista is the same, but the user interface is a lot more cluttered and annoying then I could ever stand in vista.

I don't know what word perfect is, but have you seen the new Microsoft Word? Load it up, I dare you to figure out how to set 1" margins, double space the text and then past Unicode text into the document with out crying. They removed all text its now pretty pictures, you guess what everything does, it is awful. Open office is easier to use.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[gregbot9000]

I hope you never go into journalism. You fail paraphrasing 101.

If I meant foreigners I would have said foreigners. I said, and I meant, Eurotrash. A pejorative term used to signify a special class of yuppie scum. Who, in my experience, are actually quite ignorant and anti-semitic while believing themselves smarter by virtue of having an accent.

I do hate ethnocentrism and not only when it's other peoples. If you wanted to get at what I was saying you might have tried: "American culture is inferior then ours because Americans positively value their culture over others." Why just today, I ran into someone who put out an Ethnocentric view that a country in Europe is equal to a continent, while a State in the US is equal to a street, yet then went on to insinuate that I was biased for believing otherwise.

I really don't know what you were trying to prove, but you have convinced me that you are actually quite biased, as such, I can't trust your opinion.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[VanessaE]

...except that this isn't about her *teaching* anything. This is about a student handing out Linux discs to other students (a good thing), and being disruptive about it (a bad thing). Regardless of what the teacher's subject or expertise is, what the students were or were not seeing has no bearing at all. The teacher overreacted, committed a couple of crimes that most of us would also rightfully retaliate against (slander and libel, specifically), and threatened to sue the maker of HeliOS, as if he were somehow responsible for the kids' behavior.

While she was right to stop the initial sharing because the student was disruptive, her actions from that point forward were 100% wrong. Period.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[TrekkieGod]

I can understand how that would throw almost anyone off.

Oh, I can understand it too. I've gotten thrown off by people on slashdot and posted angry replies for much less. I'm human. After the fact and when I cool down, I always realize I could have handled it better and regret it.

His reply was...without inflamatory language

No, that's not true, and even he says so in his follow-up post. He goes on a tirade of accusations that the teacher had been "trained well" by her union which is apparently being bribed by microsoft. He apparently had some issues before with the NEA which made him angry enough to start making accusations.

The correct way to handle this was to simply tell her, "I can assure you nothing I'm doing is illegal. Here are some links to the license, some other links to introduce you to the concept of FOSS. I'll be glad to go over, in detail, any further concerns you might have." However, like I said, I understand that human beings sometimes can't help it when they're angry.

He did not use any four letter words, did not publish the teachers real name or ask for a real life DDoS on the competitor...

Although he didn't reveal her real name to us, but publishing the letter gave it enough publicity that her school probably knows about it. It won't exactly be humiliation-free. I grant you that this is mostly her own fault for acting without thinking in the first place, and I grant you that Starks could have handled the situation much, much worse than he actually did. However, he could also have handled it better.

...and did not make comments on offtopic points.

Except for the whole NEA and microsoft tirade, you mean?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[gregbot9000]

Sure, but what does that say about the members of the EU then? And all the countries that were states to the USSR several years ago? I think we all should think more in terms of culture. I have a Turkish roommate that comes from the same country as a Turkish professor, one is from Istanbul the other from god knows where, and I would never have guessed they were from the same country.

I was more talking about this "name the country" or "random European fact" game some of the less savory exchange students at my school engaged in to prove their intelligence. I know it's a bad example. Basically that example is from when some Greek jerk challenged me then called me a stupid American for missing Bulgaria, despite his inability to name one, ONE, state on the Great Lakes and his statement that "they don't matter."

No one has called me on the biggest flaw in my statement, which is that most of the countries that border the Black Sea aren't technically in Europe.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[im_thatoneguy]

In Defense of America. I would like to add that as an American I can also say I've heard almost nothing about... Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Maine, Florida, or Missouri. My indifference to places I have deemed inconsequential is not limited to foreign nations. :D

I think my total knowledge about Missouri constitutes probably 60 seconds of conversation... if that.

Americans get picked on but let's be honest. Why should I care who the president of New Zealand is? I like New Zealand. But the county I live in has as many people. My mayor is the administrator for a larger government than the nation of New Zealand.

The US government gets our attention and our education because it has exponentially more influence on the world stage than any other single power.

People learn what affects them. Kazakhstan doesn't play a large enough role to warrant my study. There is limited time in a day. I'm not defending the masses of people who are completely illiterate and oblivious to world affairs who should at least understand in vague terms the issues they vote on. But before Americans get mocked for their lack of knowledge on European or Asian specifics. I would ask them "Who is the governor of Texas? Texas' GDP rivals that of many nations. If Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't governor of California how many Europeans would know who the governor was? The nation of Canada and the state of California have about the same population. The US is a VERY large place... and I can say I've never experienced social shock more strongly than the deep south. I've been to third world countries that felt more like home. We vaguely all speak the same language but I would say that most Americans understand the various cultural and ethnic divisions of Europe better than most Europeans understand the social and 'ethnic' divisions of the US.

Until 5 years ago it was possible for an American to drive for about a week all day every day and still not need a passport. That's why most Americans didn't have passports. Are Americans pretty Arrogant? Yes. Are Europeans pretty arrogant. Yes. And unlike Europe for the last 100 years or so our regional powers have managed to not go to war... twice. So I would say we've got a pretty good track record of multi-lateralism despite our recent escapades in the middle east. North America has been by and large spectacularly stable with only very minimal infighting. /Rant

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[eldepeche]

Florida is easy to find: it's America's wang.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[the_womble]

Though the teacher grossly over-reacted, why don't some people understand that, especially at the lower grade levels, teachers have to teach to the standards?

No one expected her to teach Linux. The kids were learning it for themselves.

Telling them that they should only learn what they are taught is the opposite of education.

One shouldn't show up to a guitar class handing out trumpets to everybody and then expect the teacher to teach to both the guitar and the trumpet.

Bad analogy. No one expected her to teach Linux.

I would not expect a guitar teacher to try to prevent their pupils learning the trumpet in another class. I would not expect the guitar teacher to claim that trumpets were illegal and threaten to sue anyone who gave children trumpets.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[imroy]

From now on I will describe myself as being from Australia (a small country near New Zealand).

That would be the "west island".

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[the_womble]

Its a bit late to be sensitive about it - its already happened.

European law overrides national law (i.e. EU regulations and directives), EU law covers areas that US states have autonomy over, EU courts issue EU wide arrest warrants (i.e. no extradition).

What more would it take before you say it has happened.

I favour the EU constitution though. We are not being given the choice of not being part of the EU, so we might as well vote for a constitution that will make it more democratic.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[the_womble]

When I showed my mother my linux box, I said "You click that for the web browser, click that for email, click that for writing documents" opening each one to show her. Her response "It's exactly the same as windows!".

The problem is that much of the /. crowd do not realise how simple and limited most people's usage of computers is.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Gabrill]

somewhere where it rains?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[theaveng]

This teacher is the "can dish it out but can't take it" type. She threatened to sue the Helios guy for distributing free Linux software, and the Helios guy published her post publicly, and then suddenly she starts crying. My dad is like that.

Last Thanksgiving he started yelling at my mom, telling her she was a "stupid bitch" who didn't know how to cook, but he forgot that I was in the next room. So then *I* stepped in and told him to stop it. He immediately started crying.

This Karen teacher reminds me of my dad.
A person who like to attack others ("I'll sue you Helios")
but can not handle it when the victim stands-up to defend themselves.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[dotancohen]

If you don't watch it I'm going to mention goatse.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[don_weber]

When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

Yeah, well, when I was in high school, things like cell phones, digital cameras, pagers, and laptops were considered science fiction. Now get off my yard!

My high school counselor offered the following advice, "Relax, you'll never need to know how to program a computer!"

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[zQuo]

dumb blonde: are you smarter than a fifth grader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEP7uti0PDw

At least she knows France is a country!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[LWATCDR]

Let me fill you in on some wisdom that you must have missed in third grade.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Or a better way of putting it is. Do nothing that doesn't help.

He also made some stupid allegations with NO PROOF! And the took his little flame fest to a group that he knew would support him to stroke his own ego.
So no his original post was childish and inflammatory.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[trewornan]

I certainly agree with you about this teacher's actions in the classroom. Given a disruptive student handing out CDs with unknown contents I'd probably do exactly the same thing - confiscate them for the moment and talk to the student afterwards.

Where she went wrong was to then write an ignorant, stupid and threatening email to an adult she did not know before properly investigating the matter. Ignorance is correctable and one could argue that there was no particular reason for this individual to know about OS software, however the correct action would therefore have been to contact the adult and request an explanation - certainly not go off on some idiotic rant about harming children's education and illegal copying.

Given that she has not been identified (yet) and therefore any embarrassment is limited to a few colleagues and pupils I think she thoroughly deserved what she's got. Perhaps it will be a learning experience and next time she won't go off flapping her mouth when she doesn't know what she's talking about.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Golddess]

Europeans not knowing American geography is not the same thing as Americans not knowing American geography.

Not saying it's true, just playing the stereotypes.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Golddess]

When I switched to Linux, I had to read a huge book and several hundred man pages along the way, and it was a big paradigm shift in how I managed a computer system.

And therein lies the key point. Managing a system (ie, setup/maintenance) is totally different from an end user using it (email, web surfing, word processing, spreadsheets, audio listening, video watching).

Perhaps a more apt analogy can be created with /.'s favorite analogy object, the car. Cars may all have a standard set of controls, but they all have their own set of quirks that set them apart. The brakes/gas/steering can all handle differently between vehicles, but given a bit of time you learn to adapt.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[BlueCodeWarrior]

Only on the plain.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[autophile]

Here's how I know where Portugal is. When I was around 6, my parents took me on a vacation to Portugal. I stayed on the beach and got the worst sunburn evar. THAT'S how I know where Portugal is. It's the country with the god damn sunburns.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[robbrit]

Or a not-so-small country near the US (which is a not-so-small country near Mexico).

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[extrasolar]

The Woosh thing was funny on slashdot, only once. Now everyone is using it and it sounds really lame.

*Whoosh*

There. Is it dead yet? :)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[severoon]

The fact that your friends are teachers gives them no more authority to speak on this topic than the teacher that instigated this mess, particularly since they apparently agree with the way she handled it, and I think we all agree that she handled it poorly.

That's not exactly what he/she said: to quote the GP, "I don't think overreacting can really come into the picture until we actually know what the class is like." Their point was merely that some school classes are pretty awful in terms of behaviour, and for many teachers the only way to prevent things getting completely out of hand is to rule through uncompromising strictness. Sadly, rational argument is not often something that works very well with a class of rebellious children!

Yea, these kids with expensive laptops giggling at OpenGL demos and passing around Linux CDs sound like some real inner city thugs.

Going back to the original mail the teacher sent (quoted here), all she did was confiscate the linux live CD (fair enough, since it was apparently causing a disruption at the time), and then talk to the student about the issue after class. Whilst her preconceptions about free software were deplorable, and her email to the HeliOS maintainer obviously an overreaction, her actual handling of the matter in class seems perfectly calm and reasonable.

The fact that you know teachers doesn't give you any special authority on the topic. I myself claim no special authority either...so with a total absence of special authority to go around, why don't we all just agree to discuss it as equals and assess the points on their own merits and reasonableness. Appeal to authority [wikipedia.org] is always a fallacy, but it's particularly absurd when there is no actual authority present, wouldn't you agree?

From the wikipedia article you just referenced:

"The second form, citing a person who is actually an authority in the relevant field, carries more subjective, cognitive weight. A person who is recognized as an expert authority often has greater experience and knowledge of their field than the average person, so their opinion is more likely than average to be correct.

Except in this case, the sole example of a specific teacher we have so far doesn't seem to be more correct on average on this point I was making. That's because the point I was making was an subtopic of teaching that I don't believe teachers really ever get any training on whatsoever—the pscyhological development of children is something not many teachers know much about, particularly when it comes to practical knowledge. (And in any case, the operative word in that defn you quoted is subjective.)

I'm no child psychologist either, though...so I'm only saying that I wish my argument to be judged on the points I'm asserted, and not simply ignored because some guy said something he heard from some teachers he knows that are as ill-equipped in the classroom as the average teacher on average. I hate it when I make a point and someone else's response essentially boils down to: that's not what someone else I know says! So what? What about the point itself? What do you think?

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[man_of_mr_e]

Posix is not an OS. If you're programming, then yeah. But if you're learning to become computer literate, Posix means nothing.

Fact of the matter is, 90% of computers have Windows. It doesn't make a lot of sense to teach basic computer literacy on Linux when 90% of the computers they will encounter are Windows.

It's like 20 years ago, they used to teach programming by teaching Pascal. It's a great learning language, but it assumed that people wanted to learn the concepts and then apply them to other languages. Most people didn't. Eventually they wisened up and started teaching C/C++ then Java. Languages people actually used in the business environment.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[man_of_mr_e]

Actually, let me modify that. 90% of the computers they encounter will not run Windows. 100% of the computers 90% of them will encounter will run Windows.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Mr Z]

I was being deliberately obtuse, which seems to have been the point of the followups on this thread. :-)

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[VJ42]

Exactly. Thats one of the things that always pissed me off about Euro trash, you get these guys who are 'like dumb Americans don't know geography' because people don't know what countries border the Black Sea, yet when you ask them what states border the Great Lakes they are like 'whats it matter.' I hate ethnocentrism, especially when its ethnocentrism bashing other countries for being ethnocentric. Maybe people just don't stare at maps all day?

Your comparison is unfair, no one's asking you to name the component parts of the UK, or the German states that Border France; we're just asking for you to be aware that "Europe" is made up of many separate sovereign nations. Basically, don't be This woman. Whilst I can't specifically name the states that border the Great lakes, I think that I could name most of the US States, if you can name most Europian countries, then that's all most people ask.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[i*rod]

When I was in high school things like cell phones, cameras, pagers, and especially laptops were considered contraband!

Oh my stars & garters. I need another Ovaltine. When I was in high school, gum was considered contraband.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[theaveng]

Hey I don't care. Karen the teacher is one of those "attack others viciously" types. And then she tries to cry and act the victim. I hate those types of people,and I'm going to call it as I see it.

There was simply No excuse for this woman to threaten to sue anyone.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[shellbeach]

I'm no child psychologist either, though...so I'm only saying that I wish my argument to be judged on the points I'm asserted, and not simply ignored because some guy said something he heard from some teachers he knows that are as ill-equipped in the classroom as the average teacher on average. I hate it when I make a point and someone else's response essentially boils down to: that's not what someone else I know says! So what? What about the point itself? What do you think?

I don't think you can say that any teacher who fails to control a class is "ill-equipped". I remember when I was a student (in a school where kids had rich parents, and would certainly have had laptops if they'd been invented by then) being in a horrid class of Year 8 kids. For some reason, the school had thrown all the bad eggs into the one basket (together with some unfortunate bystanders like myself) and decided that this would be a good thing. It didn't matter how charismatic or skilled the teachers were with this class (and we had some great teachers at this school) -- these kids caused them to lose their temper, every day, without even trying. They were a pack mentality: they'd constantly probe for a weakness, and as soon as they found one they'd work it until it broke. (Luckily, I got myself transferred out of that pack of thugs, and thus know first hand that in other classes these teachers controlled their classes with charm and grace, never raising their voices or having to make a threat.)

And this is the point the GP was trying to make, I think: you can't make assumptions about the teacher until you know what the class was like. And you certainly can't assume that possessing a linux live CD means that the kid wasn't a troublemaker. (Based on the conversation with the teacher listed in the follow up article, it seems clear the student was being disruptive.)

Admittedly, I'm biased -- one of my long-term girlfriends was a teacher, and through her I met a lot of teachers. Not surprisingly, then, I have a lot of sympathy for teachers who want to enforce some discipline in class. But I would humbly suggest that you try teaching an unruly class for a day, before assuming that any attempt to enforce discipline is a Bad Thing.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[shellbeach]

Where she went wrong was to then write an ignorant, stupid and threatening email to an adult she did not know before properly investigating the matter. Ignorance is correctable and one could argue that there was no particular reason for this individual to know about OS software, however the correct action would therefore have been to contact the adult and request an explanation - certainly not go off on some idiotic rant about harming children's education and illegal copying.

I agree with you there! Her email was a pretty dumb thing to write (something which she seems to have since admitted); but then, the blog writer's response was also over the top (which he has also admitted). Thankfully, though, it's worked out ok with no permanent harm done to anyone.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mikechant]

It doesn't make a lot of sense to teach basic computer literacy on Linux when 90% of the computers they will encounter are Windows.

*Basic* computer literacy is virtually identical on Windows and Linux. Using a web browser, emailing, basic word processing, basic spreadsheet, organizing files, copy, paste, rename, delete, all manner of basic operations are essentially identical. Plus using Linux you'll have fewer worries about the pupils introducing viruses and other malware or goofing off playing games.

If you go for Windows on the grounds that 'this button is exactly in this place, and this menu entry is always below this menu entry' etc. then the pupils will be completely lost when they have to cope with a different version of Windows.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[man_of_mr_e]

"Windows" means the OS and Applications, such as Office.

But, be that as it may, many many people can only seem to learn computers by rote memorization of the functions. Like it or not, you can't assume they will extrapolate.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[FrankieBaby1986]

First off, really good analogy, in itself. However, I think you missed the fact that the students would *not* be administering the systems, in fact, I never learned any of that even in college (I'm almost finished college)

User Tasks Common to Win and Lin:

Keyboard and Mouse: CHECK
User name and password: CHECK
Files and folders: CHECK
Spreadsheets: CHECK
Word Processing: CHECK
Internet Browsing: CHECK
Photo and Video Editing: CHECK
Programming in an IDE: CHECK

Not much difference for students.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Viree]

One way pagers did exist, and so did cameras, but they required this non-digital stuff called "film"

What kind of "film" did you use in your pagers?

No I think the "pager" used a carrier pigeon.

I think you're referring to this http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[KeX3]

What ? You'd need a pretty malicious (and unrealistic) corner-case for even writing to be slower on RAID5 vs single disk, and read performance will be similar to RAID0.

Not really. Any cases that force a write without a fully-cached block will initiate a read from all the disks and new parity calculation and then a write. Anything other than raw sequential writes will be slower, since there are a lot more IOPS than simply writing a block to a lone drive.

YMMV though, depending on how much cache you have ("RAID-5 Cards"(tm) with no internal cache == performance killer TO THE MAX), but r-5 _is_ a slow writer. It is however a fast reader, and the greatly reduced costs (and, with a lesser number of disks, the lower chance of complete and utter breakdown) compared to RAID-1 (or, if you're thusly inclined, RAID-10) usually make up for it.
A decent R-5 with a large enough cache will give you good/great performance, whereas a R-10 will most likely (again, dependent on actual use patterns) give you a couple of notches more.

</rant>

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[drsmithy]

Not really. Any cases that force a write without a fully-cached block will initiate a read from all the disks and new parity calculation and then a write.

Actually, you would need to force writes that are smaller than a full stripe - and lots of them, constantly (to override the faster performance that will be had with more typical access patterns).

That would probably need to be coupled with an insanely braindead RAID5 implementation that didn't do any sort of block-level caching and/or write coalescing.

Personally, I'd call that a pretty malicious and unrealistic corner-case (and one that single drives are going to struggle badly with as well).

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[KeX3]

Personally, I'd call that a pretty malicious and unrealistic corner-case (and one that single drives are going to struggle badly with as well).

Well, but then you'd be wrong ;)
I've been involved in many a case where mid-level storage systems (Hitachi 95xx-series) simply could not cope anymore with a RAID-5 backend. We're talking in general 7 or 8 disks, a cache of about 2G and an SQL server of sorts being loaded on the frontend.
The thing is, once you hit the not-so-sweet-spot where you get degradation, everything goes straight to hell. It might work fine for weeks and weeks, but once you get 1 or 2% cache-misses too many, it all starts cascading down, and by the time alarms are raised things are usually completely out of control :p
(and don't even get me started on what SQL Server can do when stuck on a machine with an healthy amount of RAM (12+G), those things can screw up almost anything - bar enterprise solutions - that isn't tuned to handle the rather specific load they tend to generate with the checkpointing).

RAID-5 is simply not recommended for applications requiring performance, it's perfectly suited to archival storage (if you're not using tapes) and fileservers (where you would mostly see sequential read/write), and with a spare drive or two they're in most cases "safe enough", but when it comes to systems running 24/7 with loads ranging from "a lot" to "omfg" there is simply no alternative to a sweet-ass RAID-10-system.

But then again, times may have changed since I was buried deep inside the innards of storage solutions. In that case, get off my lawn!

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Jim_Maryland]

FYI, there are several causes for lazy eye (Amblyopia). In my son's situation, he had a "wiring" problem in that his brain favored one eye over the other. He didn't have the muscular version that is associated with the "wandering" of the eye. My son did go through eye patching for a period of time to force him to use his weak eye.

As for the other comments about blue hair and the laptop perception, I guess I hadn't really looked at it that way. If I would have had the chance in school to use a laptop, I'd have been all for that. I used my home computer (a C64 and the Commodore line printer) for most of my work when the teachers permitted it. I guess the laptop at that time would have weighed more than all my books combined though and the processing power would have been extremely limited (old enough to have taken a typing course that was on an electronic typewriter rather than a computer keyboard).

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Sj0]

When I went to school, I learned MS Basic and wordperfect running on MS Dos. Before that, I learned about the Commodore 64, and how to run a variety of programs on that.

Evolve or die. Nothing you learn in early grades is going to be relevant later unless you use your brain and figure out the relevant information so you can apply it later.

Hell, the recent MS Office I learned in college is now completely obsolete thanks to the latest office.

Evolve or die.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Sj0]

Blue hair = Japanophile anime addict = loser geeky
Laptop = classical nerd = hip geeky

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[Sj0]

I personally believe US Americans are unable to do so, because some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and I believe that our education like such as South Africa, and the Iraq, everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here! In the U.S. should help the U.S. -- should help South Africa, should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[jazzy_jeph]

No I think the Fender Gibson comparison is still fair.You say you "read a huge book and several hundred man pages along the way" to do what may I ask, it wasn't browsing the web, or writing a document or drawing a picture or working on a spreadsheet because it is almost identical to use those programs in Linux as Windows. Now if you are talking about administering computer systems then it would be sensible to read up on them but I doubt if that's what the kids would have been learning. Or what about this analogy, I have a Nissan Prairie it has the indicator lever mounted on the other side to my Ford Fiesta, the Nissan isn't a bad version of the Fiesta or harder to use, its just different.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[drsmithy]

RAID-5 is simply not recommended for applications requiring performance, it's perfectly suited to archival storage (if you're not using tapes) and fileservers (where you would mostly see sequential read/write), and with a spare drive or two they're in most cases "safe enough", but when it comes to systems running 24/7 with loads ranging from "a lot" to "omfg" there is simply no alternative to a sweet-ass RAID-10-system.

Which probably isn't especially relevant to a desktop PC using fakeraid. ;)

And I still say that you need a pretty unrealistic corner-case for a RAID5 to be slower than a single disk (averaged over a reasonable timeframe, so not just a single IOP. ;) )

I'm certainly not going to argue RAID5 is as ast, or faster, than RAID10 (except maybe in long streaming writes). That would be dumb.

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[mcfedr]

it might be completely different to manage, but fixing a fender is gonna be different from fixing a gibson, but just playing it, opening firefox and browsing the internet, checking your mail is very very much the same...

Re:Obviously sign of jumping to conclusions

[errxn]

Seriously, where the FUCK did this attitude come from that you should only have the least possible amount of knowledge necessary to live your life?

Portugal?

Apology

[coppro]

I would like to apologize to everyone involved for being so judgmental, even though I never actually commented on the topic or said anything to anyone. I think I jumped to conclusions too (although the "people are stupid" doctrine continues to perform well).

Re:Apology

[pm_rat_poison]

Apology accepted, Captain Needa!

Re:Apology

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the first rule of wizardry: "People are stupid"

Re:Apology

[PHPNerd]

That, sir, deserves: roflcopter!!!!1!!11one

I think we all learned our lesson here.....

[martin_henry]

....when the teacher asks you what you're looking at, act cool and just say "My linux desktops. Nothing to see here...."

Brought to you by...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Richard M Stalin department. Flaming bystanders since 1983.
Seriously, I don't use proprietary software nor hardware without open specs, but freetards are lame.

Not how reporting works

[fastest fascist]

Hey hey hey! What is this? First we get a nice knee-jerk sensationalist story about an M$ drone teacher doing her utmost to keep the kids enslaved to capitalist software, and now you're ruining it all with facts and sensible dialogue between the parties involved? Where would we be if all the major news outlets started following their scaremongering and outright deceitful articles up with corrections and balanced analysis? I mean, what's next, honest reporting without hidden agendas?

Re:Not how reporting works

[madhurms]

Do you mean like, Fox News?

Re:Not how reporting works

[LingNoi]

I thought Microsoft got rid of the "get the facts" FUD campaign.

Oh well I guess nothing lasts forever..

Re:Not how reporting works

[celle]

"I mean, what's next, honest reporting without hidden agendas?"

What?!! Not that!! The shock would be just too much! They'd wipe out the public.

Reminds me of the old saying

[cabjf]

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." If either side had done some research or better communicating before yelling on the internet, this would have been a non-issue.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[jmerlin]

Did you just recommend doing research before arguing on the internet?

Clearly you must be new here. ...

Karen, is that you?

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[Just Some Guy]

If either side had done some research or better communicating before yelling on the internet, this would have been a non-issue.

In fairness to Starks, if I'd been threatened with having the cops called on me for something perfectly innocuous, I might've responded as he did. In hindsight it wasn't that big of a deal, but her opening salvo was fired from an elephant gun.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[Hatta]

Not really. The teacher still acted out of ignorance and fear. She deserved a good brow beating. Maybe next time she'll recognize her ignorance, and listen to her students instead of jumping to conclusions. Nothing damages the relationship between teacher and student than this kind of arbitrary and capricious exercise of power. Now the kids know that 1) the teacher is an idiot and 2) the teacher values obedience over correctness. This kind of behavior is absolutely not conducive to a constructive learning environment, and I hope that she's ashamed of herself.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[jbolden]

I agree she got to feel this from the other side.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[mcgrew]

Never ascribe to incompetence that which is adequately explained by greedy self interest.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[NonSequor]

I used to believe that there were people who deserved to be mocked for their ignorance.

I found that this philosophy was turning me into something I hated so I abandoned it.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[tqk]

"Nothing damages the relationship between teacher and student than this kind of arbitrary and capricious exercise of power."

Mr. MacAuley, grade five. He assigned some math problems one day that I enjoyed the living daylights out of. I told him so next day in class. He freaked out and screamed we'd do the problems he assigned us. WTF?!?

On the other hand, teachers do have it tough wrt IT these days. My sister is a elementary school teacher. She's not even allowed the privilege to change the date on her school supplied Mac, and the rules surrounding management of private student info/data makes Payment Card Industry procedures look laughable.

Re:Reminds me of the old saying

[mdmkolbe]

The act of taking away the CD's was in the right (kid being disruptive, needing time to besure that the CD's weren't porn, etc.), but the words written to Ken were not.

After re-reading the original e-mail excerpt, was trying to be reasonable given what she thought she knew (e.g. "I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing", "I will research this as time allows"). However, what she thought she knew was distressingly incorrect.

Karen can be faulted for two things. First, the method by which she came to her original conclusions is evidently seriously flawed. This is a grave fault.

Second, she should have approached Ken in a way that was reasonable even if what she thought she knew was in fact wrong. For example, instead of saying "I am not sure what you are doing is legal", she could have phrased it as an honest question.

Unfortunately these seem to be problems that the whole human race shares (though that is no excuse) and while most people can act reasonably when what they think they know is right, it is rare to find someone who can act in a way that is reasonable even in the off chance that they are wrong. Being more careful about this is a lesson all of us could learn.

Well...

[girlintraining]

So this was less about Linux and more about a teenage boy being, well... a boy. Figures. It would have gone better for him if it had been some ecchi anime. First rule of high school is -- don't point out that the teacher knows less than you do. The second rule of course is, if you break the first rule do so in an epic way.

Re:Well...

[mcgrew]

So this was less about Linux and more about a teenager being, well... a teenager

There, fixed that for ya. As the father of two girls who were teenagers I think I'm qualified to correct that statement (I'll bet you're their age).

First rule of high school is -- don't point out that the teacher knows less than you do.

Damn, why didn't you tell me that back when my science teacher gave my paper an A because he didn't understand it?

The second rule of course is, if you break the first rule do so in an epic way.

See Taking a "hydrogen bomb" to school (link is uncharactistically SFW journal)

Re:Well...

[girlintraining]

Well, I'm older than I look, but act younger than I am, so it evens out. ;) And girls are more interested in passing slashfic to each other than linux CDs, if my own experience is any judge. hehe

Re:Well...

[plasmacutter]

First rule of high school is -- don't point out that the teacher knows less than you do. The second rule of course is, if you break the first rule do so in an epic way.

You mean like bringing the ire of slashdot down on one teacher's poor head for that lack of knowledge?

Re:Well...

[mcgrew]

What's a slashfic? (I'm probably showing my age, even though like you I'm older than I look, but act younger than I am)

Would that be bloody fiction?

Re:Well...

[roscivs]

What's a slashfic? (I'm probably showing my age, even though like you I'm older than I look, but act younger than I am)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_fiction

Think: the equivalent of lesbian porn for women.

A good lesson

[wcrowe]

This is the kind of misunderstanding that can happen when software advocacy becomes a kind of religion.

Re:A good lesson

[PitaBred]

No, this is the kind of misunderstanding that can happen when we have such a litigious society that people think that threatening lawsuits and criminal charges against people is de rigeur, even if you have no clue what you're talking about. I completely understand someone lashing out when threatened like that.

Re:A good lesson

[EvilToiletPaper]

Software Advocacy has taken a religious form for a good reason.. there is another corporate religious entity that deems all 'free software users' to be demonic spawns of software-satan that'll reduce the computing world to a burning pool of bytes, blood, lava and wooden chairs.

For a long time, folks hadn't even heard of Linux. Those who had deemed it to be some unworkable voodoo that only smelly, greasy geeks could wrap their heads around. It was passed mostly by word-of-mouth at conferences, classes etc. At this point MS wasn't too concerned as it was still in a fledgling state and it required a considerable amount of user tech knowledge to be workable.

FF to the growth in internet bandwidth, fast downloads, more hardware compatibility and instant free forum/chat support and Linux popularity exploded exponentially. Now the balding boys at MS had something to be genuinely concerned about this hairy breed of open source free software hippies. Permanent Linux converts were talking about how fast and stable this system was, how they could do everything they did in Windows except faster and more reliably, how they got rid of the PC chopping axes, how their world is magically covered with flowers and pink ponies etc. etc..

Logically a corporate entity should have gone for aggressive price cuts and quality improvements but they decided to sink their moolah into an aggressive advertisement campaign that tagets all audience from hobos to CEOs.

Open source and free software advocates can stop being religious if the guys in the opposing camp stop brain washing everyone else.

Re:A good lesson

[eldepeche]

I am offended by your insinuation that the employees at Microsoft are not hairy.

It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Lumpy]

Teachers are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology.

Why the colleges that teach these teachers are choosing to NOT require classes in technology is beyond me.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[b4upoo]

I am more disturbed at the teacher's need to jump into action after assuming that there might be porn or some other banned materials on the disks.Is it not enough to go after kids for what they actually are known to be doing without digging deep at what they just might be doing? After all, anyone might be doing anything.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[I_want_information]

Because then THEY'D have to admit that they are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology. Really.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[bigpaperbag]

Obviously you're not a teacher who has to deal with parents/PTA/school boards who are jumping after the teachers about not jumping after the students about things that have NOTHING to do with teaching to begin with.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Thyamine]

You may as well say that you wonder why they aren't required to take classes in auto repair or biochemisty. They don't need it. Would it help in situations like this, sure, but I can assure you that my wife has never had one of her kindergartners ask about Linux. I think we all (and I do it myself) assume that technology should be more important to people, but I would guess that most professions feel that way.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Aladrin]

My first reaction to that is "They don't need it!"

But then I remember that colleges require you to take Phys Ed, cross-cultural and cross-gender classes, 'arts' classes like 'Intro to American Cinema' and other trash. Requiring you to take Tech classes makes a lot more sense than those other classes do.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Peter Simpson]

Teachers are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology.

That's a pretty broad brush you're painting teachers with. Don't know about your schools, but my town has computers in the classrooms, and teachers that, for the most part, know how to use them to help them get their jobs done.

Many of them have heard about open source software, and the schools installed Firefox on the PCs this year, in acknowledgment of IE's susceptibility to malware.

However, getting back to the topic of the article, this whole episode shows what happens when we let our emotions get in the way of thinking, and underlines the rule about writing emails: don't do it when you're upset or angry, you'll only regret it later. Looks like these two adults learned that lesson the hard way, but at least they learned it.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[jbolden]

There is no conflict between due process and being active in prevention. You simply raise the penalty if they plead innocent and are later found guilty. Something like an honor court system.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[wikid_one]

What is more important is what they teach to the education students when technology classes are actually required.

A friend of mine has a degree in education from a big name teacher's college in the area. She also has a masters in "Teaching and Learning with Technology" and still has no idea about anything other than Windows and Microsoft software. Trying to explain to her how to use the MacBook she bought was like teaching her French.

To compare, the community college, no less than 5 miles down the road, requires every person working on a technology related degree to take a generic operating systems course. This course covers Linux, OS X, and Windows, as well as the main programs on each platform. I was required to take the class while I was there for an AutoCAD proficiency certificate, and AutoCAD is no longer supported on Linux, so knowing it would be trivial to my education.

I'm not sure what the best way to remedy this would be. If people show a desire to learn about other options, then the school would happily add those classes. However, if people don't have the proper education to show them these options exist, then how do they know there is something else out there?

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[pyrr]

"Teachers are incredibly uneducated when it comes to technology.

There, fixed that for you... :)

I make this observation firsthand. The teacher's union is viciously opposed to holding teachers to any sort of standards, including proficiency in computers and other technology. Staff meetings and inservice days are generally reserved for curriculum and policy discussions. And honestly, I'm downright shocked over the unwillingness of many teachers to learn on their own about the tools they're REQUIRED to use. I like my end users. I try to help them improve their proficiency by teaching them what I can. But I'd honestly have to rate at least 35% of the teachers who are my end users as "poor-unsatisfactory" when it comes to computer proficiency. They do not even grasp the basics of "dragging and dropping" or "cutting and pasting" to copy and move files. It seems like every week, I have to explain this sort of fundamental operation to at least one person.

I'd rate the next 50% to be "competent", which means they can at least use their computers as their jobs require at a bare minimum (entering grades, taking attendance, using email), but folks in this group rarely seem to use technology effectively in teaching.

Finally, I'd have to say around 15% of my end users are power users who are able to effectively use computers and technology in their classrooms and instruct their students in the use of technology. Aside from those content areas where the use of technology isn't really much of a factor (such as PE and music), I guess I'd consider this group to be the only ones I'd give a passing grade to in terms of technology.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[jimicus]

Because technology is a tool. And you can't turn a lousy teacher into a good one just by giving them better tools.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[jdh3.1415]

Teachers are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology.

Geez, you can substitute any two professions into this sentence and it works. For instance:

IT professionals are incredibly undereducated when it comes to teaching.

Or, my personal favoriate:

IT professionals are incredibly undereducated when it comes to the law. Although, they'll happily give you free legal advice on Slashdot.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[SanityInAnarchy]

You can, however, make life very difficult for a good one by giving them lousy tools, or by not teaching them how to use their tools.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Abstrackt]

Teachers are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology.

Why the colleges that teach these teachers are choosing to NOT require classes in technology is beyond me.

I think it's safe to say a lot of teachers are undereducated when it comes to technology, but not all of them, and the ones that are undereducated are gradually being replaced with teachers that have been educated properly educated on it.

My wife's a teacher and she had to take technology courses for her degree. Not just the usual ones where they spend an hour and a half explaining how a mouse works, but classes like "Technology in the Classroom" where they discussed its impact on learning and how to use it effectively in class.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Dragonslicer]

Why the colleges that teach these teachers are choosing to NOT require classes in technology is beyond me.

And how many teachers over the age of 40 would have been taught anything about Linux when they were in college?

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[ExpressTrain]

My wife is a teacher, and her one technology class covered . . . wait for it . . . Logo

Yeah, that's useful.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[plasmacutter]

Teachers are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology.

Why the colleges that teach these teachers are choosing to NOT require classes in technology is beyond me.

I don't believe you have done much research on this, but the lack of compensation has created some serious shortages.
While the pay is not utterly horrific considering the attached benefits, the hoops you jump through and the environment in which you work should demand more.

I'm sure, however, that the collapsing economy will result in expanding pools for these positions, as they still provide insurance, pension, and a baseline income, which is more security than many.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Flyers2391]

They do require a class in technology, however in most basic "technology" classes that means learning how to use the newest version of MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[EvilToiletPaper]

Teachers are also incredibly incapable of 'learning' new stuff, especially technology.

We used to host a 2-week long technology crash course for middle-high school teachers in our university for which I used to be the tech. assistant, around 40 teachers from around the state used to attend to learn some computing basics like Windows, Word, Excel and Powerpoint (obviously this event was sponsored by MS, we even had to erect a Windows banner above the projector panel)

I assisted for 3 conferences and the classes were worse than an inner city high school. Most of the teachers were only there for the extra travel and pay raise that they got out of it. Most didn't bother to listen to the instructor, some didn't even turn their laptops on and the rest who knew 'browsers' were just browsing sports pages on yahoo. In all, out of the 40 I would say only 2-3 were actually paying any attention and the problems I solved for them were genuine problems like text formatting in word, slide timing in powerpoint etc. The rest of them asked me to solve stuff that the instructor had just explained 5 minutes ago in painstaking detail, like how do I create a new document in word?

We should host learning classes for teachers before teaching them any real stuff.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[BitterOak]

Why the colleges that teach these teachers are choosing to NOT require classes in technology is beyond me.

I went to teacher's college a couple of years ago at the University of Windsor and we were required to take a technology course. I assume it's the same at many teacher's colleges, but it might not be universal.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[I_want_information]

I'm currently doing some research on this, and here are just the beginnings of what I suspect will turn out to be a seriously depressing state of teacher technology training:

Most teachers have not had the education or training to use technology effectively in their teaching. Only 15 percent of U.S. teachers reported having at least nine hours of training in education technology in 1994. In 18 states, teacher education students do not need courses in educational technology to obtain a teaching license. -- Computers and Classrooms: The Status of Technology in U.S. Schools. (Policy Information Center, Educational Testing Service, 1997).

When making millions available to place computers in the classroom and wire said classrooms, the Clinton administration listed as number 1 of its 4 related goals the following:

All teachers in the nation will have the training and support they need to help students learn using computers and the information superhighway. And 10 years later, here we are, again, with the incoming administration proposing to just dump still more money into the same technology black hole.

Who will train the teachers? Currently... the national average for funds devoted to technology training is only 5% of the technology budget (Mageau, 1995)... superintendents ... contention is that precious staff development funds are being eaten away by initial training that should, and could, be provided by preservice teacher education programs... A recent report from the Office of Technology Assessment (1995) confirms that only 3% of recent teacher education graduates felt "very well prepared" to use technology in the classroom... Sadly, Researchers have been reporting for at least a decade that schools and colleges of education are woefully behind schedule in areas related to technological uses in today's K-12 classroom (Brooks & Kopp, 1991; Dublin, 1994). Individually, most professors recognize technology training as a growing need... Programmatically, though, they still think it should be taught as a stand alone course, not necessarily integrated into their specific content area (Barksdale, 1996)... The same author notes in the abstract the resistance of many schools, colleges, and departments of education to embrace technological applications into their methods coursework. -- Technology and teacher preparation: an oxymoron?, Stetson & T. Bagwell, Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, v. 7 No. 2 (1999).

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[LingNoi]

underlines the rule about writing emails: don't do it when you're upset or angry,

Unless you're talking specifically about Karen's email then I think you should reconsider.

This women lied, threatened legal action and pulled the first punch.

If anything is to be learned it's that if the kid in your class is doing your job teaching because you're crap and know nothing about the subject, perhaps it's time to move on to a different career instead of acting like a bitch.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[LingNoi]

Except she wasn't a good teacher. She got pissed off because the student was doing her job, teaching the class.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[shellbeach]

Except she wasn't a good teacher. She got pissed off because the student was doing her job, teaching the class.

What on earth makes you conclude that the class was about operating systems?

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Ant P.]

You may as well say that you wonder why they aren't required to take classes in auto repair or biochemisty.

I don't know where you come from, but in my school basic computer literacy was _slightly_ more likely to be used in a classroom than the ability to replace a spare tyre or administer local anasthetic...

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Erikderzweite]

If you can't do anything, teach. If you can do even less -- teach teaching.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[eldepeche]

In all fairness, PowerPoint is pretty hard to use properly. I can't stop it from putting in *WHOOSH* sounds every time it changes slides.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[I_want_information]

Actually, not music. There's some very interesting software being used at our local middle school. Used with a mic, the software will evaluate the student's playing of a piece in the accompanying book. It will point out errors. It also will play accompanying sounds from other instruments. I don't recall the name, but it really is pretty neat!

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[I_want_information]

At least it wasn't PowerPoint.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[I_want_information]

In all fairness, PowerPoint is pretty hard to use properly. I can't stop it from putting in *WHOOSH* sounds every time it changes slides.

That's because it sucks. There really isn't any good use for it in K-12.

I think I read it best here: Power corrupts; PowerPoint corrupts absolutely!

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[I_want_information]

This stuff needs to be covered where we can MAKE them pay attention, like, before they get their degree/certification. But THAT would require that the older-than-dirt Ph.D.'s in ed who oversee their teacher prep coursework would know/understand the need to know anything about technology.

And that obviously ain't a gonna happen...

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[I_want_information]

Right, because obviously we can lay rather alot of this crap at the whole "constructivist" teaching revolution in which there simply is no such thing as objective reality.

There is no gravity; we've all simply and separately come to the conclusion that the earth sucks.

This is why education in the US sucks. Because they refuse to admit that there is such a thing as objective reality. And that's why they can't be taught technology.

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[pyrr]

Good point! We do have some sequencing software and keyboards and electronic drums in scattered music classrooms, I was thinking more the old-school orchestra classes. Even those teachers often do use some software to help the kids keep time and hear what they're supposed to play. Wasn't there a game for the WII that rated a player's singing, along the lines of Guitar Hero measured playing a fake guitar?

Re:It simply illuminates a single fact.

[Tubal-Cain]

Teachers are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology.

That's a pretty broad brush you're painting teachers with. Don't know about your schools, but my town has computers in the classrooms, and teachers that, for the most part, know how to use them to help them get their jobs done.

Even Tech Support (you know, the people whom are actually supposed to have a good grasp of technology) can be very wrong sometimes.

Where is any verification of any of this?

[ergo98]

This guy is getting a tonne of publicity for this (and apparently he is well versed in the art of getting attention for his projects in this manner), based upon nothing verifiable.

Maybe I'm just too internet shellshocked to believe anything any more, but it reeks of being a complete fabrication, in an era when Lying on the Internet is considered perfectly okay so long as you know to say "Ha ha! All a joke!" if caught, or perhaps the classic "This was just an example composite of various situations!".

I could be entirely wrong, but it all seems like a terribly thin ruse to me, with a ridiculous, one dimensional strawman (or women in this case) put up and then viciously knocked down. On the resulting torrent of perhaps gullible internet vigilantes, a hastily written cool-down appeared to, perhaps, try to divert them before they uncover the fiction of this (if it is fiction. My bets are that it is, but that's an uninformed opinion).

Then again, maybe I'm just too skeptical.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[ergo98]

As one aside -- this story reminds me, somehow, of the guy who took donated computers and prepped them for needy kids or something, and some purported donor complained when he found out his donation was going to a "retard". My fiction senses are giving me the same vibrations.

But I can't find that computer donation one. Anyone have a link to it if you remember?

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[ergo98]

Found it, and it's the SAME GUY. Honestly when the correlation clicked in my mind I had no idea at all that it was the same guy, but somehow the hashing algorithm was colliding the two articles.

http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/09/wasted-on-idiot.html

Wow.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[ergo98]

Apparently some folks won't believe a word the man says until they poke their own goddamn fingers into his open wounds.

I had no idea who he was when I read this latest article, and went in with zero preconceived notions (and I only read the article because I thought it was going to be about the usage costs in time).

I very quickly got the sense that someone was spinning some fiction by the completely over-the-top nature to it. I could be absolutely wrong, but it was the distinct feeling I got from it, like when a friend tells you an over the top story that exaggerates all of their biases and fears to epic levels, and while you know there's a nugget of truth in there someone, what you're hearing has little relation to it.

The story seemed to be perfectly set up for a knock down. The donate a computer to a "retard" thing gave me the same feeling for the same reason: That someone "well intentioned" thought they could setup a strawman (probably justifying the lies to themselves based upon the idea that somewhere out there is an ignorant asshole, so why not just adopt them into your own fiction because it's "for good") to get a little attention. Maybe the author of this piece is nothing like that, but you always have to be weary of it because they're usually the ones who spin the stories fantastical enough to get the big attention.

no net shyster is gonna pull the wool over their eyes

The whole medium has been destroyed by liars who always have some mediocre, self-serving justification for their lies. No, I despise liars in any form.

A flawed but well-meaning individual trying to get hardware to kids in his area who can use it, and spread the word about free software in the process.

So if he completely made up this entire story, is that okay with you? (Allowing that it could be entirely true, but I'm just curious) Do the ends justify the means?

I'm not a religious person, but the old saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" conveys a lot of truth. The world is full of people justifying what they do based upon the idea that it's for some greater good.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[multipartmixed]

You could call "Karen" fairly easily, there aren't that many Karens working for AISB who teach grade 8.

BAILEY KAREN T-7/8 P.E. MARTIN MS 414-3243
CASE KAREN T-7/8 THEATER MURCHISON MS 414-3254
CIESLA KAREN T-7/8 MATH O HENRY MS 414-3229
DONSBACH KAREN T-7/8 SCI- GEN' BAILEY MS 414-4990
GREEN KAREN T-7/8 LIFE SCI MURCHISON MS 414-3254
HARRIS KAREN T-7/8 LANG ARTS COVINGTON MS 841-3686
SCHIPPER KAREN T-7/8 CHOIR KEALING MS 414-3214

..and I think you could safely eliminate the PE and Choir teachers. And those phone numbers are in NPA 512.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[DrWho520]

A viral marketing campaign based upon a rage filled argument between two people ignorant of their respective fields and situations? You, sir, have been at this far to long. I suggest a walk in a park, preferably one with ducks to feed.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[ergo98]

A viral marketing campaign based upon a rage filled argument between two people ignorant of their respective fields and situations?

The first post got him a load of attention (basically every tech focuses meme type site out there was funneling to him), largely by people for whom this validated their fears / prejudices / biases.

It then devolved into a lynch mob mentality, as these things tend to do, with people virtually assaulting the school board and anyone named "Karen" at that school. The author had to create the conciliatory "I was wrong" backtrack article to cool things down.

A win for him anyways, because it's then attention x2!

Yeah, people get themselves attention through tactics like this (not saying that this guy did, but it's the feeling I do get). It's the Violent Acres tactic for attention whoring, with people amazingly in remarkable situations with the edge-cases of society with incredible frequency.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[genner]

I suggest a walk in a park, preferably one with ducks to feed.

Just don't feed the geese.

http://www.examiner.com/a-1740725~KC_may_criminalize_feeding_Canada_geese_in_parks.html

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[EvilToiletPaper]

I'm just too internet shellshocked to believe anything any more,

That is so politically incorrect, the correct term is 'Blogopathic PTSD'

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[Risen888]

Same guy, Ken Starks. Also the same guy who tried to raise about a zillion bucks to put Tux on an Indy 500 car. I'm still torn as to whether the guy's a con artist or just fucking stupid.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[dangitman]

I agree, there is no verification that it actually happened. It's not very plausible - a woman threatens a student and says Linux is illegal, and then turns around and starts using Linux a few days later? Pull the other one, it's got bells on it. What's more astounding is the utter lack of skepticism on slashdot and other sites - everybody just believed this, because they wanted to believe in a fairytale anti-Linux dragon that could be easily slain by a noble knight of the FOSS round-table.

Where is the fact checking on this one? If it actually happened, there's at least a local newspaper story in it.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[tsanth]

I see means and opportunity, but what of motive?

Regarding the Karen post/follow-up: myself (and at least a few others) felt that his initial response was unnecessarily condescending and rude. Yes, his follow-up helps to patch things up, but it's not a stretch for me to believe that people from "the other side" who read that email have already been pushed away from the "Linux side." If indeed he was trying to convert people to the "Linux side," he did his goal a disservice with that first post: IMHO, the damage had already been done.

To me, Occam's Razor suggests Clark's Law (although the tags suggest that others derived Hanlon's Razor instead).

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[LingNoi]

What makes you believe he made it up? Prove to me he made it up. You can't you're a hypocrite, you're lying yourself.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[LingNoi]

Wrong, he posted on his blog about the "ignorance of people".

It wasn't until pcpro picked it up with the title "Teacher threatens to call the cops over Linux" when the whole thing turned into a whoring event.

Umm.. now if only we could figure out which person in the UK phoned him up and would buy Karen's last name for $1000..

mm.. UK... pcpro.co.uk... mmm, well I can't figure this out..

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[LingNoi]

Where's your evidence to disprove it? You're as guilty as everyone else until you have evidence to suggest otherwise.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[eldepeche]

Who the fuck modded this dickhead up? Way to go, making it more likely that random creeps from the internet are going to call and harass these teachers.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[dangitman]

What the fuck? It's the duty of a person making a claim to prove it, not of others to disprove it.

I'm "guilty" for not automatically believing a story that has no corroborating evidence whatsoever? That doesn't make any sense.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[LingNoi]

So you don't have evidence. OK, bye bye.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[xenocide2]

I enjoy your brand of logic. You owe me ten dollars, unless you can prove you don't.

Re:Where is any verification of any of this?

[dangitman]

Uhhh... it's often impossible to prove a negative. His claim is impossible to disprove, because he provides no specifics to make his claim disprovable. He doesn't give any names, or the name of the school.

It sounds like you don't even have a basic education in logic and reasoning. Can you disprove that I had sex with a world-famous supermodel on December 3rd, if I don't tell you what that supermodel's name is?

Furthermore, you claim I'm guilty of something for being skeptical about unsupported claims. Would you be "guilty" if you didn't believe somebody who told you that space aliens are invading the Earth in three days, without providing any evidence?

With this level of ignorance, you are a threat to yourself and others. I suggest you stop reading slashdot and go back to school until you can learn basic logic and survival skills. This is pretty important stuff to understand.

Re:Teachers have underwear

[Anonymous Coward]

do you think I should suggest installing Linux on her computer?

Only after she drops that restraining order against you, dude.

Re:Teachers have underwear

[Spazztastic]

There's this totally hot teacher that I want to bone, do you think I should suggest installing Linux on her computer?

I don't know... she may need some assistance compiling her kernel.

First comes insinuation, then comes love...

[fahrbot-bot]

From TFA:

Karen and I have talked on the phone now for a couple of hours, here and there. We've come to understand each other more and had she said some of the things in her email that she said during our phone conversations...

Ken and Karen sittin' in a tree. K. I. S. S. I. N. G. ...

Re:First comes insinuation, then comes love...

[BobReturns]

...first comes love, then comes marriage,
Then comes a month trying to get the drivers for your wireless card working.

Re:First comes insinuation, then comes love...

[SL1200MKII]

then the baby carriage?

Re:First comes insinuation, then comes love...

[BobReturns]

Nah, once you start down the linux path it's rare to ever have sex again.

Re:First comes insinuation, then comes love...

[basicio]

Uh oh. Looks like said middle schoolers have found slashdot.

Re:First comes insinuation, then comes love...

[lilrobbie]

Finally! Some intelligent discussion might happen...

A Happy ending

[jmorris42]

Yes the teacher brought the storm on herself. Not by being ignorant of open source but by being rude. This is a good object lesson about email more than anything else.

Helios was perfectly in the right to flame back, especially since he was pretty polite about it considering the pretty nasty slander the teacher was throwing at him. And even being ticked off he protected her identity so she won't have to suffer the consequences of her bad manners. Even better, after talking it over with her he appears to have turned the situation into a win. So high praise for him and since she seems to have learned something positive out of the mess lets give her a break now.

Re:A Happy ending

[LWATCDR]

"Helios was perfectly in the right to flame back"
Why? He made up allegations that her union was in the pay of Microsoft and that is why she was bashing Linux....

Not only that we have no real idea what the kid told her or how he acted.
Simple truth is that flaming is almost never justified because it does not good. It is simply playing the choir.
Had he first asked to speak to her before flaming her and then launching a flame war on his blog things might have been a lot more civil.
Of course his actions got him a lot of attention from the Linux faithful. Playing to the choir.

Re:A Happy ending

[LingNoi]

It's obvious the Karen was pissed because the kid was stealing her thunder by teaching when that is clearly her job with her superior intellect and knowledge of MS word.

Re:A Happy ending

[Onymous Coward]

> Helios was perfectly in the right to flame back

Well, depends on what you mean by "in the right".

Some people don't subscribe to the "eye for an eye is fair" model from an intellectual standpoint, though it's totally understandable as an emotional reaction, if that's what you mean.

If by "in the right" you mean "it was the right thing to do to make the situation better", that's plainly wrong.

Let's not confuse emotional response with helping out.

But you're right that he still did a pretty good job of keeping his temper in check to otherwise do right by her.

Re:A Happy ending

[LWATCDR]

Not at all. It is obvious was annoyed at a child disrupting class. The class wasn't about using Linux . The kid was being disruptive and was passing out CDs he got from some guy to the kids in class.
The correct way for the kid to have handled it was to ask the teacher if he could do a demonstration in class about Linux and then give all the members of the class CDs.
 

Re:A Happy ending

[LingNoi]

Yeah the class was obviously about how to use MS Word.

Re:A Happy ending

[QuietObserver]

I completely agree with several points of your post, but I am not sure I'd agree that "Helios was perfectly in the right to flame back." I know it is certainly human nature to respond that way to comments as nasty as some of those he received, but I, personally, believe human nature is not always the best course of action.

Despite this, however, I agree that he took the correct course of action in a) protecting her from libel by not distributing her surname or contact information at any time, b) discussing the matter with her in a civilized manner after the fact, which opportunity he used to reconcile with her, and c) posting a public apology for his earlier statements. These latter points, in my opinion, set a much better example for all of us than his earlier behavior, even if the teacher "brought the storm upon herself" first.

My personal feelings are I am happy to see that Helios and Karen made amends with each other in this situation, and I wish the best for each of them in their individual future endeavors. I hope they have both learned valuable lessons from this experience.

thanks, internet!

[Lord Ender]

It was obvious to the intelligent person that this entire situation was made of fail from the get-go. Any time spent analyzing this will likely just make us all dumber. Quit giving it press.

Boo to bloggers

[floodo1]

"her spidey-senses started tingling"
"a gaggle of giggling 8th grade boys"

Nice reporting. /NOT. I get so tired of new blog speak where everything is supposed to be cute and friendly.

Re:Boo to bloggers

[scubamage]

That's not super friendly. It is however, alliteration.

Re:Boo to bloggers

[floodo1]

It's the tone that is "friendly"...almost childish. As if every person on the blog is a close friend that you share your creative literary whims with.

It's most prevalent in the Hollywood related blogs. I don't read them, but I see enough quotes from them to make me want to puke at the level of discourse :(

Re:Boo to bloggers

[julesh]

That's not super friendly. It is however, alliteration.

Which means, of course, that it is freakily fucking friendly, filling our frail hearts with fear of further forthcoming friendliness, foiling our faltering flight, fading our fanciful fantasy of flat, emotionless interactions.

Culture of Fear

[Adrian Lopez]

When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling.

What a shame that the first thing some people do when told about adults interacting with children is to think of something perverse.

Re:Culture of Fear

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a major reason why I, as an adult male, no longer teach grade school: "Once accused, always guilty."

Re:Culture of Fear

[Anonymous Coward]

Such suspicions often serve only to highlight the accusers own moral struggle.

Re:Culture of Fear

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the 'Ministry of Fear' is working in the U.S.

I assume you don't live in the U.S., otherwise you would know this by now.

Case in point: My brother takes his 2 sons to the park so they can play at the playground, and play with their RC cars. In return, he gets the evil eye from every woman at the park.

The end result of all the media saturation with 'think of the children' scenarios, has led the 1st assumption to be that an alone male with children, is an instant pedophile.

People are dumb, and can be convinced of anything if it is repeated often enough. This has been consistent throughout history. I personally have been guilty of such things, but have learned to cure myself of such stupidity.

As for the rest of society? It's probably going to get worse, before it gets better.

Re:Culture of Fear

[east coast]

Modded troll? Great rebuttal! Slashdot just amazes me more and more each day.

Jump to Conclusions Mat

[Ogive17]

Using my Jump to Conclusions Mat it has been decided that I lose a turn.. hmmph

Re:Jump to Conclusions Mat

[jonaskoelker]

Get it right. It's "loose a turn".

Oh, the iroony!

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Dunbal]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system.

      What, and do away with the education free educational system we have now?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The Linux PR/Education Department Needs Volunteers

[postbigbang]

You can find a million things online as reference materials, but it's difficult to talk to civilians about why FOSS is a good idea, and how it's put together. People kind of glaze over when you tell them the differences. Often, they don't care and are suspect of anything truly free.

Centralized advocacy could certainly be helpful, as Linux is by its nature, evolutionary and rife with useful anarchy. Still, protagonists need to do some work to evolve the public image of Linux/GNU, FOSS, and why. Half-cocked replies are what turns people off, as they're insecure enough already about computing.

At the end of the day

[Nate B.]

Ignorance is the most expensive commodity in the USA today. And we pay for that ignorance on a daily basis.

Hopefully Ken has been able to push the frontiers of ignorance back just a little. Sometimes it requires a jolt to get that moment moving and I think that both Ken and Karen have learned a lot about jumping to conclusions. Here's hoping that Karen will now become an ally to Ken and his project.

Re:At the end of the day

[itsdapead]

Ignorance is the most expensive commodity in the USA today.

Well, that just about wraps it up for the law of "supply and demand"... :-)

Re:At the end of the day

[Seraphim_72]

Hopefully Ken has been able to push the frontiers of ignorance back just a little.

By being an ass? Sorry his reply was way off base and as ignorant and stupid as the accusation. IMHO he owes the entire linux community an apology.

Sera

Hmm...

[XPeter]

Well, I don't know about this place but in my High School we use Windows, Linux and Open-source and the combo works great. I'm taking classes in a program called T.E.A.M.S (Technology Enriched Academy for Mathematics and Science) and we do basically any thing tech-related (on a freshman level). As far as OS's go, for some things we use XP (AutoCad and Visual Basic) and for others we use OS X (Anything media related). IMO you can't have just Linux or Just Windows, the combination of the two works great! But like I said, IMO. For a browser we use Firefox and Safari. I'm trying to convince my teachers to give Ubuntu 8.10 a go and it looks like we'll be installing it on some machines soon. Just my two cents :)

Apology takes strength.

[chaim79]

This guy is really showing some strength and intelligence, he has made a public apology, and is working with the teacher instead of continuing the rant. The teacher has gotten a serious shaking up from the OSS community (through the blog) and he is doing his best to make a win of this situation.

This could have very easily degenerated into some serious verbal warfare, lawsuits, etc.

While I was interested by the first blog post and kept watch for followup, this second post makes me want to really keep an eye on this guy, actions like this apology are usually a sign of someone that should be listened to.

Re:Apology takes strength.

[Nimey]

I wonder if the kid's parents made him apologize. I would hope they would if he didn't do it voluntarily.

Re:Apology takes strength.

[dangitman]

But don't you get the feeling this is all completely fabricated, and the teacher doesn't actually exist? It's all set up to make Ken look like the hero.

Re:Apology takes strength.

[chaim79]

This is a possibility, and if it ever turns out to be the case I will be disappointed, but for the moment I will attempt to trust the guy and assume he is telling the truth for now.

Re:Always how reporting works

[TaoPhoenix]

M$ $UX! BALLMER DOES!
APPLE IS ROTTEN! STEVE KILLS JOBS!

.

.

Ahem. Now then. Nice smaller type correction.

Microsoft appears to be making progress towards Windows 7.
Apple has clearly innovated in several consumer areas.

I'm betting this becomes +1 ConfusedMods.

nice to see

[nomadic]

Well this blog posting was definitely a lot more admirable than the last one, and I'm glad he also apologized for the anti-union tirade. In regards to specific passages:

The student did get his Linux disks back after the class. The lad was being disruptive, but that wasn't mentioned. Neither was the obvious fact that when she saw a gaggle of giggling 8th grade boys gathered around a laptop, the last thing she expected to see on that screen was a spinning cube.

She didn't know what was on those disks he was handing out. It could have been porn, viral .exe's...any number of things for all she knew. When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling. Coupled with the fact that she truly was ignorant of honest-to-goodness Free Software, and you have some fairly impressive conclusion-jumping.

This is a good point, and I actually think a reasonable teacher may have reasonably been worried about what was going on. Even one who actually had a basic tech background.

Karen isn't alone in her ignorance. I have sat in a PhD's office...a PhD that happened to be a principal of a school. She told me that according to her "tech staff", it was illegal to remove Microsoft Windows from their school computers. So who is ignorant here? The "tech staffer" afraid of losing his MCSE position or the Dr. of Education that didn't bother to check into such a statement. Ignorance isn't the sole possession of this particular school teacher.

Actually it's quite plausible that tech staff isn't allowed to do this. Maybe the district has a contract with Microsoft, or the school regulations prohibit changing a standard district-wide setup.

Now to the meat of the matter. Many, many of you have pushed for the identification of this teacher.

How about you reveal the identification of THESE people? I have some things I want to say to them...

Re:nice to see

[SillyNickName]

Actually it's quite plausible that tech staff isn't allowed to do this. Maybe the district has a contract with Microsoft, or the school regulations prohibit changing a standard district-wide setup.

Which is quite a bit different from "illegal".

Re:nice to see

[nomadic]

Not necessarily; it is possible the Texas code has a sort of general provision prohibiting the violation of district rules, or the interference with a contract by state employees.

Re:nice to see

[jbolden]

Being worried was one thing. But the student made a claim that the software was legal to redistribute and until she had good reason to dispute that claim....

As for the tech staff, there is a difference between in violation of policy and illegal.

Re:nice to see

[LWATCDR]

"She didn't know what was on those disks he was handing out. It could have been porn, viral .exe's...any number of things for all she knew. When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling. Coupled with the fact that she truly was ignorant of honest-to-goodness Free Software, and you have some fairly impressive conclusion-jumping.

This is a good point, and I actually think a reasonable teacher may have reasonably been worried about what was going on. Even one who actually had a basic tech background."
And even if she was told by the student that it was a free Linux distro and she knew what it was should she have believed him?
If so what a great way to safely had your buds a disk of pirated MP3s, porn, or movies. Just make an ISO of DSL that also contains the other data, burn it DVD or CDR and hand them out. Heck you could use Puppy and remaster it as a Live look DVD/CD.

Re:nice to see

[jimicus]

Actually it's quite plausible that tech staff isn't allowed to do this. Maybe the district has a contract with Microsoft, or the school regulations prohibit changing a standard district-wide setup.

Don't know about the US, nor do I know whether things have changed in the UK in the last 6 or 7 years. But the last time I looked at a standard Microsoft Education contract, it was quite clear. In order to count up how many licenses you need, you must count the number of computers physically capable of running their products. Not the number of computers you intend to run their products on.

It didn't actually say "and once you've bought the licenses you're not allowed to install Linux anyway", but it meant that selling the concept of Linux was suddenly much harder.

Re:nice to see

[LingNoi]

She's a teacher not the RIAA police.

Re:nice to see

[Seraphim_72]

There is also a difference between reality and non-techie reality

Re:nice to see

[jbolden]

What do you mean?

Re:nice to see

[LWATCDR]

Yea and I am sure the parents when they found out wouldn't be screaming for her head if some kid had handed out CDs of porn in her classroom and she did nothing to stop it.
On and the RIAA and MPAA wouldn't have sued the school for millions of dollars.
It is NOT ok to distribute media to your classmates in class with out the teachers permission.

Re:nice to see

[LingNoi]

Your point was that even if she loaded up the disk it could be a liveCD with extra stuff..

There only so much investigation she can do. Either way she overreacted before even checking her facts.

Re:nice to see

[LWATCDR]

That is why you wouldn't let the kid source the CDs. If the teacher decided that giving out the CDs was a good thing then she would source them herself.
Or to be safe not let the kid give them out in class at all. Did the teacher over react? Yes she could have handled it better. Did the blogger over react? Yes just as much if not more so since the teacher didn't put it out for public consumption.

Re:Teachers have underwear

[the_B0fh]

It really depends on what options you turn on.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[hansraj]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system

Me too!

I never liked those little brats. I say put them in a windowless environment, put them all in one!

Adobe? Google Earth? iTunes???? Free???!!!

[zojas]

in the blog, he provides a list of some of the software that the school makes available. but what he actually says is "Other open source software on both images include audacity and lame, and other Free Software such as Google Earth, iTunes, Adobe and many plug-ins."

Great, except for the part that Adobe, Google Earth, and most especially iTunes, are anything BUT Free Software. If he had said "free software" it would have been ok, but he deliberately went out of his way to capitalize it like the Free Software Foundation does. I'm pretty sure Adobe has produced absolutely no Free Software (Free as in Freedom, not free as in purchase price). and iTunes is certainly not Free; source is not available, and all the metadata for the iTunes library is locked in a proprietary, binary blob.

it's just shocking that this big-time supposed Free Software advocate doesn't even know how to spell free software!

Re:Adobe? Google Earth? iTunes???? Free???!!!

[chilligan]

Well he did put them uncapitalized at first, but someone commented upon the use of the words along with free-as-in-beer application (not Free Software), so he capitalized them.... odd isn't it ?

Re:Adobe? Google Earth? iTunes???? Free???!!!

[itsdapead]

Great, except for the part that Adobe, Google Earth, and most especially iTunes, are anything BUT Free Software.

I think you're being pedantic about a stray capital letter. If I recall correctly the teacher's had originally expressed disbelief in the mere concept of software that you didn't have to pay to use: jumping straight to the four freedoms might have been a bridge too far and would probably end up with the guy being accused of supplying free beer to minors...

it's just shocking that this big-time supposed Free Software advocate doesn't even know how to spell free software!

A true devotee would probably call it Software Libre (Now he's teaching the kids communism? Burn him!)

and all the metadata for the iTunes library is locked in a proprietary, binary blob.

Actually, most if it is available in XML: I use a script copy the files from my "car" playlist to SD card (to be fair, I think some of the ratings and smart playist stuff is in blobs, but nobody ever really accused iTunes of being open).

Re:Adobe? Google Earth? iTunes???? Free???!!!

[otakuj462]

I'm pretty sure Adobe has produced absolutely no Free Software (Free as in Freedom, not free as in purchase price).

Free (as in speech) software produced by Adobe: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/site/Home

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[corsec67]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system.

True, being able to see outside while sitting in the classroom can be distracting.

But, wouldn't renovation be expensive? Also, they have a higher electricity bill from having to use more lights.

teach are paid to teach a specific content

[fermion]

What is truly sad about this is the public perception that teachers and the teacher unions are disrupting eduction. As is clearly shown here, the disruptive comes from persons who beleive they are so smart that they are not forced to be a teacher, and therefore qualified to tell the teacher what to do.

First, here is a fact. Teaching a job, just like those who sit in office doing nothing more than type code on keyboard. I mean, how hard can it be type random gibberish in a keyboard? Anyone can do it, !. So the teachers first goal is keep the class moving so objectives can be taught, assessed, rethought, and year end tests passed. Do teachers do this to maximize bonuses. Duh, are we idiots, of course. Why are the automakers begging for money right now, to kep 8 figure salaries. Why do we code for any semi-legitimate business, to make the money.

Second, the tools teachers use are the tools teachers use. How many geeks know how to use every OS, every IDE. How many developers know how to write software without an IDE, or can code direct in assembly. Does that make the developers idiots. I might say so, but not really as I have a inch of compassion and am not an arrogant bastard. No one is going to go into an office, give the staff new software to use, and expect management not to react. See point one. Teacher are there to teach content, not be experts at things not even experts agree on. Many serious consider Free OS invalid. In is an opinion. Considering it otherwise refers back to the arrogant bastard.

Third, a classroom is necessarily a controlled environment. While it would be nice to allow kids to do whatever they want, it is not feasible. In most schools, computers are not set up as a redundant array of disposable devices, and if a computer is broken, that generally means several students are denied an education for at least a little while. While teaching *nix is a lofty goal, i wonder if the organization would be there to fix the machines before the next class came in, or if they would just say, hey it is not my problem, and i don't care if some kids loses an education.

This is a classic example of why people hate *nix. Here is a guy who is trying to help the cause, but instead has shown how clueless the cause is. Unlike Dell Foundation, who provides money to teachers to help thing, this guy just seems to attack teachers with no understanding of the context. Even now, there is no acknowledgment of the damage that has been done to the students.

Help students by becoming teachers or mentors, not by attacking them. After all, teachers don't go into your lame ass web development operation and tell you to use real tools.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[UnknownSoldier]

> Teaching a job,

A teacher is supposed to be about teaching how to learn -- that means they themselves shouldn't be afraid of different perceptions. That's why the teacher is a noob (or boob) -- she is close-minded until someone points out how idiotic and myopic her perception is.

> How many geeks know how to use every OS, every IDE. How many developers know how to write software without an IDE, or can code direct in assembly. Does that make the developers idiots.

It's not _that_ hard to learn. Unfortunately people learn applications, not critical thinking about how to _use_ an application.

Any half-decent programmer can pick up any language. Only the idiots think "there is ONE true WAY"

The difference is, most programmers aren't afraid to learn, unlike this teacher.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[jbolden]

Had did this flamebait get modded +5?

Many [experts] serious consider Free OS invalid.

Name one. This was an issue a decade ago today I don't know of any.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[pyrr]

"Help students by becoming teachers or mentors, not by attacking them."

Ken *was* playing a teacher/mentor to the kids. It was an ignorant teacher who attacked the kids who were excited to learn something new, and then went and attacked Ken too, threatening him with a lawsuit. There's a big difference between telling the kids what they were doing was inappropriate and that if they didn't put the software away and get back on-task that she'd take it away, and immediately seizing the kids' discs, accusing them of illegal activity, and threatening to have the mentor who provided Linux to the kids "investigated" as a criminal.

"People hate *nix" because they're ignorant of it, and ignorance breeds distrust, fear, and loathing. If you read the original email the author quoted, the teacher went-off on him in a rather strongly-worded tirade. He wasn't in the class creating a disruption. He wasn't even involved in what happened. She got his name from the kids, and contacted him out of the blue making threats of a criminal investigation. Can you honestly blame him for being so defensive and upset, after someone accused him of hurting the children he's mentoring?

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[MindlessAutomata]

What is truly sad about this is the public perception that teachers and the teacher unions are disrupting eduction. As is clearly shown here, the disruptive comes from persons who beleive they are so smart that they are not forced to be a teacher, and therefore qualified to tell the teacher what to do.
Did you even graduate from high school? Many instructors are completely incompetent and are just plain silly. I've had good instructors, too. But I had enough bad ones to lose faith in teachers in general.

First, here is a fact. Teaching a job, just like those who sit in office doing nothing more than type code on keyboard. I mean, how hard can it be type random gibberish in a keyboard? Anyone can do it, !. So the teachers first goal is keep the class moving so objectives can be taught, assessed, rethought, and year end tests passed. Do teachers do this to maximize bonuses. Duh, are we idiots, of course. Why are the automakers begging for money right now, to kep 8 figure salaries. Why do we code for any semi-legitimate business, to make the money.
And the fact is, many teachers are very bad at their jobs. Even worse, teachers are authority over children, and many turn students completely off to education. I don't know how many teachers I've had spout off things that were absolutely wrong or bullshit. Too busy assigning children pointless busy work, too busy making them hate school and education to respect the opportunity.

Second, the tools teachers use are the tools teachers use. How many geeks know how to use every OS, every IDE. How many developers know how to write software without an IDE, or can code direct in assembly. Does that make the developers idiots. I might say so, but not really as I have a inch of compassion and am not an arrogant bastard. No one is going to go into an office, give the staff new software to use, and expect management not to react. See point one. Teacher are there to teach content, not be experts at things not even experts agree on. Many serious consider Free OS invalid. In is an opinion. Considering it otherwise refers back to the arrogant bastard. ...What? There's a difference between "not being an expert on everything" and being an ignorant jackass, which it sounds like what the teacher was doing.

There are no serious experts that consider "Free OS" (?) "invalid".

Third, a classroom is necessarily a controlled environment. While it would be nice to allow kids to do whatever they want, it is not feasible. In most schools, computers are not set up as a redundant array of disposable devices, and if a computer is broken, that generally means several students are denied an education for at least a little while. While teaching *nix is a lofty goal, i wonder if the organization would be there to fix the machines before the next class came in, or if they would just say, hey it is not my problem, and i don't care if some kids loses an education.

If a student installs an OS on a school computer, it is that students' fault. If a kid is passing out Linux to friends to use on their home computers, then it is no problem. You say school is a controlled environment, but so is prison. Treat schools like a prison, and students will appreciate them like a prison. Believe it or not, you don't have to chain students down to get order.

This is a classic example of why people hate *nix. Here is a guy who is trying to help the cause, but instead has shown how clueless the cause is. Unlike Dell Foundation, who provides money to teachers to help thing, this guy just seems to attack teachers with no understanding of the context. Even now, there is no acknowledgment of the damage that has been done to the students.

No, people in general do not hate *nix and even if they did this wouldn't be a reason. Most people who know enough about *nix hate it because of some technical reason or because they want to seem anti-nerd. As for that... WHAT damage done to students, that teachers didn't do?

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[rhizome]

This is a classic example of why people hate *nix. Here is a guy who is trying to help the cause, but instead has shown how clueless the cause is.

Then maybe it's the kid who's being paid off by Microsoft!

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[genner]

After all, teachers don't go into your lame ass web development operation and tell you to use real tools.

I just explained why I don't use front page to a teacher so I'm getting a kick.....etc...etc...,

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[genner]

Any half-decent programmer can pick up any language. Only the idiots think "there is ONE true WAY"

Only idiots and perl developers.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[genner]

Had did this flamebait get modded +5?

Many [experts] serious consider Free OS invalid.

Name one. This was an issue a decade ago today I don't know of any.

Bill Gates. :p

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[SanityInAnarchy]

Amazing this got to +5. I don't often say this, but mod parent down!

As is clearly shown here, the disruptive comes from persons who beleive they are so smart that they are not forced to be a teacher, and therefore qualified to tell the teacher what to do.

It's got nothing to do with "believing" they are smarter than the teacher, and everything to do with having actual evidence that the teacher in question is ignorant.

First, here is a fact. Teaching a job, just like those who sit in office doing nothing more than type code on keyboard.

It's not a particularly well-paid job, hence the saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

I mean, how hard can it be type random gibberish in a keyboard? Anyone can do it, !.

Your post certainly seems to be trying to prove that point -- however, there aren't very many jobs where you can type "random gibberish". Programming is neither.

How many geeks know how to use every OS, every IDE. How many developers know how to write software without an IDE, or can code direct in assembly. Does that make the developers idiots.

I've used Windows, Linux, and OS X for development. I've only very rarely used an IDE, and I have occasionally played with assembly. It's not that hard.

But that's also not analogous -- I've forgotten everything I ever knew about assembly, but at least I know what it is. I don't know every operating system out there, but if you introduced me to a new one, I wouldn't immediately react with "OMG, this must be illegal!"

Many serious consider Free OS invalid. In is an opinion.

It's an unfounded opinion, with plenty of evidence to the contrary -- but in this case, it was not even an informed opinion.

In most schools, computers are not set up as a redundant array of disposable devices, and if a computer is broken, that generally means several students are denied an education for at least a little while.

Which has exactly what to do with a laptop the child brought in on his own?

And no, nothing so dramatic -- if a computer is broken, it means several students might have to (gasp!) use pencil and paper. They might even learn something about repairing a computer.

While teaching *nix is a lofty goal, i wonder if the organization would be there to fix the machines before the next class came in, or if they would just say, hey it is not my problem, and i don't care if some kids loses an education.

Which has nothing to do with it being unix. Or are you suggesting that Windows is somehow going to have fewer problems?

Even now, there is no acknowledgment of the damage that has been done to the students.

Way to read the article -- and what about the damage which is done to the students by only exposing them to one monopolistic monoculture?

After all, teachers don't go into your lame ass web development operation and tell you to use real tools.

Well, actually, this one kind of did -- in fact, she threatened to call the authorities on him for daring to use and distribute free software.

I realize I'm feeding the troll, but the troll is still modded +5, insightful. Mod parent down!

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[plasmacutter]

Had did this flamebait get modded +5?

Many [experts] serious consider Free OS invalid.

Name one. This was an issue a decade ago today I don't know of any.

Because of how broken some of the thoughts are, I'm assuming english was not the first language of this individual:
"teaching a job"

The thought "Many serious consider Free OS invalid" seems similarly stilted, and It follows the thought may not have fully traversed the language barrier.

If you are looking at specific needs and specific situations, you actually are looking at instances in which a free operating system might not be a viable option. For instance, changing the computer systems to OSS might be far more expensive for an organization which already has hundreds or thousands of windows mobile smart-phones deployed.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[Risen888]

Har. Best troll of the thread.

What, yours? Nah, pretty weak actually. Who the hell hates *nix? WTF are you on about?

BTW, your grammar sucks.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[jbolden]

Sure I can understand situations where Free OSes may not be optimal or even effective solutions but "invalid"? That sounds like more of a license issue (like you heard years ago regarding the GPL being a violation of anti-trust law).

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[colinrichardday]

That only applies to GPLed software. Bill had no scruples against using BSD-based code.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[Seraphim_72]

Did you even graduate from high school? Many instructors are completely incompetent and are just plain silly. I've had good instructors, too. But I had enough bad ones to lose faith in teachers in general.

And yet you can read and write ... amazing.

...What? There's a difference between "not being an expert on everything" and being an ignorant jackass, which it sounds like what the teacher was doing.

Ignorance is forgivable. You seem to think that a student should be able to hand out cds at school willy nilly. Sorry, but no, I dont want your porn/virus/trojan laced cds booting on my machines because some kid says it is all good.

You say school is a controlled environment, but so is prison. Treat schools like a prison, and students will appreciate them like a prison. Believe it or not, you don't have to chain students down to get order.

Nope you don't. But your premise is wrong. School has to be a controlled environment, but equating that with prison is lazy philosophy. Schools have always been tightly controlled. You seem to think that they should be some sort of democracy. They shouldn't. Look at the world of any JR college to see why thatfails in so many ways.

No, people in general do not hate *nix and even if they did this wouldn't be a reason.

No, people in general have no flippin' idea what the word '*nix' means

As for that... WHAT damage done {was sic*} to students, that teachers didn't do?

By all means discount the good that was done to them as well, and discount your own parents culpability in the entire mess. I mean you were Tabla Rasa when you were ingloriously shipped off right?

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[MindlessAutomata]

And yet you can read and write ... amazing.
So? I never said all my teachers were incompetent.

Actually, my writing ability, judging by my peers' work in college, is above-average, and that scares me.

Ignorance is forgivable. You seem to think that a student should be able to hand out cds at school willy nilly. Sorry, but no, I dont want your porn/virus/trojan laced cds booting on my machines because some kid says it is all good.

Yes, I do think students should be able to pass out CDs at their discretion. What's on them, and how they are used may well be their responsibility, however. It's not like you can't get viruses from the internet, which almost all school computers are hooked up to, anyway.

Nope you don't. But your premise is wrong. School has to be a controlled environment, but equating that with prison is lazy philosophy. Schools have always been tightly controlled. You seem to think that they should be some sort of democracy. They shouldn't. Look at the world of any JR college to see why thatfails in so many ways.

Not once did I imply schools should be a democracy. I did say that they should not be the environment that stifles creativity and learning you seem to think they should. Hell, passing out Linux CDs is a great way to learn about computers. But through fear and needing to control everything students see and hear and do only acts as an impediment to learning.

I didn't say schools are necessarily a prison, although in many ways they are. However, students VIEW them as prison, and they will feel as if they are in prison. Students HATE school and frequently skip and apparently are cheating more than ever. Doesn't sound like our teachers are cultivating minds, does it?

No, people in general have no flippin' idea what the word '*nix' means
He argued, "This is a classic example why people hate *nix." I was talking about tech saavy people that know about *nix anyway, your point is extremely pedantic.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[jbolden]

Bill Gates has never made the claim free software is invalid. He has made strong claims about the effects of widely used free software subsidized by governments on a commercial software industry. That is he not claiming free OSes are useless but rather they are enough of a threat to endanger what he considers a large public benefit.

Further as colin mention below he has been an advocate of University / Government releases of BSD style software.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[ratboy666]

"What is truly sad about this is the public perception that teachers and the teacher unions are disrupting eduction. As is clearly shown here, the disruptive comes from persons who beleive they are so smart that they are not forced to be a teacher, and therefore qualified to tell the teacher what to do."

This is not clear. From either article. The disruption came from a student demonstrating Linux. The next disruptiion came from the teacher.

I also have a hard time parsing your second sentence. I will presume English is not your preferred language -- can you please restate (in your native language, or, perhaps, in simpler terms)?

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[Seraphim_72]

I did say that they should not be the environment that stifles creativity and learning you seem to think they should.

At no point did I say they should stifle creativity.

Yes, I do think students should be able to pass out CDs at their discretion.

You have just pained yourself as a single male. And you have also just pointed out that you are a moron. I mean actually lacking frontal brain cognition. For an instant can you imagine a child who you are responsible for bringing home a cd full of porn? My God you are full of dumb.

I didn't say schools are necessarily a prison, although in many ways they are. However, students VIEW them as prison, and they will feel as if they are in prison. Students HATE school and frequently skip and apparently are cheating more than ever. Doesn't sound like our teachers are cultivating minds, does it?

Now we have to win 'Hearts and Minds' of 14 year olds? Sorry no. They view it as prison because we give them that option. Anything difficult we give people a pass on, HS included. Easier is not an option.

No, people in general have no flippin' idea what the word '*nix' means He argued, "This is a classic example why people hate *nix." I was talking about tech saavy people that know about *nix anyway, your point is extremely pedantic.

You want generalities, I give you facts. Facts are not pedantic. btw it is "she" argued.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[MindlessAutomata]

...which I said because what he or she said has little do to with what goes on in school.

If you want to talk about children and the sophisticated methods used to "help them integrate information" *cough* then we can also talk about the utter failure of schools to do exactly that.

Re:teach are paid to teach a specific content

[jazzy_jeph]

"i wonder if the organization would be there to fix the machines before the next class" this isn't Windows, he won't have to fix it, it will still be working from last time. :)

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[MikeyistheDevil]

"I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system." I'd certainly have to disagree. I'd like schools to teach children how to be comfortable using software they will continue to use beyond school. I don't want schools to make the same mistake ours (or at least mine) did in the 80's by wasting their time teaching kids how to use pascal, fortran, or cobol on AppleIIe's when the reality was that did nothing to prepare us for the IBM dominated workplace. So until Windows is not the global standard OS that children will encounter later in life, they should continue to learn to be fluent with it.

NO ! this isnt over !!

[unity100]

now, where is my torch ? and all of you, get your pitchforks, fast

Re:NO ! this isnt over !!

[UnknowingFool]

I'm too busy being an entrepeneur.

Pitchforks: $19.99
Torches: $9.99

Buy both and get $5 off. Discounts for multiple purchases

Re:NO ! this isnt over !!

[plasmacutter]

Why are we changing now.. I thought the agreement was:

if she floats->she's made of wood->she's a witch

Awesome

[HalAtWork]

We all make mistakes, but hardly ever do we take the time to report that and also report how we can understand and improve the situation. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes or trying to make things better, and it's nice to hear about it now and then, plus we can all learn a few things.

Re:Awesome

[LingNoi]

There's making mistakes then there is getting pissed because the student knows more then you and is teaching (disrupting) your class.

There's making mistakes then there is threatening people with the law when they have absolutely no knowledge of what they're talking about.

There's making mistakes then there is lying about "using Linux in college" and pretending to know about a subject she shouldn't be teaching in the first place.

Yah, ignorant teachers

[Spazmania]

Yeah, back when I was in school, I made a pencil drawing of a wico joystick. The teacher saw and thought it was something else...

The Teacher's Identity

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Ken makes a big deal about not wanting to name the teacher.
But each successive blog post gives away more identifiable details.
With just the information he has posted, plus the AISD's own website, it is now possible to narrow her identity down to one of 2 people.

I'm sure that's not news to anyone already determined to figure out her identity, but it ought to be a warning to anyone else trying to both talk about a person and keep their identity secret on the web. It is just a real-life puzzle of connect the dots where seemingly tangential information can be enough to put the entire picture together.

Re:The Teacher's Identity

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, my gf post on craigslist for another girl, and this asshole responded to her, calling her names and whatnot, and I googled his email, which turned up a bbs post where he gave out the same email to help people with something, and had a homer simpson avatar.

I googled his screen name, and found several more bbs postings with the same avatar, and another email address, which led back to his personal website, which had pictures and full names of him and his children. From that, I found his 16/17 year old son on Myspace and some gothic personals website. I found the guy's myspace, too, which had guess what? A freaking Homer Simpson theme.

So I wrote the guy and told him not to be an asshole, since I know who he was. And wrote me back, correctly identifying the person whose wifi I jacked to write him. Funny thing was that on his business website, it stated he had an on-going contract with the local ISP, so the fact that he knew my neighbor's name was only more confirmation.

So I sent him links to his children, and told him to be more careful and kind to people. For if I were a sociopath, I'd involve them.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[fotbr]

The higher light use might be offset by lower heating/cooling bills since a lot of old single-pane windows would be replaced with insulation as they're covered over.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[corsec67]

NO!

They should be taught how to use a "word processor", be it OpenOffice.org Writer, Word, WordPerfect, Write, LaTeX (as LyX), HTML, etc. Have each be taught for a week, so they can see that even though things look different, each application has a way of doing the same thing.

Or are you saying that Word doesn't change every few years (like adding in a "Ribbon" instead of menus), so they should be taught a version of Word that is going to be out of date by the time they graduate?

Teach them how to *use* a computer, not how to repeat a specific set of steps, so they don't freeze up when things change slightly.

Well duh!

[sunking2]

Was I really the only one that read the original story and thought to myself that there was more to the story than was being told.

Re:Well duh!

[Rastl]

There's always more to the story than we're being told. Ask ten people what happened and you'll get twelve different stories. Everyone's story is influenced by their own interpretation/world view/motives/whatever.

That's why eyewitnesses are some of the most unreliable witnesses to be had.

In this case yes, there was much more to the story and I'm pleased that the rest of the circumstances were made public. It adds more information to the story and allows people to see 'the larger picture'.

Normally I'm against overprotection but in taking away the distraction and being concerned about the content of the disks he was asked to give away seems quite reasonable.

Re:Well duh!

[Fieryphoenix]

You were one of the only ones that read the original story and thought.

why not just ask 'Karen' :)

[rs232]

"Where is any verification of any of this?"

Well, personally I emailed the AISD and asked them, before posting, simple isn't it !!!

Software is little less than religion when

[unity100]

it is beyond the point of engulfing all of people's lives through usage.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[LandruBek]

I don't want schools to make the same mistake . . . teaching kids how to use Pascal, Fortran, or COBOL on Apple IIe's . . .

Yeah, all that I got out of learning Pascal on an Apple ][ was that it helped me get ready to study computer science in college, which has only led me to . . . gainful employment. </sarcasm>

Seriously, I would much rather see them "waste" time teaching programming than have them spend classroom time teaching kids how to use GUI software, which most of them can pick up on their own.

Same cynicism totally applies to you

[unity100]

but you said it. being too skeptical, is, stupid.

What a great, new way to advertise your OS...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, probably this is all just pure bullshit.
Clever, viral advertising at work.
Too improbable to be true.

Re:What a great, new way to advertise your OS...

[LingNoi]

Statistically it should have happened so I fail to see your point that it's improbable. We're not talking about a comet the size of the moon hitting earth here... OH SH

Still thinking the teacher is more in the wrong.

[MindlessAutomata]

I don't blame Ken's response, even the NEA crap, as he responded in very reasonable anger to a very unreasonable letter. Yes, he got the facts wrong, and went off the deep end a bit with trying to tie this with Microsoft/the NEA conspiracy thing, but I'd imagine that kind of rant was born out of his anger for how ridiculous the teacher's initial letter is.

The student in question was apparently "disruptive". Now, looking back to my school days, "disruptive" meant just about anything. I have a feeling the student wasn't really being disruptive and the teacher just wanted some sort of excuse for confiscating the disks in the first place that would still make her appear to have been in the right.

I mean, hell, in middle school I got yelled at from some brain-dead teacher in some typing/computer class for trying to plug the head phones in by ourselves. THE HEADPHONES! "ARE YOU A TECHNICIAN?", she said. I'm not siding with the teacher on this one, given how inept they often are with technology and how often I've seen them bother students for nonissues like particular pieces of clothing (torn jeans? This is an educational facility not the fashion academy!) or relatively minor crap.

Sir, i like that word -

[unity100]

i would like to 'alliterate' you if you dont mind.

consider yourself alliterated.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[mcgrew]

Wow, how often does one get a "+1 Troll"? Real trolls should eat their hearts out! I guess a "troll" these days is someone who you disagree with who you can't make a logical argument against. No matter; my karma remains excellent and I hope yours does too. Your post was no more a troll than mine was.

But to your point,

I'd like schools to teach children how to be comfortable using software they will continue to use beyond school.

When my oldest daughter was in high school they had Apples in the classroom (I hated them, but Apple has come a long way, my next machine may be one) and the schools' office computers still ran Windows 95. How much is Windows 95 like Vista?

A modern Linux distro is far more like XP than it is like Windows 95. How is learning today's Windows to work in a world ten years in the furture any different to learning today's Linux?

Ten years is a long time. By 2018 most businesses may have switched to Linux, especially considering the state of the world's economies today (which look like they're going to get far worse before improving).

In 1965 they had slide rules. In 1975 they had scientific calculators. How would learning to use a slide rule have helped someone in my generation?

did nothing to prepare us for the IBM dominated workplace

Yet IBM no longer dominates. You make my point for me.

Responses to ignorance...

[AdamTrace]

In general, anger and berating is a poor response to ignorance.

It comes naturally, but it typically doesn't help much.

I'm glad the author was able to revisit this topic with a cooler head.

And, frankly, we've really only gotten one side of the story. Even the OTHER side of the story came from one side of the story...

Adman

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[khellendros1984]

Most people don't work that way...they don't want to think if they don't have to. Based on my observation of human behavior, it's almost literally impossible to get them to do something that they don't care about (e.g. learning multiple word processors in order to see the patterns of use, rather than specific key strokes).

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[TheRaven64]

I was taught MS Works and Word 2.0 at school, aged 11, on Windows 3.11. Seven years later, StarOffice 5 was more similar to either of these than any Microsoft product. This point is never mentioned by people claiming that you should teach Microsoft products in the classroom because 'that's what industry uses' or by people saying you should use Microsoft products in the office because 'that's what employees know'.

Thanks

[Auraiken]

Sorry to hijack your thread, but I'd like to say that this is what I'd like to see more of on /. We have too many stories indicating that things are one way only to be found otherwise and not corrected on at all. There were a lot of people in other stories lately who've been saying how wrong mass media is in how they 'report' on stories that are just there to make money. IT also shows that the open source community needs to stop attacking the ignorant people... I mean they might be stupid and annoying sometimes but we aren't going to get anywhere unless we educate them. /rant

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[khellendros1984]

Paying for other peoples' education has a broader benefit than "my son might be a doctor". I can't imagine living in a country where the people weren't educated with at least a baseline level of facts. Education helps to eliminate ignorance (although, unfortunately, doesn't make it completely disappear), and I consider that to be a larger benefit than the tax money that I give up for someone else's education.

verification that there really is a Karen ?

[rs232]

Did anyone bother to verify that there really is a Karen?

Re:verification that there really is a Karen ?

[LingNoi]

Do you happen to be the Dave "you gave my computer to a retard!" that Ken writes about in his blog?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[jbolden]

If you knew Pascal, Fortran and Cobol I'm sure you understood DOS no problem. You understood the sequential databases that were popular in the 80s from Cobol. You understood the formulas in Lotus/QuatroPro/Excel from Fortran.

How exactly did they fail to prepare you?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[mcgrew]

You answered your first question by quoting "I can't see my tax dollars wasted on something unnecessarily expensive".

Schools don't pay anywhere close to full price for their licenses

It doesn't matter, cheap < free.

I believe the fault there is how education is being paid for.

I almost agree; not HOW it's paid but how much.

I think parents should pay for thier own kids schooling

So much for equal opportunity. I think private schools should be abolished. If the rich had to send their kids to public school, the public school system wouldn't be so abysmal.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Narnie]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system.

I personally don't see anything good coming from a windows-free school. Besides letting in light, windows were great for spacing out and watching the parking lot. No windows would make school feel that much more like a dungeon.

Oh, you meant Windows(tm). Yeah, a Windows-free or Windows-lite environment would be beneficial. I should RTFA someday.

Are you sure that those were the exact words?

[khasim]

From TFA:

When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling.

Do you think that she used that phrasing?

If not, then why quibble over another word that may or may not have been the word used?

Re:Teachers have underwear

[morgan_greywolf]

Or what modules you insert.

Wrong analogy

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Hey, hey, HEY! This is slashdot! No guitar analogies allowed -- only car analogies.

Re:Wrong analogy

[I_want_information]

Hey, hey, HEY! This is slashdot! No guitar analogies allowed -- only car analogies.

I thought we recently amended that rule to include sky-diving analogies...

I *am* computer literate

[Hognoxious]

At least she didn't threaten to set the FBI on him.

Note: it seems Dopey has moved on, but his replacement's qualifications don't look too impressive...

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[WeatherServo9]

It doesn't matter, cheap < free.

Hmmm...actually I would think cheap > free...unless it's really really cheap!

Um... no.

[Dr. Manhattan]

Now the kids know that 1) the teacher is an idiot and 2) the teacher values obedience over correctness.

They now know that the teacher didn't know something in particular about computers and software. (I'm a geek, and I know there's plenty about how kids use computers today that I have no clue about, or only the most general notion.) It's not a surprise that she doesn't know everything - I'm pretty sure the kids were already aware that she's a human being. The question is, does she know about the topics she's teaching about and the techniques for successfully teaching them? Nothing presented so far hints that the answer is 'no'.

And as for "2", that's quite a jump, considering even the blogger parent acknowledges the kid was being 'disruptive'. If Linux (or software in general) wasn't the topic under discussion, then temporarily taking away the discs and directing attention back to the class - which is what seems to have happened - isn't "valuing obedience over correctness".

So, at most, the kids know the teacher has limited operating system knowledge, and she wants the kids to focus on the class. She did jump to conclusions based on the knowledge she had, but she addressed her message to the parent, and appears to be capable of learning when she finds out she's mistaken. That alone puts her above the 90th percentile among humans.

Re:Um... no.

[jedidiah]

It's one thing to be ignorant.

It's quite another to go off all half-cocked and make accusations with serious legal implications.

Re:Um... no.

[Dr. Manhattan]

It's quite another to go off all half-cocked and make accusations with serious legal implications.

Yeah, saying "I am not sure what you are doing is legal... I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows" is pretty hardcore.

Or, um, not. Strongly worded, but actually not an 'accusation'. Rather, a declaration of intent to find out if something illegal was going on. Would that the RIAA were as hardcore as she was...

Re:Um... no.

[LingNoi]

It's a snakes threat. If she's wrong she can claim she was only following the law. She lied too "I used Linux in college". She didn't.

Also would you want to learn anything from an idiot? It's obvious that the kid should be teaching the class and the teacher should have been the student.

In fact that's exactly what it sounds like happened and the teacher got all pissy because her thunder was stolen.

Re:Um... no.

[Dr. Manhattan]

In neither of the blog posts I read did I see anything that said she claimed to have used Linux. What's your source?

Re:Um... no.

[LingNoi]

Then maybe you should go back and actually read it...

Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods.

Re:Um... no.

[Dr. Manhattan]

Ya know, I did, and you're right - she did say that. I salute you. However, what she said can actually be accurate - I've been using Linux since 1995, and early Linux was nowhere near as easy-to-use as modern Windows XP. If she was using Linux from even five years ago as a base point, what she said could easily be right.

Picking the worst possible interpretation of an email when you can't see tone-of-voice is a recipe for, well, the kind of flamewars that have erupted over this very exchange.

Re:Um... no.

[LingNoi]

There is a difference between "I have been using Linux since" and "I tried Linux in college".

You're also not realising that she has absolutely no clue what she is talking about. Not because she "tried Linux" and that's her impression, but because she made the whole thing up to win her argument.

How could some who "tried" Linux think it's illegal to install and have? It's total bullshit, she never tried anything, it's completely made up.

Re:Um... no.

[Dr. Manhattan]

How could some who "tried" Linux think it's illegal to install and have? It's total bullshit, she never tried anything, it's completely made up.

Trying it on someone else's computer? You really can't imagine that to be possible?

Why do you want to be so angry with her?

never mind Karen, is Ken Starks for real ?

[rs232]

I emailed AISD and received no confirmation of anyone affilated with that organization is the 'Karen referred to in that story. See a previous entry from 'Ken Starks' of HeliOS Solutions. Never mind Karen, is 'Ken Starks' for real ?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[MarkvW]

I second your point. Teaching computers to kids should be about teaching kids to 'learn how to learn,' not teaching kids how to conform to a particular company's user-interface paradigm.

Well....

[shutdown -p now]

That's one way for a geek to get a date, I guess...

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Hognoxious]

I was taught MS Works

I was taught a bag of lies too. [bratatataTISH]

Communication

[uofitorn]

All in all he demonstrates what a little honest communication can do, a lesson that all of us who advocate for free software can take to heart.

Quite a few of us were advocating this. But it got drowned out in all the melodramatic and knee-jerk responses.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Hognoxious]

How exactly did they fail to prepare you?

Well it doesn't look like they taught him much...

Illegal

[DragonWriter]

Which is quite a bit different from "illegal".

Wrong. Violating the regulations of a public agency that are adopted within its lawful regulatory power is a specific kind of "illegal" thing.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[kelnos]

Pre-university education is filled with things the students don't care about. This would just be another entry in the long list. At least in this case, it would be something likely useful as well.

it's almost literally impossible to get them to do something that they don't care about

That's somewhat tautologically useless. I mean: duh? That's just a restatement of "people tend not to do things in which they are not interested and for which they have no incentive."

ebooks

[zogger]

It's way cheaper to give a poor student over in east elbownia hundreds of ebooks and to keep that updated electronically than to try and provide hundreds of dead tree books. Way cheaper and easier. That was the main point of the XO originally. As to the US, we've made team sports and learning political correctness and to not question authority at all for any reason ever the primary goals of "primary" education. You get what you pay for, and in those regards it looks like it has been a successful and transformational social engineering project. If they really wanted to push "education" first, there's nothing stopping them at all, but they don't, that is way down their list of priorities.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Ravon Rodriguez]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system.

That would be nice if people had the dedication to try and understand Linux; the fact of the matter is that while it may be a better operating system, it's far more difficult to use than Windows. I honestly don't understand why even a relatively easy to use distribution such as Ubuntu occasionally requires hours of reading and editing of config files to get everything working, whereas with Windows everything usually works out of the box. I suppose it has a lot to do with vendor support.

Belcerebons

[DrWho520]

...yelling on the internet, this would have been a non-issue.

You hit it square on the head and I think you do not even know it. There is a reason senators, parliamentarians, presidents and prime ministers have handlers, spokespeople and speech writers. When they say something, people listen. People listen for no other reason than they have a very large, very public soap box.

Arguing on the internet is not longer just packets floating passing in the night because, people are now paying attention. For better or worse and as scary as it is, these tubes now have a measure of credibility. Public figures care about their wikipedia profile, millions of people interact with social software and the internet has made a man President of the United States. It has also made many ugly things public and given an unprecedented voice to the vocal minority.

The internet is the largest and most public soap box in history. In this case, two people who appear to be very good at their jobs crossed paths. Their intersection occurred in a place of misunderstanding and the very real, very human fear of the unknown erupted in a hiss of venom and malice. It is unfortunate that the worst part of their interaction was placed on display for all to see. It is very heartening to see they have made effort to discuss their misunderstandings and learn from each other. Two people lost their heads and had a heater exchange. Normally only they and their close friends would know. They did it on the internet and shared their anger almost telepathically. Ironically, we use the internet to simultaneously blather on about meaningless trivia and share an almost telepathic bond.

Unexpected of both sides

[sveiki_neliels]

I am both pleased and gratified that both parties who, judging from their respective rants, are both opinionated people on the opposite sides of an important technology debate are communicating. I'm sure this has already been said, but we need more people to get off their high horses and meet in the middle like these two did. Unexpected, but very much welcome.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[scot4875]

Windows and software in general doesn't cost most schools *that* much -- certainly not as much as a corporate entity or private individual would pay.

Microsoft (and Oracle, and Adobe, etc) give away tons of software to schools for tax write offs. They can hand out a site license key and count it as a $1 million donation.

Personally, I don't think that computers belong in elementary school at all unless the material is specifically about computers, and I'm a programmer with a degree in computer science. It's a huge waste of money and a big distraction from the actual course material.

--Jeremy

Almost everything is legal

[jdavidb]

Regardless of how anonymous morons on the Internet acted (and anyone who doesn't realize the Internet is full of anonymous morons probably needs to come into this century), this teacher needs to be disabused of the notion that everything is "illegal" unless specifically allowed somehow by the law. So what if she's not sure something's legal? That's not the question. Unless she's sure it's illegal, she should assume it is legal.

She was way, way out of line in accusing the man of doing something illegal.

I want my kids educated with a belief in liberty, and that is why they will not be educated in today's government schools.

Re:Almost everything is legal

[Seraphim_72]

She was way, way out of line in accusing the man of doing something illegal.

OK, Let us start with the fact that this wasn't a "Man" in any sense of the word. My children go to public school, they bring the words and ideals of Liberty and Freedom with them to educate others. Cloistering yours will not help this country.

Seraphim

Re:Almost everything is legal

[jdavidb]

OK, Let us start with the fact that this wasn't a "Man" in any sense of the word.

The guy from the Helios project isn't a man?

Can't have been that bad an article..

[Pvt_Ryan]

Karen seems to be a good teacher, and as she stated to me today, she has learned more about the tech world in a few days than she's learned in five years.

See something positive did come out of it.

Not identifying the teacher ...

[dougmc]

"Then the wolves didn't touch you Karen. If I had included your last name or email address, then yes, you could ask me that question but as it stands, you are just a nameless school teacher that evoked a public response from me."

AISD has all the teachers for all their schools up on their web site. First name and last.

There's not that many middle schools, and only a few of them have a teacher named Karen. I looked them all up and had it narrowed down to about five Karens in about 10 minutes. The next step would have been (no, I didn't do this) to call each one (phone numbers are there too) right after class gets out and ask about the incident. If she doesn't know about it, move on. But if she does, she'd probably immediately get defensive, immediately telling you which Karen it was.

He might as well just given her full name and school -- he gave enough information to track her down with a little effort. Though perhaps he anticipated this and Karen isn't her real name? Hopefully?

I thought about not posting this, but figured I'm not so much more clever than everybody else, so if I can do it, so can anybody else. Maybe somebody will read this and next time will do a better job of not giving out enough facts about somebody to deduce who they are when they are trying to hide their identity.

Re:Teachers have underwear

[jo_ham]

Last time I touched a woman's kernel I panicked.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[ArsonSmith]

I personally would rather kids learn concepts of computers and/or applications rather than specific applications. Also I'd like to make sure that kids could grow their knowledge not just in how a UI works but further into how an application works, loads, runs, gets made, managed, stores data, how a computer works and even right down to the code used to do all these things.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[p0tat03]

Only in Canada

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[pipatron]

until Windows is not the global standard OS that children will encounter later in life, they should continue to learn to be fluent with it.

As long as the children are only being taught Windows, it will be the global standard OS.

Re:Still thinking the teacher is more in the wrong

[sexconker]

I learned really quick that the best strategy with teachers is just to sit in the chair and wait for class to be over.

In 2nd grade we were learning about syllables.
Some kid brings a stack of worksheets to the class and tells the teacher something.

The worksheet was a paint-by-numbers picture.
Each blob of the picture had a word in it.
You count the syllables in the word, then look on the bottom to see that 1 syllable = blue, 2 = yellow, etc.

The first example exercise the teacher did was the word "anything". Apparently, it has 2 syllables, not 3. The reasoning behind this included ""any" is so short, you can say it in one clap", and "how can a word have 2 syllables if it only has 3 letters?". Obviously the teacher had been tipped off to the error on the worksheets (by the student who brought them over). My lion had a red chunk in his yellow mane, because "anything" has 3 fucking syllables.

In an algebra class, we were doing basic crap with functions and graphing, and such. We got to a group of questions about Fahrenheit and Celsius. One question was about a news reporter in Alaska who sent a report to his editor saying it was 40 degrees below zero. The editor sent a message back, asking if it was in Fahrenheit or in Celsius. The question asked if it mattered, and why or why not.

The teacher asked the class, and responses included:
"It doesn't matter because you don't care unless you're there."
"It doesn't matter because either one is really cold anyway."

The teacher was pleased with these responses.
(HINT: -40 F = -40 C! If you'd looked at the fucking graphs you had just been drawing, you'd know that the lines weren't parallel. Look, they intersect off to the left. Just extend the lines. FUUUUUUUUUCK!)

While waiting to go on a boring field trip to some art museum (for an English class...), our class was watching "The Color Purple". Everyone was in suspense at the shaving scene. They were supposed to have know what was going to happen, since we were supposed to have read the book. Obviously no one did. I was bored and was sitting in front of one of the (covered, since they're never to be used) computers. I pop off a couple arrow keys from the keyboard and snap them back in, after a few minutes of burning "incense" in the back room, the teacher comes in and notices, and goes batshit insane. She said "If it's broken your parents will have to buy a new computer!" I say "ok", and she proceeds to "test the computer", later telling me I "got lucky".
She later alters some of my scores on tests and assignments (negatively), just enough so that I would get a B instead of an A.

In general, I have found that teachers are willing to teach lies if it's more convenient, are generally incompetent and unqualified, and think they have complete power over students.

The good teachers (competent, qualified, not psychotic) simply don't care about teaching after a few years because, let's face it, the odds of getting a good class paired to a good teacher are slim-to-none. The bad classes are routinely handed off to the good teachers ("Maybe Mr Dicks can fix them!"), and the good classes are routinely handed off to the bad teachers in return ("The Asian kids will get Mr Sucks' numbers up, they'll never complain, and they teach themselves anyway!").

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[MichaelSmith]

We had the Apple ][ and a knock off called the Orange. If you wanted software you had to write it in basic. There were a few games floating around and I spent some time adapting them to do different things and sharing them with other students.

I would much rather do that than waste my time with word processors.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[MichaelSmith]

I read the post by MikeyistheDevil as sarcasm. It doesn't sound serious to me.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[mcgrew]

Hmmm...actually I would think cheap > free...unless it's really really cheap!

> equals "greater than". How is cheap greater than free? The only way cheap > free is if by "cheap" they're paying YOU.

This doesn't smell right...

[Mateo_LeFou]

Post #1
"Those disks and their distribution are perfectly legal and even if he was "disruptive", you cannot keep his property. "

Post #1
" The lad was being disruptive, but that wasn't mentioned."

I'm not also buying the "she didn't know-what-kind-o'-filth-might-be-on-the-discs" line, since she explicitly mentions that trying to wean people off Windows is the problem.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[WeatherServo9]

Other way around I think; if free costs $0.00 and cheap is say $1.00, is cheap not greater than free? If cheap is less than free, then they are paying you...

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[PitaBred]

Which means that those of us who do think and analyze can always depend on those who can't to pay us to do things for them that they'd be capable of doing themselves if they weren't lazy/stupid ;)

Re:So it's as many of us though. Stark's an idiot.

[justinlee37]

I don't know, I don't think writing major players in the FOSS community and telling them "there's no such thing as free software" and questioning the legality of what they do is "moderate and reasonable." It's wildly insulting and ignorant.

Been there, done that...

[msimm]

It was called slashback. They posted (often interesting) updates and/or corrections to previous articles.

....now we have Idle

Re:Been there, done that...

[Auraiken]

I know and it's fucking embarrassing. I stayed on slashdot for the collective experience (more critical to my life than most of the book learning i've ever had) and the neat stories about future tech (which always seem to be off about 5-10 years ;D) but now it's got a section for crap that's been part of online culture for years just being reposted. I've even seen entire threads being censored with -1 mods so they don't show to everyone else reading. I miss my slashdot. :/

Re:Been there, done that...

[autophile]

So can someone explain where the whole "Idle is Pants" thing came from? I logged on to slashdot one day and found nearly every story marked "idleispants", with no explanation. And Google ain't helping.

Halp?

Re:Been there, done that...

[Auraiken]

Theres a /. story about it here http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/27/2246235

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[jweller]

That sounds dangerously close to independent thought.

I warned ya! Didn't I warn ya?! That colored chalk was forged by Lucifer himself!

When I was in high school...

[geek2k5]

You needed to know how to use a slip stick, aka slide rule.

Re:When I was in high school...

[CrimsonAvenger]

You needed to know how to use a slip stick, aka slide rule.

You bring back memories, indeed you do. I really was taught to use a slipstick in High School. Calculators were very new, and not considered acceptable for use in science classes at the time, so we were taught slide rule basics in Chem class.

Re:When I was in high school...

[Hurricane78]

That's still true, but nowadays they call it a "penis". ;)

A good resolution

[geek2k5]

I find it encouraging that both parties involved, the teacher and the *nix guru, have talked to each other and seem to be getting along.

Perhaps this event will be talked about among educators that are stuck in a Windows mindset.

Re:So it's as many of us though. Stark's an idiot.

[Brett Buck]

Of course, the teacher wasn't aware of open software, so the fact that she didn't know that a community existed and who the "major player"s might be isn't too surprising.

      I am glad the original blogger came to his senses eventually, but I can't tell you how much damage the "zealot" approach will cause. See it here *all* the time, someone insults the sacred cow and hundreds go completely crazy over it.

        A far more effective response could have been given that didn't come across like we're on a jihad.

        Brett

Let's not forget

[The Second Horseman]

about that substitute teacher in Connecticut who was charged with a crime because of malware the classroom which she was told not to turn off, and the computer was lacking up-to-date security software. I'd be paranoid about what the kids were doing, and what it would mean for me, too. A full-time teacher in a a state where there's no union to speak of would be just as vulnerable as that substitute was.

Damning lines...

[Stormwatch]

The lad was being disruptive, but that wasn't mentioned. Neither was the obvious fact that when she saw a gaggle of giggling 8th grade boys gathered around a laptop, the last thing she expected to see on that screen was a spinning cube. She didn't know what was on those disks he was handing out. It could have been porn, viral .exe's...any number of things for all she knew. When she heard that an adult had given him some of the disks to hand out, her spidey-senses started tingling. Coupled with the fact that she truly was ignorant of honest-to-goodness Free Software, and you have some fairly impressive conclusion-jumping.

Because kids can not be genuinely excited about anything but the illegal or vulgar; they are never curious about the world, about technology, after all they don't give a damn about learning. If they make any noise, that can only mean trouble. Kids are stupid, after all. And a teacher's duty is to shove knowledge into their heads, whether they like it or not.

The guy was trying to defend the dumb teacher, but damned her far worse than before.

Re:So it's as many of us though. Stark's an idiot.

[justinlee37]

A teacher ought to know a thing or two about verifying her assumptions before taking action. A 10-minute google search for "free software" on her part would have prevented this entirely.

Of course, you're right, being nasty won't advance anyone's cause. Of course, I'm not a FOSS fanatic like the rest of the slashdotters here, so I'm not too worried about that. I am just in shock at how dumbly that woman behaved.

Sorry, I can't accept it

[e-scetic]

Note: The teacher automatically assumed the gaggle of giggling boys was up to no good (not sure how they were being disruptive?)

She probably stormed over and grabbed the laptop. Upon finding only a spinning cube, she was probably embarassed - but still apparently convinced they were up to no good.

Whereupon she confiscated the disks...

I'm sorry to say, crying or not, by her own comportment it seems to be more than just a basic ignorance of fact - this is a case of the elevator just not going to the top floor.

This is important, because this WILL have an impact on the children under her care. If anything, those kids now have little respect for at least one adult (perhaps this is WHY they were disruptive, if they were), and they probably felt the situation was unjust, unwarranted and unfair, in which case they got an early lesson in FUBAR.

Not a bad lesson to learn, actually, but geez...to be brutally honest, some people shouldn't be teachers, ok?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Risen888]

Others have already replied to this, but I will add...

So until Windows is not the global standard OS that children will encounter later in life, they should continue to learn to be fluent with it.

That's a very interesting double-bind you've just created there. When exactly would you expect Windows to not be the "global standard" if we continue to allow our schools to teach nothing but?

Also, that's an interesting definition of "global" you're using there.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Priceless! IMO she deserved it.

Deserved what? Narrowly avoiding(and she probably will not forever) being thrown naked and defenseless into the badger pit that is the modern media meatgrider? Having her reputation, name, credentials and career permanently ruined because of one email?

She lives in an environment dominated by a culture of fear and overprotection. An environment where kids have to be protected from every bogeyman imaginable. An environment where computers, and especially the Internet, are seen primarily as a negative and dangerous influence on young people. She, and millions of professionals like here have received absolutely computer training, education or even basic information in their entire lives.

"Some guy is giving free stuff on the Internet". What's your immediate reaction? Now, what's the immediate reaction of someone who is not technically knowledgeable?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[msuarezalvarez]

Interesting rant, but I've never worked somewhere where we're not using Windows. They could teach both, but if they take away Windows it will make finding a half-decent job that much harder for these kids.

You are assuming that the current situation is not going to change, which is a rather wild assumption...

I would say that, in general, an education whose usefulness depends on things not changing is a bad education. Would't you?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[hobbit]

Skylights might be a good compromise.

Erm -

[j_w_d]

From now on I will describe myself as being from Australia (a small country near New Zealand).

Wouldn't that actually be a "small continent" near New Zealand?

Re:Erm -

[Hairy1]

Small island off the coast of NZ perhaps?

Portugese descent in the US

[j_w_d]

When I was in high school, back before there WERE cell phones or digital cameras, we were asked to identify our "ethnicity," whereever the "ethnicity" was a quarter or more of our ancestry - as part of the initial efforts at "affirmative action" I think. Anyway the choices were "White, Black, Native American, Iberian, and Other." Since my mother was half Portugese, I put down Iberian. I was called in by an examiner and asked to explain, and I cited my twenty-five percent Portugese descent. This lead to a confusing interchange where the fellow attempted to convince me that Portugal was not "Iberian" - since the Portugese didn't speak Spanish - while I pointed that you can't get any farther west on the Iberian penninsula without getting wet. Since then whenever asked about ethnicity, I check "Other" and write in "Lusitanian." It generates an occasional baffled look, but at least I'm not subjected to irrational geography lessons.

Re:Portugese descent in the US

[eknagy]

I answer "Human" to such question. No one dared to question it so far (maybe that would be a racist thing to do?).

Re:Portugese descent in the US

[meringuoid]

we were asked to identify our "ethnicity," whereever the "ethnicity" was a quarter or more of our ancestry - as part of the initial efforts at "affirmative action" I think. Anyway the choices were "White, Black, Native American, Iberian, and Other." Since my mother was half Portugese, I put down Iberian.

You only put down one? If they're asking for ethnicity where it's a quarter or more, shouldn't they put space on the form for up to four answers? Otherwise someone's going to come along who's Indian/Irish/Black/Chinese and cause all kinds of confusion.

teacher?

[xda]

I really hope this wasn't a computer teacher. When I was in school our computer teachers were pretty useless. I had assumed that things were different these days... Someone teaching computer skills should know about free software.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Bert64]

When pascal and AppleII were taught in school, such systems were used outside of schools too...
By the time kids currently in school leave school, what's in use today will have been replaced by something else.
So teach them general concepts that they can adapt to anything, rather than specific applications.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Bert64]

Yes, which is extremely disturbing..
What sets humans apart from animals, is our ability to understand how and why something works, rather than memorizing repetitive actions which is how you train animals.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[LingNoi]

Schools should teach a broad horizon of computing.

If you narrow it down to teaching how to use office, which will be replaced with a different application anyway (office 2007 ribbon UI) then the student learns nothing.

The IT skills taught by educators today are horribly useless. Students should learn to do more interesting things such as programming (hello world) and how to install an OS, anyone will do.

Limiting an IT lesson to:

1) File
2) New Document
3) Type

Teaches nothing apart from how to use Office better. If that's the main motive then don't call it "computing" or "information technology", call it "Microsoft Office Class".

Re:Warning: Known sockpuppet/troll

[LingNoi]

Yes that's interesting but do you have anything insightful to add or are you just wasting my bandwidth?

He might be a sock puppet but what does that have to do with what he said? You didn't address a single point and instead lazily copied and pasted the same crap you always post on his accounts.

I noticed you posted AC so you wouldn't care if you were modded down.

You sir are a troll. You have an automated script to reply to every post this dude makes without even reading it. You're one step up from the shitbags that post automated troll comments.

I know defending Twitter isn't a popular move however this dickhead has become worse then twitter.

I'm sick of this fucking Microsoft vs. Linux war on slashdot with Twitter one side and this Microsoft fanboi group on the other.

At least Twitter has started becoming mildly interesting however you're just yet another anonymous cocksucker ruining slashdot with your twitter meme.

I'm willing to not post AC because I don't give a shit. I'm not scared of you, what you going to do, add me to your "sock puppet" list because I disagree with you?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[LingNoi]

Calling her a professional is a joke. She lied in her email, "I used Linux in college".

I'm not saying she deserves it however she should have considered this before writing what she did in the first place without checking the facts.

Replace "Linux" with "Evolution" and then tell me with a straight face that she doesn't deserve being publicly highlighted.

Re:Awwww

[LingNoi]

Yeah poor Karen, a shit teacher that remained anonymous while Ken had to take phone calls from people around the world frothing at the mouth.

This women should of been named and fired.

Re:So it's as many of us though. Stark's an idiot.

[LingNoi]

10 minutes?! Free Software Foundation is the second link on google!

Re:So it's as many of us though. Stark's an idiot.

[LingNoi]

Who cares if she was aware of open source software?

She threatened him with legal action, she wrote to him first, not the other way around. She lied and said she "used Linux in college" so she knows what she's talking about.

This is the worse IT teacher ever and shouldn't be working as one.

Re:Sorry, but you all suck at this

[urban_warrior]

i'd mod you plus 5 funny if i had any mod points.

School teachers should record children questions

[jawahar]

Everyday school teachers should record children questions and disclose them in school notice boards or in a website.
This will enhance intrinsic motivation of school children.

If you plan a rant, just remember this:

[cheros]

.. most people act on what information is available to them at the time. This is a combination of what they know, what they assume and what they fear and experience. Your problem is, you are unlikely to know the extend of either of those things.

The best thing is to query the exact events that you disagree with and ask for motivation, ESPECIALLY if it's second hand like a news report or interview - I've been exposed to the glaring deficiencies in both.. IMHO, you should start from the assumption that the person's actions made sense to them in their personal context, and at that specific time. That doesn't imply an immediate judgement of "right" or "wrong" (and things are never quite that binary anyway) - your question(s) illustrate that your opinion differs and you would like to discuss this.

Only when you have a dialogue and context can you assess if you're dealing with an issue - or that you misunderstood the issue. Oh, and in case you missed it, people have feelings too. The aim is generally to get on with each other as it's so much more constructive..

That is, of course, wholly my opinion, carefully shaped out of the debris of too many fast conclusions. QED, I'd say :-).

... for providing a valuable function

[Gazzonyx]

Well, when you consider that being smart is rewarded with neither babes nor cash, entertainment doesn't seem so bad.

Google Earth and iTunes are "free software"?

[eldepeche]

Other open source software on both images include audacity and lame, and other free software such as Google Earth, iTunes, Adobe and many plug-ins.

What the fuck? I have never heard someone who knows anything about computers call Google Earth, iTunes and anything written by Adobe "free software."

I thought this guy was a d-bag when he fired off a shitty e-mail to some middle school teacher, but it turns out he also has no goddamn idea what he's talking about.

Re:Google Earth and iTunes are "free software"?

[tjrw]

Yes, they are. You don't pay anything to download Google Earth, iTunes or Adobe Reader. Free as in beer. Note that that is why he did not say they were "open source". A belief that all software should be free as in open source does not invalidate the use of the term "free" for something that you didn't pay for but to which you do not receive access to the source. Unless your name is Richard Stallman that is :-P

Oh my

[Jedi_Yo_Jo]

I knew when I saw this story posted earlier that the whole story wasn't there. We can but hope that nobody jumped to conclusions and dealt her harsh words on the internet.

Re:Right on!

[eldepeche]

This demands that a stupid and futile gesture be done on someone's part.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[Bert64]

Yes, these tax writeoffs are a scam, there should be a cap on how much they can write off based on a percentage of the actual cost to them. Companies should not be able to set their own arbitrary prices, and then claim tax benefits for donating goods as if they had been sold at this arbitrary price.

the real obstacles, not the teachers..

[eniacfoa]

there are only 3 big obstacles from linux taking over the world and they are painfully obvious...1 is hardware support...people want the best gfx and need support for plenty of 3rd party devices on market. 2 - installers. people need to be able to install ANY software they choose with a couple of mouse clicks...this is not a windows thing, its a modern commercial HOME OS thing, I hate linux heads that tell me this is a windows thing, I dont care how difficult it is to do...3 linux needs ports of popular software and games. It is irrelevent to the average user that if they just support linux, it "might" get to a point where they can actually install any software they want with a couple of mouse clicks or play the latest games or use professional creative software etc....they dont care...I dont care...I dont have the time to wait....until it happens it just cannot be considered an OS for the masses...it just cannot....the fact its free stops it from becoming a real product...people believe one day it will overcome these hurdles, but i personally doubt it can happen without it becoming a real product and being sold....I swear I would switch to it if I could (im a pro musician and gamer, bye bye linux)...but I just cant see it ever happening...I wish it well, but there isnt even a clear direction. How many distro's do we need?

Despite what a lot of people think...

[MtViewGuy]

...The teacher was more or less right to be suspicious in seeing those Linux disks.

The reason is simple: who's to say those disks could be unknowingly carrying malware that could cause serious problems down the road? While Linux by definition is less susceptible to malware, malware running under Linux do exist and even one of them suddenly running "in the wild" could cause untold damage to other computers.

That's why corporations and government organizations have STRICT policies against third-party software running on computers in the office. Introducing anything third-party could cause problems and enormous productivity loss.

Windows Free----

[skaldrom]

I'd like to see a Windows-free educational system.

Yes! No Windows. Put them in the cellar. There is much less distraction if they cannot have a look outside!

Re:The Linux PR/Education Department Needs Volunte

[Hans T. Reiser]

Linux/GNU - Stallman must be sharpening his katana right now.

Gosh, what is up with education in the US?

[jotaeleemeese]

In Mexico I learned the countries from all the world (Geography, secondary school) with their respective capital cities and the most important rivers, lakes and mountain ranges on each continent.

We used to have 4 Geography exams per year, which often included maps where we had to identify those features.

Rot memory? Yes, but to this day I know where Buthan, Burundi or Liechtenstein are, and can at least say in which countries the Ganges, the Mississippi or the Nile are.

Anthropology

[j_w_d]

I suspect that these early trauma are what lead me to a degree in anthropology. It didn't really help since none of the choices offered were ethnicities in the anthropological sense at all! Anthropologically, two are "races" in that inappropriately broad, sweeping sense that "race" has come to be used, two are geographic affiliation choices, and one is a catch-all. None are "ethnic" as an anthropologist would see it, at least when I was completing my course work.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[plague3106]

It's a benefit that can't be boiled down to monetary cost though. That's my point. The solution to the failing education system always seems to be "raise taxes to pay for better teachers." Of course, that's the whole reason the system is failing. You have a public run school, which can arbitrarly take more money at any time, competing with private schools. The private schools can't charge too much, because parents will move thier kid to the "free" public school. So they must be cost concience. The public school meanwhile does have some pressure, in that it's difficult to raise taxes, and people don't like that... but it usually gets what it wants, but there is no reason for the system to be efficent, leading to a lot of waste.

I never said education was bad, but the way we are paying for it is creating the problem, not solving for it. The system I propose is privatized schools, which must meet state requirements, funded directly by the parents. They can then choose the best they can afford, with help from goverment education loans (much like we pay for college). I believe THAT system would work far better than the current race to the bottom we have now.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[plague3106]

You answered your first question by quoting "I can't see my tax dollars wasted on something unnecessarily expensive".

I believe your zealotry makes you think the Windows license is unnecessary. The fact is businesses largely use Windows, and you do a disservice not teaching kids to use what they are going to encounter in the real world.

It doesn't matter, cheap

Ya, well, you get what you pay for too. I know.. I tried to go all OSS. It sucked, hard. I should be able to use my computer without investing endless hours making it work. And no, I'm not going to elaborate anymore. I'm tired of repeating myself to zealots.

I almost agree; not HOW it's paid but how much.

I explain why you're wrong in a reply to another poster that answered my original post. Public schooling is a huge waste of money, and lowers the standard of education for everyone.

So much for equal opportunity. I think private schools should be abolished. If the rich had to send their kids to public school, the public school system wouldn't be so abysmal.

You really have no idea what you're talking about. The rich pay property tax too, the most common way to fund public education. They don't get out of it paying it just because they send their kids to private school. But I guess by your definition my parents, a machinist and x-ray tech., were rich by your standards, because I went to private school initially. And lets ignore that private school was a full two years ahead of what was being taught in public school when I finally went to public school.

I already addressed how the poor can pay for their kids education. Also, maybe it's time we stop "helping" all these poor people that can't seem to use a fucking condom and end up with 10 kids.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[mcgrew]

you do a disservice not teaching kids to use what they are going to encounter in the real world.

XP, Vista, and Office 2007 are nothing luke what they will encounter in the real world. They'll be dealing with Windows 2015 and Office 2015, and considering the coming depression I expect more businesses to go toward open source solutions.

you do a disservice not teaching kids to use what they may encounter in the real world. Nothing is forever, not even Microsoft's dominance.

You really have no idea what you're talking about. The rich pay property tax too, the most common way to fund public education

The rich run things. They are in charge. They will make sure that theirs are taken care of, and if theeir kids are forced to go to public school, it will improve. As long as the poor's children are forced to have incompetent teachers, old material, crumbling buildings and so forth we have a two-tier, unequal education system.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[plague3106]

XP, Vista, and Office 2007 are nothing luke what they will encounter in the real world. They'll be dealing with Windows 2015 and Office 2015...

I really hate to break this to you, but newer versions are similar enough that you can take what you've learned with you.

considering the coming depression I expect more businesses to go toward open source solutions.

Given the current recession, I think most companies will stay put. If they're not going to spend money to upgrade, they certainly aren't going to spend money to move to an entirely new platform. They'll squeeze more out of what they have, just like people are now keeping their cars longer than they did just last year.

The rich run things. They are in charge. They will make sure that theirs are taken care of, and if theeir kids are forced to go to public school, it will improve. As long as the poor's children are forced to have incompetent teachers, old material, crumbling buildings and so forth we have a two-tier, unequal education system.

Ya, keep telling yourself that. Its not YOUR fault you're failing, or having problems. Its everyone else. Forcing "rich" kids into school won't change anything, sorry. I love how you ignore that private school teachers are better than public school ones.. so instead of getting kids into THOSE schools, you want to bring the "rich" kids into public schools. All the while stealing money from me for your own benefit. Wonderful.

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[mcgrew]

I really hate to break this to you, but newer versions are similar enough that you can take what you've learned with you

You eiether have never used Microsoft software, or you write it. I've used Microsoft since DOS and since about the time Windows 95 came out, no version of any package or OS is less like the previous version's than the competetitor's.

When we switched from Quattro to XL in the late nineties, Excel was different enough I had them send me to a 3 day class. Then they upgraded to the next version of Office, and that training was wasted money -- the newer version of Excel was more like the Quattro I had been using than the Excel I had taken traiing on.

Three years ago I had them install Foxpro, as I'd gotten good at programming in it years earlier, and hate Access. The last I'd used was six, they upgraded to 8. I have no clue how to work it; it is completely foreign.

They tell me the newest version of Office has "ribbons". Well, whenever my office upgrades again I'll have to learn it all over -- again.

You can blow smoke up a newbie's ass, bud, but not mine -- I use the stuff. Lack of backwards UI is one of my biggest gripes about Microsoft.

If they're not going to spend money to upgrade, they certainly aren't going to spend money to move to an entirely new platform

IF. When everyone else standardizes on the next version of office and they can't read the files any more, they'll have two choices -- pay to upgrade to the newest version of Office, or get an office suite that will read the old and new files (Like Star Office).

Ya, keep telling yourself that. Its not YOUR fault you're failing, or having problems.

I'm not the one who's failing and having problems. But everyone around me seems to be.

I love how you ignore that private school teachers are better than public school ones

They are better -- they get paid better. If private schools were illegal, those quality teachers would be in public schools, who would be forced to pay better salaries, because the rich would insist on it.

All the while stealing money from me for your own benefit.

Not my benefit, I didn't get a $700,000,000 bailout. My mortgage company and its rich CEO and board of directors did. I didn't get diddlyshit, and neither did any other working man or woman on the planet. Welcome to the 21st century where only the rich get welfare.

WTF department

[Gothmolly]

So she was a bitch and an MS shill, and now she's simply misunderstood and the guy is a fanboi?

WTF happened in the meantime?

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[plague3106]

You eiether have never used Microsoft software, or you write it. I've used Microsoft since DOS and since about the time Windows 95 came out, no version of any package or OS is less like the previous version's than the competetitor's.

I've used MS stuff since DOS 3.

When we switched from Quattro to XL in the late nineties, Excel was different enough I had them send me to a 3 day class. Then they upgraded to the next version of Office, and that training was wasted money -- the newer version of Excel was more like the Quattro I had been using than the Excel I had taken traiing on.

Thanks for the anecdote. Are you going to cite something in the past decade though? Or stick by a sole example more than 10 years old? The UI for Excel also has not changed much. Sorry if you're confused because of your use of a competing product, but that's hardly MS' fault.

Three years ago I had them install Foxpro, as I'd gotten good at programming in it years earlier, and hate Access. The last I'd used was six, they upgraded to 8. I have no clue how to work it; it is completely foreign.

So you're knowledge of carborators should apply to fuel injected cars? Yes, programming languages evolve, just like real languages. Something is wrong with your logic; there's a lot more Access out there than Foxpro, and your personal preference sounds like a bad choice for your company. FWIW though, I have kept up with access through the years, yes it's changed. They added features. But the basic premise is, and remains the same. Even the UI is familar enough, and I rarely use access.

They tell me the newest version of Office has "ribbons". Well, whenever my office upgrades again I'll have to learn it all over -- again.

If you feel like you're learning everything from scratch again... well, you're in the wrong industry. You fail to see similarities and are thrown off by a few differences. The core Office is largely the same. I bought Office 2007 without ever seeing the ribbon. I took me about 10 minutes to find what I needed. It's actually easier to find what you want with the ribbon, which is kinda the point of the UI..

You can blow smoke up a newbie's ass, bud, but not mine -- I use the stuff. Lack of backwards UI is one of my biggest gripes about Microsoft.

Oh, sorry if the icon doesn't remain unchanged for eternity. Did you fight running water and electricty too? How about those new fangled cell phones? Can you figure out those, or are they too difficult as well? Because you know, making a call is slightly different than a corded phone.

IF. When everyone else standardizes on the next version of office and they can't read the files any more, they'll have two choices -- pay to upgrade to the newest version of Office, or get an office suite that will read the old and new files (Like Star Office).

That's a myth. People exchange pdfs far more than doc files or xls files. I've yet to work for a company (and I"ve worked for some HUGE ones) that had to upgrade their office software because another company they dealt with did.

I'm not the one who's failing and having problems. But everyone around me seems to be.

Heh. You keep teling yourself that. I believe there's a specifical mental illness that describes you, but the name eludes me at the moment.

They are better -- they get paid better. If private schools were illegal, those quality teachers would be in public schools, who would be forced to pay better salaries, because the rich would insist on it.

Ahh ya, kill competition, that's the way to high quality! Of course you're right, those teachers would automatically get paid the same in public schooling.. weird how they didn't choose public schools to begin with huh? Thank god no one ever changes careers. And of course those high quality teachers would NEVER be teaching higher level courses that the rich kids are, but no room for the lower income kids (need to keep class sizes small, you know)

Re:Cheaper by the dozen

[mcgrew]

The UI for Excel also has not changed much. Sorry if you're confused because of your use of a competing product, but that's hardly MS' fault

I use it at work. They switched form Quattro to Excel at work, and then upgraded to Excel 2000. We're still using it. Are you telling me that Microsoft products no longer require your complete retraining when your employer upgrades?

You seem to have a reading disfunction, as I said the version of Excel they upgraded to was more like the COMPETING PRODUCT than the previous MS product.

So you're knowledge of carborators should apply to fuel injected cars?

We're talking UI here. My fuel injected car drives exactly the same way my old carburated cars drove. When they went to Access, I had no expectation it would be anything like FoxPro, but when they upgraded to a later Foxpro I had every expectation of being able to use it.

Oh, sorry if the icon doesn't remain unchanged for eternity.

Who cares about the fucking icon? I'm talking about its USEABILITY and UTILITY and you keep sounding like a politician dancing around the point, avoiding it completely, defending yourself against straw men that you set up yourself. It's becoming annoying.

Did you fight running water and electricty too?

I'm not THAT old.

How about those new fangled cell phones? Can you figure out those, or are they too difficult as well? Because you know, making a call is slightly different than a corded phone

It's not the least different. You dial the number, you talk. The only difference is you have to press "send" before you talk.

The core Office is largely the same. I bought Office 2007 without ever seeing the ribbon. I took me about 10 minutes to find what I needed. It's actually easier to find what you want with the ribbon, which is kinda the point of the UI..

I've never seen the ribbon; as I said, we're using 2000, likely because my employer doesn't want to have to retrain everyone on tools wwe already have and people are already productive on. If you could show my employer exactly how the ribbon would make his workforce more productive I'm sure he'd upgrade, but he would be a fool to upgrade with no gains in utility but with losses (to training time) in productivity.

Ahh ya, kill competition, that's the way to high quality! Of course you're right, those teachers would automatically get paid the same in public schooling.. weird how they didn't choose public schools to begin with huh?

If there were no private schools, those teachers would have to either teach in public school or find another profession. Those with the money and power would force the school districts to hire quality teachers, no matter what the cost. That's how it works - money talks and bulshit walks. Force the rich kids into a ghetto school and watch that school's quality rise!

I still like my idea better; it would force better teachers because EVERYONE demanded it, not just the rich.

Demands are worthless unless they are backed up by authority, and only the rich have authority.

No, you didn't get that money. You take my money from me in the form of property tax

No I don't, and in fact I consider property tax the most evil of all taxes.