Thanks for all the advice, guys! I have tossed around the idea of going without a textbook, but, in that case, I'd at least like a good reference book so that those that don't learn well from hearing something spoken will have something written to lean on.
As for the "install Linux" idea - that's day 2 of my lesson plan. I bring in a bunch of disks (various flavors of Linux) and set them loose.
The comments suggesting "the basics" are correct, but as the OP notes, there is a 100-level class that they take first to get comfortable with such things. I'd like to move beyond the "this is a mouse" stage and into the guts of the OS more.
When I referred to the previous textbook as outdated, I mean that it uses tools that have generally been superseded by newer tools - for example, our new installs of Fedora, Ubuntu and OpenSuse don't have lpr but use CUPS instead. The textbook doesn't even mention CUPS, so the whole chapter on printing is useless. Believe me, I go for old-school, command-line originals, but if the install we're working with doesn't have the tools listed in the books, but has something newer and better, I want my students to be able to try it out.
Thanks for all the title suggestions. I'll be researching those for the next week or two!
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Thanks for all the advice, guys! I have tossed around the idea of going without a textbook, but, in that case, I'd at least like a good reference book so that those that don't learn well from hearing something spoken will have something written to lean on. As for the "install Linux" idea - that's day 2 of my lesson plan. I bring in a bunch of disks (various flavors of Linux) and set them loose. The comments suggesting "the basics" are correct, but as the OP notes, there is a 100-level class that they take first to get comfortable with such things. I'd like to move beyond the "this is a mouse" stage and into the guts of the OS more. When I referred to the previous textbook as outdated, I mean that it uses tools that have generally been superseded by newer tools - for example, our new installs of Fedora, Ubuntu and OpenSuse don't have lpr but use CUPS instead. The textbook doesn't even mention CUPS, so the whole chapter on printing is useless. Believe me, I go for old-school, command-line originals, but if the install we're working with doesn't have the tools listed in the books, but has something newer and better, I want my students to be able to try it out. Thanks for all the title suggestions. I'll be researching those for the next week or two!