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Linux should be a part of School Education

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Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#61

Post by ZenoArrow »

pessimizer wrote: post #56
computernovice wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't trolling, hence the account name. Its hard to learn about how computers work because I don't even know where to start. When I typed "types of computer memory", there are a bunch of different resources. Its difficult and inefficient to just google every term/acronym I don't know. But thanks anyways for the answer.

I apologize: downvotes and 5 minute old accounts make me think troll. Volatile memory, like RAM, needs a constant source of power to hold information, but is very fast, so computers use it for calculation, or information that it will come back to immediately. Non-volatile memory, like a hard drive, holds information even when the power is turned off. cache: means a temporary place to hold stuff, and isn't a particula…

"caches: means a temporary place to hold stuff, and isn't a particular type of memory."

Of course processor caches are a type of memory! All RAM is is a "temporary place to hold stuff" too.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#62

Post by computernovice »

pessimizer wrote: post #56
computernovice wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't trolling, hence the account name. Its hard to learn about how computers work because I don't even know where to start. When I typed "types of computer memory", there are a bunch of different resources. Its difficult and inefficient to just google every term/acronym I don't know. But thanks anyways for the answer.

I apologize: downvotes and 5 minute old accounts make me think troll. Volatile memory, like RAM, needs a constant source of power to hold information, but is very fast, so computers use it for calculation, or information that it will come back to immediately. Non-volatile memory, like a hard drive, holds information even when the power is turned off. cache: means a temporary place to hold stuff, and isn't a particula…

Thanks for your answers. Its really impressive if you rattled all of that without even having to refer to anything except previous knowledge. I'm not sure I quite understand the general interaction between the parts but it definitely makes 100x more sense now than before.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#63

Post by yoha »

simonh wrote: post #4

What a complete load of tosh. Education is about teaching children valuable skills they can apply in their daily lives. How many of them would ever see a PC running Linux again? The cost argument doesn't really stand up either, books cost money and 'do nothing but line the pockets of the publishers' to paraphrase the author. It's not as if computers running Linux cost nothing either. If Linux is going to find a place…

School is not about making you smart or giving you a job. It's about giving them the power to drive their lives.

Computer education is important and should really have a more important part. And when I say computer, I'm not advocating for PC, mobiles, Windows, Linux, or whatever thing whose market share will have drastically changed in ten years.

Children should be taught that they can have a computer do tasks for them and, if possible, without practical dependence on whichever architecture/OS you pick. I don't care which system they train on, as long as they get that computers are logical systems with predictable output. I don't care which language they learn, as long as it makes them understand computers are not some black boxes but things they can control.

Also, I would like such an education to teach that the Internet is not some big corporation controlled by shady lolcatz or a box supervised by elders in Big Ben. I would like them to know that the World is vast and that the Internet is shallow; the Internet is in their reach and allow them to go farther than ever (geographically, but also intellectually).

tl;dr: the important is making them understand they can, not necessarily how (they should be able to teach themselves specific skills)

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#64

Post by skriticos2 »

Sanddancer wrote: post #8

One should teach children using the best tools for the job; cost should not be an issue here in the consideration. What is the quality of educational software in the Linux world compared to Windows? What about compared to OS X? What about usability? Accessibility? A rather vapid statement about "cost" isn't going to cut it as an argument as to why Linux should be used. Even amongst Free operating systems, why Linux?…

I agree. It would be much more useful to focus on things like the differences between package management systems in various OS's and maybe point out the strengths. For Linux this would be easy scripting and generic problem solving while in Windows you have a much more "solution" based ecosystem.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't advocate hardcore CS for everyone, but some basic scripting would not hurt the average student.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#65

Post by yen223 »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #18
binocarlos wrote: post #9

Rather than this OS or that OS - I really wished someone at school had taught me: * how DNS works * the process model with stdin,stdout,env vars + cmd args * streams - text or otherwise * protocols like HTTP but what they actually did on the wire Every OS uses the above list and so even for a young child - you can teach by example. Surely using nice fluffy diagrams it would be worth trying this to find out that only…

Teaching those in school would be a waste of time. I work full time in the tech industry and don't fully understand all of those topics because they are irrelevant to me. People are never going to need to understand them for daily use.

A lot of folks here will disagree with you, but I totally get where you're coming from. Schools, especially at lower levels, should focus on practical skills, rather than theoretical ones.

Future accountants and mechanics aren't going to benefit much from understanding how DNS works, but they can benefit from knowing how to install an OS, or even doing high-level automation.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#66

Post by pjc50 »

simonh wrote: post #4

What a complete load of tosh. Education is about teaching children valuable skills they can apply in their daily lives. How many of them would ever see a PC running Linux again? The cost argument doesn't really stand up either, books cost money and 'do nothing but line the pockets of the publishers' to paraphrase the author. It's not as if computers running Linux cost nothing either. If Linux is going to find a place…

The tablets are not easily programmable _from the tablet_.

The distinction has to be between educating people how to do things on the computer (which really doesn't take all that long, but can turn into "qualifications in specfic version of Word"), versus understanding the technology enough to fix your own problems and develop new things.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#67

Post by Sanddancer »

rythie wrote: post #60
Sanddancer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How a computer actually works, probably something microkernel-based, like Minix. Stripped down, show just what needs to be shown for the lesson at hand, and much easier to get inside and play with the gears. Programming? I'd say the OS doesn't really matter. Simple, easy to see initial result environments like MIT's Scratch, or Logo run on pretty much everything.

Scratch is ok at first, but really they need to come out of schoool knowing something more than that (python/ruby/java etc.)

Well, this is for a learning environment for children, so I'd argue getting a language with a good hook is important. Additionally, both environments also offer a more interesting language under the hood to poke at -- for scratch, smalltalk/actionscript, and for logo, the lisp-style language under the hood -- to teach the more advanced concepts. Give interesting, easy results, but then use that to build on how to bring in more and more in-depth concepts.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#68

Post by rbanffy »

ygra wrote: post #49
rbanffy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a person does not understand how the world around them works (and most of it is driven by computers), how can we expect them to adequately operate in it? A couple weeks back I remember the case when someone bleached her home because she feared she could catch the viruses on her computer. There are many people who do, for the lack of a better word, rituals with their computers because they can't figure out their wi…

So Linux is somehow immune against people ritualising how they interact with a computer? They will have a problem one day, google for a solution and remember that solution. Few will actively try understanding the solution and how and why it works. Operating systems don't have magical powers for making users interested in their internals.

It's not immune, but chances are that, during the time you are googling solutions for your problem, you'll have to learn something about how computers actually work. If the solution points you to a series of "click here, then here" screens, you won't get any useful insights on how it's done under the hood because you spent the whole time above it.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#69

Post by rbanffy »

Fuxy wrote: post #28

If someone were using Linux to teach I as a student would think their using some crap computers. Like it or not students don't see the potential of Linux like we do and truth is Windows is still more user friendly then Linux when it comes to doing some moderately advanced things. Probably the closest you can get is KDE since for most users if the setting isn't in the GUI it doesn't exist. It would be cool if schools…

> I as a student would think their using some crap computers.

When was the last time you saw a machine running Linux in person?

> unlikely to run into driver issues when connecting new devices.

I am not a grandma and the last device that didn't play nice with my Linux machines was a prototype Blackberry phone. I somehow don't think it was the computer's fault.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#70

Post by rbanffy »

pessimizer wrote: post #56
computernovice wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't trolling, hence the account name. Its hard to learn about how computers work because I don't even know where to start. When I typed "types of computer memory", there are a bunch of different resources. Its difficult and inefficient to just google every term/acronym I don't know. But thanks anyways for the answer.

I apologize: downvotes and 5 minute old accounts make me think troll. Volatile memory, like RAM, needs a constant source of power to hold information, but is very fast, so computers use it for calculation, or information that it will come back to immediately. Non-volatile memory, like a hard drive, holds information even when the power is turned off. cache: means a temporary place to hold stuff, and isn't a particula…

Don't forget register files and microcode in the various processing units inside CPU's, GPU's, misc controllers...
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