Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linux should be a part of School Education

linuxfederation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 113 posts

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#71

Post by fit2rule »

RussianCow wrote: post #48
fit2rule wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're contradicting yourself in the rush to sound like an authority. Androids is a Linux computer. Learning linux is vital - because Linux runs everywhere, and almost everything! Been on a train in Europe? Your life is being protected by Linux. Made an Internet connection in the USA? You're using Linux, somewhere. Teaching kids to use the Linux OS should be as equally valid an approach as teaching them Windows. The…

I don't have to understand how my car works in order to be able to use it. Sure, everyone would benefit from someday learning to use Linux, but to say it's vital is extreme exaggeration.

You say that now, but wait until your car is broken down in the middle of nowhere and you really need to get home.

You see, your argument doesn't really work in your favour, either - because cars have been following the computerization model (or is it the other way around) for years .. whereas you once could have worked on your car, now its completely locked down, you need special proprietary tools to work on it, and you're not going to be able to function as a driver without further investing in the infrastructure. A pity, as it used to be that kids in their teens could repair cars, if they need to.

Do you really think your position improves society, or perhaps it just serves to justify its current state of utter incompetence?

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#72

Post by simonh »

fit2rule wrote: post #19
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…

You're contradicting yourself in the rush to sound like an authority. Androids is a Linux computer. Learning linux is vital - because Linux runs everywhere, and almost everything! Been on a train in Europe? Your life is being protected by Linux. Made an Internet connection in the USA? You're using Linux, somewhere. Teaching kids to use the Linux OS should be as equally valid an approach as teaching them Windows. The…

>Androids is a Linux computer. > >Learning linux is vital - because Linux runs everywhere, and almost everything!

Is using Android really your idea of learning Linux? iOS is a Unix variant too. Do you really think those facts are in any way relevant to the learning experience of children using them? That's pure technological partisanship, based on an agenda that has nothing whatever to do with education.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#73

Post by professorTuring »

arethuza wrote: post #39
binocarlos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes good point - teaching the basic principles is sort of what I was thinking - HTTP bad example.

Actually, I think teaching about HTTP isn't a bad example. At it's base it is pretty simple to understand, there are good tools to work with it, it's hugely important and it leads on nicely to things like DNS and security.

There are thousands of applications that abstract normal people from the "HTTP". Knowing stuff is a great thing, but forcing people to learn stuff is something totally different.

Show kids how to build a webpage with HTTP and CSS and they will run for their lives. Maybe you can teach them how to configure any content manager making an effort in explain them how having a webpage can affect their lives and how can they prevent them (security, privacy...).

It is school guys, teach kids useful tools for their lives, don't bore them with hypes (I am purposely obviating the "brain" development thing).

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#74

Post by jussij »

f_salmon wrote: post #23

> Linux should be a part of School Education The concept of "open source" should be part of school education. We don't need thousands of proprietary version of the same thing. That's a HUGE waste of resources on literally every level. All we need is 1 version that is accessible, clone-able, and modifiable for everybody. Imagine where humanity could be today if we had used that approach right from the start and for ev…

> Imagine where humanity could be today if we had used that approach right from the start and for every single product out there.

That is exactly the model Linux has offered for over two decades now. If it was such a good model, systems like Windows and MacOS should now be history.

But those proprietary systems still dominate.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#75

Post by stelonix »

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.

I hope you're making use of all the not-wasteful-for-your-area topics you learned in school: covalent bonds, subordinate clauses, electromagnetic induction, anatomy of reptiles...

There's plenty more people using HTTP than there are biologists in the world, you still get fed up all those subjects that don't suit your area. Why single out the ones that are mostly likely to be useful to anyone?

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#76

Post by tragic »

csmithuk wrote: post #55
rythie wrote: post #38

The problem here is that (in the UK at least) kids come out of school knowing nothing about about a computer works or programming - windows/mac/ios/android increasingly hide this from you. Kids think that programming a computer game is some trival task and have no idea how to even make the simplest of programs. The counter point is that they shouldn't need to know this, but then why do we teach flower germination? or…

It's not all that bad now and wasn't when I was at school (in the UK). During my time, we had the Acorn BBC Micro to start with, then the Archimedes. These were both programmers dream machines and code we did, usually plugged into large Lego machines. After that it diverged into "office studies" as RM dumped millions of PC clones but there was still Quick Basic and Turbo Pascal available that was taught at a lot of s…

Well, I'm glad about that. I guess I was the 'lost generation' - sure, it was BBC Micros and Acorns at primary, but we basically used them for Chuckie Egg and Lander respectively - no code. By the time I got to secondary, it was the 'Office Studies' era.

If it hadn't have been, I might have skipped the 7 year continental philosophy grad school detour. Ah well...

As for Linux in schools, my feeling would be that there should be a room or two of Linux boxes, and the rest should be Windows - simply because 90% of computer usage in schools, according to some statistics I just made up, consists of doing your homework double quick at breaktime or other mundane uses where it would be better if kids were working with an OS they recognise from home. People who want to do CS/code type subjects should be taught Linux, and it should be available to 'computer clubs' etc.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#77

Post by professorTuring »

rbanffy wrote: post #34
radida wrote: post #14

No it shouldn't, and honestly neither should programming. Sometimes I swear we can get so drunk on our own farts that we think engineering is the only valuable profession in the world, when in reality not everyone needs to be able to code a rails app if all they want to do is check their Facebook. There are many other jobs that are important and valuable to society that do not involve CS - lets just put down the kook…

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…

Bullshit. Most people doesn't know a shit about electronics and they are surrounded with electronic equipment. And this is an example, there are a lot of things I don't know almost anything about them and I can successfully operate with them.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#78

Post by durzagott »

danpalmer wrote: post #53

My school used Windows for everything. I remember when in year 7 (6th grade) I was complaining about the computers to my IT teacher, as many do. His response was "there is another way!". A few days later, he found me and gave me a Linux live CD with Knoppix on it. I remember it claimed to have 2GB of software, compressed into the 700MB a CD could hold. I could put it in my family computer at home, and without install…

Ah Knoppix. I remember how blown away I was when I first ran the Live CD; at that time I had no idea it was even possible. It's a shame that it faded from popularity once Ubuntu came along.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#79

Post by f_salmon »

jussij wrote: post #74
f_salmon wrote: post #23

> Linux should be a part of School Education The concept of "open source" should be part of school education. We don't need thousands of proprietary version of the same thing. That's a HUGE waste of resources on literally every level. All we need is 1 version that is accessible, clone-able, and modifiable for everybody. Imagine where humanity could be today if we had used that approach right from the start and for ev…

> Imagine where humanity could be today if we had used that approach right from the start and for every single product out there. That is exactly the model Linux has offered for over two decades now. If it was such a good model, systems like Windows and MacOS should now be history. But those proprietary systems still dominate.

And they still dominate because money still dominates what we do. We run after the money (= have power over the others), not after what creates sense in our lives. This is probably the most central value and problem in our culture. When that will be gone, life will be worth so much more.

Re: Linux should be a part of School Education

#80

Post by arethuza »

professorTuring wrote: post #73
arethuza wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think teaching about HTTP isn't a bad example. At it's base it is pretty simple to understand, there are good tools to work with it, it's hugely important and it leads on nicely to things like DNS and security.

There are thousands of applications that abstract normal people from the "HTTP". Knowing stuff is a great thing, but forcing people to learn stuff is something totally different. Show kids how to build a webpage with HTTP and CSS and they will run for their lives. Maybe you can teach them how to configure any content manager making an effort in explain them how having a webpage can affect their lives and how can they…

Teaching kids the specifics of some content management system seems as daft to me as focusing on MS Office.
Post reply on HN