An admirable idea. However.... It's unclear from your email whether this is just for CS students or the wider university population at large. I'm assuming the latter. If it's the former then don't bother reading on and apologies for wasting your time.... What is the aim of it all? It seems to me you wish to turn 1st. and 2nd. year students onto Linux and suggest that there are other operating systems other than Mac and Windows - dare I say even to convert some of those students. I'm a tertiary level lecturer of over a decade (including at present Waikato University) and most of that teaching has involved the use of computers (audio, video, web applications mainly and some Perl- scripting etc.) Assuming that the seminars are aimed at students not just from the CS Dept. (where one can safely assume they know one end of a mouse from another - do they?), I think the ordering of your seminars is back to front. 1/ If I were someone who had a few years surfing the internet on Windows, using IRC/chat programs, Microsoft Office and the virus-bait Outlook and came to this seminar, I'd want to know what Linux has to offer that replaces the above and that won't cost me anything. Perhaps it's even 'safer' than Windows? Bash? Emacs? What do I want to know about command-line stuff? Windows allows me to just point and click? Clearly Linux is just for geeks. No thank you. 2/ If I'd never had any experience of computers but 'knew' that something called a mouse allowed you to easily interact with applications, write essays, spellcheck and hunt down dubious sources on the Internet to plagiarise for my assignments, again, what would I want with bash, emacs, process control ("you mean Linux crashes?") etc? I want to know how I can use Linux (freely!) to accomplish those tasks. 3/ Perhaps I'm a student who has a preconception of Linux as just for geeks - your first few seminars are going to reinforce that image. What about flashy multimedia applications that, let's face it, are going to be far more attractive to the average University student: Gimp, Cinelerra, Ardour, Audacity, etc. etc. etc. Did I mention it's all free? On 13 Feb 2004 at 10:46, Matt Brown wrote:
Hi,
In conjunction with the CS Department at Waikato University WLUG is organising a series of seminars aimed at introducing first and second year students to Linux and OSS in general. We are currently in the process of planning these seminars and are looking for comments on what to include and what to leave out.
The seminars will run in weeks 2 and 3 of semester A for 3 nights each week. Each seminar will be around 1.5hrs long. Below is a brief outline of what we are currently planning on covering in each seminar. If you have comments or suggestions please let us know.
Seminar 1: (Tue 9th Mar) - Introduction to Linux / OSS - What is OSS - What is Linux - What is GNU - Why use Linux - History of Linux - About the Linux Distributions
Seminar 2: (Wed 10th Mar) - Bash - A general introduction to bash, what it is, how to use it and tips for performing common tasks.
Seminar 3: (Thu 11th Mar) - Emacs - A general introduction to emacs, what it is, how to use it and tips for performing common tasks.
Seminar 4: (Tue 16th Mar) - Processes - An introduction to process control in unix systems. We will cover how to start, stop, suspend and kill processes.
Seminar 5: (Wed 17th Mar) - Applications - An introduction to useful OSS applications that can be used under linux. This will focus on what is installed in the TSG labs and will probably cover (pending confirmation) - ssh / scp - Mozilla - OpenOffice
Seminar 6: (Thu 18th Mar) - Summary / Q&A - A summary of how to put everything that has been taught together, followed by a question and answer session.
The popular cheat sheet will be given out again and we are looking at providing each attendee with a copy of Knoppix.
Comments welcome :)
Regards
-- Matt Brown Email: matt(a)mattb.net.nz GSM : 021 611 544
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