Sunday, November 29, 2009

[LINUX_Newbies] Re: Teaching next semester

 



--- In LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com, J <dreadpiratejeff@...> wrote:
>
> Just wanted to say, that unless something drastic happens, I'll be
> teaching the Intro to Linux class in the spring semester. In the
> past, I've encouraged the students to join lists like these to ask
> questions before presenting them to the class... but no one ever seems
> to get the hint that they actually have to do work outside of class.
>
> THIS time, I am going to REQUIRE that they all join LINUX_Newbies and
> post questions here as part of their semester grade. Im toying with
> the idea of grading them based on the number of posts, or maybe
> requiring at least 1 or 2 posts per week of substance (not "me too"
> posts).
>
> Anyone from the Powers that Be have an issue with that??
>
> I have also found out that I will be required to hand in 3 writing
> assignment samples from each student, so I've got to come up with
> writing assignments. As usual, my dept chair and the lady who
> compiles these assignments, are not Linux people, so their
> suggestions all seem to revolve around religious arguments (Linux vs
> Windows, emacs vs vi, etc). Anyone have some GOOD suggestions for
> small writing projects for my class?
>
> Some ideas I've had so far:
> Find a CURRENT news article from a REPUTABLE source and write one page
> summarizing and offering your opinion for or against.
> Explain the history of Linux from Torvald's first post to today
> Explain the Pros and Cons of Linux in the corporate environment
> Write a brief HOWTO teaching how to accomplish a basic task in Linux,
> formatted in the standard HOWTO format.
>
> Any other ideas?
>
> Class doesn''t start until the first week of January, so I've got some
> time to come up with more... Now just hoping the book they use this
> time is CURRENT, and not 5 years out of date. Last semester's book
> was based on Fedora Core 3, at a time when Fedora 10 was available.
>
> Hope everyone is having a good weekend...
>
> Jeff
>
> --
>
> Pablo Picasso - "Computers are useless. They can only give you
> answers." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pablo_picasso.html
>
Since it's a full semester and time would allow, how 'bout having them play with different distro's (here they learn to download and burn) and use each for a month or so, then write their papers on their experience with the distro. They could be required to use at least one RH-offspring (other than Fedora, of course) and one Deb as well as one KDE desktop and one GNOME. Perhaps Ubuntu could be ruled out since it is the most prevalent distro, thus requiring them to explore.
Mark
P.S. Each paper should also include a screenshot, thus verifying that they did actually use the distro and also sparking them to customize each to personal fancy.

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