[K12OSN] Teaching Programming Languages

David Hopkins dahopkins429 at gmail.com
Tue Mar 6 19:21:36 UTC 2007


Based on my observation of the kids at NCS (5-8), they do not have any
issues with the technology. In fact it is cool because it is different.
Also, since we use rdesktop to access our Windows terminal servers, they
quickly discover the benefit of having the capability to log onto a system
when they need those resources, and the use of multiple local windows for
organizing their work.  After the first year, they quickly come to expect
that when they need access to the system it will be there because "it just
works" from anywhere in the school.  Word processing isn't really a problem
either, for the most part.  They learn about the help button and how to use
it to troubleshoot questions if the answer isn't obvious.  And, we give them
copies of any of the Opensource programs we are using to take home with
them.

Now, the teachers are a different story since they do have biases based on
years of working in one particular mode or another.  Some of this is due to
the pressure to get the job done, but there are also those who are just
afraid of something different.  Human nature to make the "change=bad"
connection since for survival this is often the case.  Getting complete
buy-in from the administration is essential though since if they do have a
problem, they can't then do an end run.  In my case, I gave the school
director a copy of OpenOffice.org to use as his only word processor for the
summer, and installed it on all of his home systems as well, along with
Firefox as the web browser.  After 2 months of use, he bought into the
philosophy and has actively backed the use of OpenSource since.  He has been
very very supportive of this experiment though we do have to address some
compatibility issues because Delaware govm't is very much MS-centric.

Sincerely,
Dave Hopkins


> Is anybody having any success getting students involved and interested in
> technology past the basic M$ office classes (other than what we have already
> discussed)?
>
> The reason I am asking all this is so that I can gather some good examples
> of how people are making students excited about tech using free software
> (stuff that windows can't do is always good) so that they will have an
> easier time with the onset of my impending GNU/Linux takeover.
>
>
>
> Joe Korzeniewski
> Technology Director
> Mason County Eastern Schools
> 231-757-1120
>
>
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