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[seul-edu] curriculum Re: [ma-linux] Linux Education (fwd)



SEUL/edu, I am passing Alan's very interesting curriculum over to the
list. 

Perhaps SEUL/edu can host a copy of your curriculum, Alan?

Are there other folks, whose curriculi we can post at SEUL/edu?

It would be great if we could develop an open-homework list, where we can
host optional reading-guides or questions to supplement the "* unleashed"
or O'Reilly books that many people read for learning about GNU/Linux.


ideas/discussion welcome.

  -Karl

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 14:41:44 -0500
From: Alan McConnell <alan@patriot.net>
To: billy ball <bball@tux.org>
Cc: ma-linux@tux.org
Subject: Re: [ma-linux] Linux Education

On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 01:49:58PM -0500, billy ball wrote:
>
> there are plenty of ready-made course outlines with the beginner in
> mind... everyone will have an opinion on what is most important in
> teaching a Linux class, but the religious war will be what distro to use!
	I hate to take issue with a pronouncement of such a Distinguished
	Maestro as "billy"(I'd rather say Herr Professor Doctor William
	J. Sphere<g>)  but I disagree here.

	Distributions are for _installation_, no?  If you are going to
	learn about _Linux_ you should be able to go with any
	distribution.  IMHO.   Of course, one can get used to the
	rpms vs the apt-gets etc, but this, although sometimes non-trivial,
	is really peripheral to the use and management of Linux.
	Again IMHO.

I append below a Course Outline that I put together when I was dickering
with the African Virtual University about running a course for them.
I give it here for all to see and criticize;  I'd be grateful for comments.

Best wishes,

Alan

(start)---------------------------------------
		Introduction to Linux
		   (Course outline)

		Alan McConnell

		I. Introduction
1.  What does one use a computer for?  Certainly three of the main
    purposes of a computer are the following:
	a) to serve as a communication media: E-mail, transferring
	   files, the World-Wide-Web, etc.
	b) to format documents to be printed in such a way as to
	   make maximal use of the available printer.  Printing
	   books, letters, business documents, slides, brochures
	   etc are among the many applications.
	c) to store information compactly and in a form where the
 	   information is readily retrievable.  E.g. one can put
	   a Dickens novel, say "Pickwick Papers", on a single
	   floppy; and one can easily search this file for the
	   first mention of Sam Weller or Alfred Jingle.  Applications
	   for storing, modifying, and accessing business records,
	   book-keeping, and databases are changing the way the world
	   does business.

A Linux system has tools to carry out a), b), and c) above that are the
equal -- indeed in many cases superior -- to any other operating system.
One of the purposes of the proposed course is to give an introduction
to these tools.  The course will also discuss configuration of Linux
programs and the Linux environment, and problems of installation.

2.  As is well-known, the heart of a Linux system, the
kernel(definitions to be discussed below), is by now extremely robust
and powerful.  It, and much of the software accompanying most Linux
distributions is _free_.  This means much more than that one has to
pay little money.  It means, more importantly, that the "source code",
the human-readable files which a computer tool called a compiler
translates into the series of zeros and ones that a machine can
process, is available, for study and possible modification; another
name for software where source code is available is Open Source.  Thus
students and any other interested people can access this source code
and can experiment with modifications, and can achieve an
understanding of how a Linux system operates that can equal that of
the most expensively trained computer scientist in the U.S. or Europe.
Linux is thus a technological "equalizer" without parallel.  It can be
expected that Africans will also contribute to the development of the
growing body of Linux software, as computer scientists in Finland,
Malaysia, and Mexico are doing and have done.

3.  Because a Linux system is free in all senses of the word, and
because it is a multi-user and multi-processing system, it can be used
to bring citizens to computers who might not otherwise be able to
afford a computer.  "Cyber-cafes" and computer arcades can be set up
where citizens, for extremely modest fees, can be given accounts where
they can transact business and send E-mail just as can citizens of
wealthy countries.  There is no reason in principle why the poorest
developing nation can not have as a high percentage of its literate
citizens "on-line" and "Net aware" as the citizens of e.g. Norway
or Canada.  And it is to be hoped and expected that once the world's
citizens have equal access to information, their economic and social
circumstances will speedily become more equal.  Linux can play an
important and powerful role in implementing this social transition.

		II.  Editors
Before one can run, jump, and pole-vault, one must first learn to walk.
Before one can send E-mail, create a file to be printed, or input
information into a database, one must learn how to create and modify
files, using a text editor.

There are an enormous number of editing tools available for Linux.  The
course I propose will give short introductions to the following editors:
pico, vi, emacs, xedit, and I shall hope to give the students the
information needed to make an informed choice of the editor that suits
their style and goals.

While learning about editors, and practicing with them, one can not
help but give an introduction to various essential Unix tools and
procedures: moving around within the system, reading files, and
creating files and directories.

The goal of the first four lectures will be:

	Students should know how to create a text file and then be able
	to access, read and edit files that they have made.

	Students will know about the various types of files available on
	the system; they will know about file ownership and other
     	file characteristics; and they will have had an introduction to
	the various forms of documentation on a Unix/Linux system.

		III.  Computer communications

Much of this section will depend on the extent to which the computers
on which the students practice are connected to other computers in the
university, country, or world.  But even in the worst case, a
stand-alone Linux system, can have tens of user accounts, and students
can learn to send E-mail to each other on these systems, as well as
explore the different E-mail utilities.

They can also practice creating and modifying .html files, and learn
to create Web pages, even if only one Linux system is available.

An introduction to the technology of computer communications --
TCP/IP, communication protocols, etc -- will be presented.

This should take about six hours.

		IV.  How Unix/Linux works -- Part A
After students have seen a bit of what is possible under Linux, they
will, I hope, be ready to learn a little about what is involved in
running a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system.  We will discuss
the functions of the kernel, and contrast that with the behavior of
the surrounding applications, in particular the various available
shells.  We shall look at the process of booting the computer, and
discuss the various configuration options in the /etc directory.  We
shall also give a short introduction to bash and Perl scripts.

This should take about six hours.

		V.  Printing output
This section will be devoted to an introduction to TeX and its extensions.
TeX is a so-called "mark-up" language;  a text file named e.g.
newdocument.tex is created, using an editor, and then the TeX processor
named "tex" produces a file newdocument.dvi.  Then a file converter
named dvips converts newdocument.dvi to newdocument.ps, a PostScript
file which can be previewed and then printed.  Linux contains the
built-in capability to print any PostScript file on any printer; the
printer does not necessarily have to be a "PostScript printer".

The TeX system was developed by Donald Knuth, one of the top United
States computer scientists, over a period of ten years and with the
help of numerous collaborators.  Although originally intended to
produce beautiful mathematics output, it is now an all-purpose
printing mark-up language, and can be used to produce e.g. music
output, or print output in any of the world's languages, from Spanish,
through Arabic, to Ge'ez.

Although Linux has available several so-called "word processors" and
"Office Suites", no time will be spent on them in this course.  Word
processors are, in the opinion of this writer, an out-moded artifact,
since they rely on proprietory formats and are thus incompatible with
the goal of free software as discussed above.  A secretary, or a
technical typist, can easily become fluent in TeX, and can extend
his/her capabilities to produce printing output far beyond the capability
of an ordinary word processor.

However, the course will discuss various documentation format standards
and document conversion tools.  This part of the course -- TeX and its
accompanying processing and conversion tools -- will take between six
and eight hours.

		VI.  Information Storage and Databases
In this section we shall first give an introduction to back-up methods
on Linux, especially the tar(Tape ARchive) utility.  We shall make
recommendations about organizing files.

Then we shall give an introduction to the PostGres database management
system(DBMS), and to SQL, the so-called Structured Query Language, the
DBMS standard language.  There are several other Open Source DBMS and
if time allows we shall discuss them too.  A "toy" example of a
database will be presented.  This unit will take about four hours.

		VII.  How Linux/Unix works -- Part B
This final section will present some of the problems and challenges
of system administration:  backing up, installing new software,
maintaining site security etc.  An introduction to the issues
confronting someone installing Linux on a computer will be given,
as well as a comparison of the different Linux "distributions".
This will take from three to twenty or more hours!


                      ---------------------------------------(finish)

-- 
Alan McConnell      By night our missiles rain on them / By day we drop
Pixel Analysis      them bread. / They should be grateful for the food --
patriot.net/~alan   / Unless, of course, they're dead. (Calvin Trillin)
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