Re: [seul-edu] Progress on Linux in Portland Schools

[Ivan Teliatnikov <ivan@geosci.usyd.edu.au>]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003, jeff williams wrote:

> On Tuesday 16 September 2003 12:18 pm, Dr. Robert G. Rittenhouse wrote:
> > Actually Open Source has relatively more advantages for teaching CS (as
> > opposed to Office Apps). Our Advanced Placement Computing curriculum
> > calls for Java. With that in mind there are a number of really excellent
> > Open Source development environments such as Eclipse, Netbeans, JGrasp,
> > Bluej.
> 
> Oh, I agree with this wholeheartedly.  In my "day job," not the school board 
> stuff, I teach computer science at Concordia University Wisconsin.  In my 
> programming languages course each student must evaluate a language hitherto 
> unknown.  With open source, it is quite easy to find compiliers for really 
> obscure languages.  It is also very easy to do major projects on a 
> shoestring.

Just a small remark. Using open source is sometimes can be challenging 
for un-motivated ( excelled ) students. We are running two Linux labs to
teach geophysics and marine science courses at a university level. The
best students are enjoying it and always doing very well. Less advanced
students find it more difficult and sometimes are discouraged by the 
luck of familiarity with tradition windows interface. Teaching open 
source in school is one of the most important things. Early age 
education must be generic. Once you have learned how to use command line 
to reverse a file system, you will use ( or be able ) to use it for the 
rest of your life.

Regards,
-- 
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Ivan Teliatnikov

phone: +61 2 9351 2031
fax: +61 2 9351 0184
mobile_phone: +61 402 173 179
email: ivan@es.usyd.edu.au

School of Geosciences
F05 - Edgeworth David Building
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006 Australia

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