[Gnhlug-org] Re: adult ed classes on Linux

Randy Edwards redwards at golgotha.net
Sat Jan 11 10:30:30 EST 2003


Ed Lawson wrote:
> primary question to me is just what should be taught in a four or five 
> week course with classes running about 1 1/2 hrs. each?  My assumption 
> would be those who sign up are likely to be more interested in computers 
> than most, but also unlikely to be technically proficient.  Has anyone 
> taught such a class?  Know of a course outline anywhere?

    One of my odd jobs now is as a corporate trainer teaching Linux.  The 
sessions I do are two-day, 9-hour cram sessions generally to folks who know 
computers and who, on average, know the command line and might know some Unix. 
  With that type of student, I can zip along pretty quickly without losing people.

    One question would be: what distro are you going to teach?  I would 
reluctantly suggest Red Hat.  Its GUI admin tools are more Windows-like and 
it's popular.  If you go with Knoppix (cool idea) you have to teach Debian, 
which means basically no GUI admin tools and plus the complexity of explaining 
Knoppix compared to a typical hard drive install.

    But the key is the students and what knowledge level they're coming into 
the class with, and also what they want to get out of the class.  Are you 
going to have to teach BIND (Randy shudders thinking about teaching newbies 
reverse lookups and odd periods in BIND config files:-)?  Apache?  More 
desktop-oriented stuff (if so, what about OpenOffice with Knoppix)?  Before 
you can worry about outlines and such you have to ID what the students are 
going to get out of the class and roughly what their skillset is coming in.

-- 
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