Thanks for the valuable insights. You're right, the idea is to adopt free software and learn programming too. Eventually, emacs could be an option.
Jean Louis writes: > That is great Jonathan. > > * Jonathan Sandoval <[email protected]> [2020-08-10 03:35]: >> Techela-emacs was a nice discovery and I'll surely give it a try. But, I >> think it wouldn't be a good fit for our use case. > > Probably not. You need small gradient, simpler approach. And do you > really need too much of a distant software? > > We have been running Computer Club back in time and many interesting > people came, so we made a schedule. > > At some time there would be game playing, at some time explanation how > computers work related to hardware, at some specific time there would > be courses of BASIC, some other time courses of LOGO programming > language. That is how it was. > > Emacs is great learning resource, you could put schedule for Emacs > Tutorial, at some time you could demonstrate what is IRC or you could > enable XMPP server for your cultural club. You could help each of them > connect with the world. For small kids there is QCompris software. > >> Because of COVID-19, our activites halted. As I mentioned, the people of >> the cultural house are a mix of academics from univerties, but common >> people without formal education and not much knowledge on computing. We >> have a teacher of agroecology who is knowleadgeable about that topic, >> but not much in computers. > > As I had a similar situation, I can tell you that common people, even > farmers, they could complete course for BASIC programming language, if > I would have LISP at that time, I would be using that one, it does not > matter. There was no person that could not complete a programming > course, none of them completed university ever. > > You can teach a teacher how to teach others, and teacher could provide > course during the week, helping people to learn as I said, about > hardware, CPU, input and output devices, then you give people time for > games, time for communication setup, time for programming, anything, > you can make the good time with people. > >> I taught them to use Jitsi Meet and BigBlueButton. It was not >> easy. Jitsi was a little simpler, but not everyone could use BBB. I >> suspect the reason is an old cellphone, but the preventive isolation >> does not allow me to really diagnose the problem. It's an example. Other >> guys have really slow computers and most of them have Windows. We're >> just beginning with free software and I haven't had the opportunity to >> make an installation festival. And other problems have arisen. > > I would setup XMPP server, I use Prosody, and I would help them each > to setup XMPP chat for their own society from any device they have, > and I would help them use free software regardless of their operating > system. That would connect your own people together in a safe manner, > network would not be proprietary but your own. US $5 per month is > enough today to run your own website, chat server, and something more. > >> So, expecting them to learn emacs, in Windows and Git does not sound >> like a very good idea. > > I understand. > > Yet you can teach them how to use Emacs. Then you empower them to > teach them how to handle their life by using Org mode. Think about > that, many things may improve in their life. Emacs is much better > learning interface than just a browser alone, as Emacs can teach a > person how to program, how computer works, and what is free software, > it was for decades a good starting program to teach people about GNU, > and today even more so. > >> For them, accesing a site with their browsers is more natural, >> because all of them at least have an e-mail account. > > There is nothing wrong having people use browser, yet if you only > focus on one interface, you would not teach, you limit them. Emacs is > good for reading emails and good for understanding how emails work. > > You have plethora of other educational software, there is music > software, there is chemistry software. Make a schedule of various > activities, that is my proposal for you. > >> I doubt 30 minutes are enough for learning emacs (I recently tried >> to show the basics to a friend who's a programmer and is used to >> VSCode and he seemed really confused and kind of gave up). > > It is because you may have jumped over some misunderstood and he > become confused. Emacs Tutorial is simple and can be done by anybody > without any background of education. If person does not anything about > computers of course that you would need to explain better what and > where is Ctrl key or what is Meta or Alt key and so on. > > I have trained people in using Emacs without any problem within 20-30 > minutes, just by opening the tutorial and telling them to > excercise. After the tutorial those some people were opening files for > me, they have been translating files into Swahili language, and saving > files and later sharing with me. > > You could Emacs if not for anything, then for Tetris and promotion of > free software. If you are not yourself Emacs user, you may need more > experience to understand the usefulness. > > Even just for presentations, Emacs would be good resource, for the > simple fact that size of fonts can be enlarged quick enough to make > short notes to demonstrate to people. Many times I have helped people > understand pieces of information even if they displace their glasses > somewhere, just because fonts can be quickly enlarged. For games, you > could use Tetris, or install Sudoku and already have a good time, > teaching somebody Sudoku or working with 5 people together on one > computer to play 3 session of Sudoku will already bring them good > time. > > Jean -- _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
