Hi All, Although I am relatively new to Linux, as a high school teacher I have noticed some things regarding students and computers. It amazes me to see how proficient some students are when delving into the Windows OS, and it demonstrates how comfortable people are with something that the grow up with it. While I was very comfortable with the nuances of Windows these kids would run rings around me several times over.
The problem I see is that many students no of nothing outside the M$ universe. Prior to moving over to Linux my minimal move away from M$ was to use Netscape 6.2. I asked a couple of classes what they use to browse the net and they all looked at me like I was a fool, i.e. "There is only one net browser sir." Their next question was to ask me what I used? They were stunned I didn't use M$ Explorer. Well there are now Linux stickers around my classroom and one machine will be a dual OS machine with Windows 98 and SuSE 7.3. The test will be to see if Linux will work with Novell, the network we run at school. One small victory is the Computing Studies teacher is quite interested in my Linux move and has agreed we should run both systems on the Staffroom machines. Small steps and the school may get there. It doesn't help, however, when the Department of Education enters into a licencing agreement with M$ that allows all staff to install Office etc at home "legally". Forgive my musings, I am hoping I am in a good position to make people aware about Linux at a young age. Regards Paul Copeland -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
