[Fsf-friends] Help: Introducing students to OSS
Harish Narayanan
harish@gamebox.net
Sun Dec 14 19:08:51 IST 2003
Greetings.
Firstly, it's nice to hear teachers at colleges taking the initiative.
When I was in school/college (and still am for that matter), we weren't
explicitly told about the ideals and goals of these projects, but we
were exposed to a good deal of them since there were (and are) labs
running these software, and we were using them often.
But, (I don't quite know whether to refer to you as Balachandran or
Sir, so I am going with neither) I am sure once you talk to your
students you will be pleasantly surprised how much they have already
been exposed to GNU Linux and other Free Software, and how much they
have figured out on their own and from other people. From personal
experience, anybody who I've known to be curious or read any magazine
related to computers or technology has popped in a distribution install
disc and tried playing with it at home. This has been, again in my
experience, in high school, when they have finally decided they are
brave enough to partition their hard disk. Many of them have gone on to
be full time users.
I think what I am trying to say is, a fair portion of the people, by
second year in college have tried it, are using it or have friends who
do. It would be nice if you could identify these people, and help them
influence people they know to try it, or help them with installation or
in other ways. This, I have seen is the easiest way to get people
comfortable with it. My parents, for instance, don't have an issue now
with using Mandrake GNU Linux (granted their usual realm of usage
doesn't propagate too much beyond Galeon, gaim, OpenOffice.org and
Ximian Evolution on a fairly standard GNOME desktop). But they wouldn't
have made an attempt to get it installed on a machine themselves. Once
that is done and everything is set up to "just work", they are
comfortable without proprietary software. Anyway, enough of my personal
experiences and to attempt to answer your question in a college setting.
My suggestions include (not all are necessarily feasible, I know):
* First, on the same note as above, organise a local user group for
people who use these software, at a college or larger level, so that
they can meet once a month or so and help/influence other people. (This
is also a sort of social event for the geeky types. We need to get out
more. At least this way it's with like minded people to an extent.)
* If the primary work environment in labs is Windows based (which I am
assuming it is) have the lab administrator install a fairly recent GNU
Linux distribution on a separate partition and indicate to the students
they can boot to it if they want. (Again, I am assuming you do not wish
to remove the windows partition just yet). There is usually a rather
common misconception that free software is harder to use, because it is
free and used only by hackers. Once people try it, they could realize
they were not entirely right. Plus there is usually a lot of cool stuff,
the GIMP for instance, that can catch people's fancy. I'd have to say,
superficial as it may be, programs like the GIMP and eye-candy in
environments such as Enlightenment (no "real" updates in ages) made it
cool and fun to use. Which is actually quite important when you are in
school.
* As a step leading to what I said above, replace (or install along
side) standard windows software (such as MS Office, IE, Outlook Express
...) and other proprietary software, with free equivalents
(OpenOffice.org, Firebird, Thunderbird ...). If people get used to, say
OpenOffice.org on windows, and they realize it runs just the same or
even better on GNU Linux, they will find it easier, and hence be more
willing to make the shift. (Again, in my experience, environments such
as Cygwin are generally of very different quality, so please don't make
it a users first experience. They will tend to assume all software on an
"actual" GNU Linux environment performs that way.)
* Please don't force the coursework, in your case (I am assuming
programming) to depend on the nuances of a particular compiler or
platform (graphics programming for instance). Teach them standard
programming practices based on rigorous standards, so people can use the
compilers and build chains of their choice. Again hoping this will allow
people to delve into GNU software, such as gcc, gdb and make. It will be
hard to say, yes, GNU Linux can do this and that, but please code in MS
Visual C++ because your assignment requires some win32 specific headers.
The same goes for using, say Word to type out reports. Introduce them to
Latex or a similar program, which may be harder initially, but once they
get the hang of it, the quality of their work will be higher. ( I am not
a student in the field of computer science, so am not entirely sure what
really goes into the curriculum. The same logic also applies to say,
HTML/XHTML, SQL and whatever else the curriculum might contain.)
* As a practice, in general, following the same vein of the previous
point, don't use proprietary or patented formats as far as possible for
anything and set an example. If you want to play them, say an audio clip
of a talk, use an Ogg Vorbis file and not an MP3. Someone will
definitely notice this, and ask you why. Then you can use that as an
opportunity to explain the ideals, which I have reiterated as my next
point.
* In classes, indicate the ideals and goals behind such projects. They
will realize for themselves the technical superiority (or where it is
lacking) of these tools in comparison with their proprietary
counterparts. Once people understand the ideology, they will appreciate
it a lot more. The ones so inclined will also contribute code,
financially, bug reports etc.. to help these projects grow.
* And please don't call it OSS.
I could come up with a few more if I really thought about it, but I will
wait to see how people feel about this existing set before I do.
Just another student and FSF associate member from the month he started
earning,
Harish Narayanan
balachandran c wrote:
>Hi friends,
>
>I have an opportunity to teach a few courses to computer science students at Engg. college tvm. I would like to know your opinions/ideas on introducing the students to OSS. Though I havent had much interaction with the students yet, i believe that most of the 2nd year guys are not familiar with Gnu/Linux.
>
>PS: Im new here
>
>Balachandran Chandrasekharan
>
>
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