Greater Franklin County Linux Project-- Moves ahead

Call for Instructors

The Linux team met again this morning and worked out some of the final details for the October 24th and subsequent fourth-Tuesday-of-the-month workshops. We hope that there are a few WeMaLU members that can help by teaching the upcoming classes. Interested parties can contact me directly. We'd like to meet with our workshop instructor 10/18 so that s/he can get an idea of what to expect from the group of students and we can all have realistic expectations about what we can and can't get out of a two-hour Linux cram session.

That being said, this is what we're asking of the "ideal" instructor (but these guidelines shouldn't scare anyone off from working with a fun group of students):

Next Class Agenda: A two-hour workshop focusing on the basics of Linux installation and configuration, e.g., key components that all Linux installs should have; key configuration files; file, print and mail services; adding in users individually and in batches; hardening scripts; connecting Macs and PCs to a Linux box. Awareness of and sensitivity to skill levels of participants. All learners have attended a three-day workshop covering the basics of Linux, so this will be a refresher course. However, that course was a first introduction for some students, while others are currently managing Apache web servers. Students range in age from 15 to 55.

Classroom management techniques: Since there is a lot of material to cover in a limited amount of time, we'll need to keep to a tight schedule. The teachers involved in the training will help keep the group on task as much as possible, be we need someone who's capable of holding their own and saying, "Look, it's time to move on" when it's appropriate. (I mention this because it was an issue at the three-day workshop; since this workshop will be largely review, it will probably be much easier to have students hold all questions until the end or consult with other students "experts" in the group if they're truly stumped.)

Hand-outs: We have limited training materials (about six "workbooks" for a group of 20-25) from the summer workshop. Students also have their notes to refer to. We'd ideally have additional SIMPLE resources to refer to (glossaries, helpful web sites, etc.) that would not only help out in class, but could stave off some of the more complex, off-track discussions that will inevitably arise, e.g., "We can't get into that right now, but here's some place you can go for more information on x, y and z." (Maybe your connections with RedHat and some other software companies can be helfpful in this area?)

Project Goals

Our overall goals for this project are to produce 1) a curriculum unit that can be used in subsequent years to train teachers and students in Linux and 2) an "operations manual" facilitating Linux installation and use in a K-12 environment. These are products an instructor would not have to concern him/herself with, however an understanding of what we're hoping to get out of the entire project may be valuable in planning and delivering a workshop to our students.

Planning Meeting - Oct 18th

The team of participating teachers would like to meet with the workshop instructor on Wednesday morning, October 18 to go over more specific details, help organize the two-hour block, and establish realistic expectations for the workshop. We realize this is a lot to cram into such a short session; however, meeting with the group can help us all figure out what is essential, what is do-able, what we need to put on the back burner.

This is really a non-threatening group of Linux users--those under 20 are mostly well-versed, and those over 20 are pretty much novices. Our main concern is not setting our sights too high, not only with this particular workshop but with the project in general. So if some potential instructors look at the content we want covered in this two-hour session and say, "That's ridiculous, can't be done," we are STILL GLAD TO WORK WITH THEM. We just need them to tell us what CAN be done in two hours, and how best to go about doing it.

In general this is what we'll be looking for as we hire instructors for the rest of the workshops. We expect to run a workshop every fourth Tuesday of the month, from 4 to 6 PM at Franklin County Technical School. We're still working out topics for subsequent sessions; I think they'll largely depend on what gets covered in and what comes out of the October class.

Please feel free to forward this e-mail to the entire WeMaLU group or post the text on your web site. Again, anyone interested can contact me directly. E-mail is the best way to get in touch. We can offer $100/hour and good karma for this wonderful thing that your members will be doing for the kids and teachers of Greater Franklin County.

Thanks - Erica