who teaches the teachers ?

[lucy_liu_lover]

My wife is doing a 6 month course on basic computing at a recognised college. The other night she came home and told me that her teacher had mentioned "this other operating system called Linux". The teacher added that "this OS requires an extremely powerful computer" and "is very hard to learn". Where does she get her information from ?
My wife's XP setup recently succumbed to a virus, so I will set up an XP Ubuntu dual boot for her. Then she can set her teacher straight !
Shouldn't teaching open people's minds ?

[jgrabham]

My wife is doing a 6 month course on basic computing at a recognised college. The other night she came home and told me that her teacher had mentioned "this other operating system called Linux". The teacher added that "this OS requires an extremely powerful computer" and "is very hard to learn". Where does she get her information from ?
My wife's XP setup recently succumbed to a virus, so I will set up an XP Ubuntu dual boot for her. Then she can set her teacher straight !
Shouldn't teaching open people's minds ?

Oh well, my IT teacher didnt know what open source software is.

(And does your wife know your name on here is "Lucy lui lover" : D)

[aysiu]

Her teacher is probably just innocently ignorant. Have Lucy Liu educate the teacher with a Linux Mint or Damn Small Linux CD.

[buzzmandt]

that's when it would be nice to go in with a old laptop running linux and say "popycock, see, i can do everything you can do"

[jgrabham]

Have Lucy Liu educate the teacher with a .

WHAT!!! (pays attention to his PC for first time in days)

[lucy_liu_lover]

Now ther's a thought ..... I have tis old Dell.

[lucy_liu_lover]

Oh yeah.. my wife knows that I use this pseudonym. Maybe I should change it it ? How about "Uberbuntu" :)

[starcraft.man]

My wife is doing a 6 month course on basic computing at a recognized college. The other night she came home and told me that her teacher had mentioned "this other operating system called Linux". The teacher added that "this OS requires an extremely powerful computer" and "is very hard to learn". Where does she get her information from ?
My wife's XP setup recently succumbed to a virus, so I will set up an XP Ubuntu dual boot for her. Then she can set her teacher straight !
Shouldn't teaching open people's minds ?

I am always dismayed (but not shocked) by how easily people (especially those supposedly in the know/trusted sources of information) make such ignorant and unfounded absolute statements about subjects they clearly know little about.

Personally, I'd just uproot my 5 year old p4 machine (heck, might even break out an old p3 I have somewhere and load that up) and take a crummy monitor and plop it down in front of the guy during his class, turn Beryl+other great apps on and blow the guys mind. That's me though, and I hate when people do such things.

Oh and ya can't change names of accounts, you'd have to make a new one. I don't see much of a problem >.>.

[SomeBuntu]

lucy_liu_lover is no more. Hey, but doesn't Lucy Liu (sexy, intelligent,spirited) represent the ultimate "Feisty Fawn" ?

[Kingsley]

The teacher probably heard about how powerful Linux is and automatically assumed such a great OS requires a powerful PC.

[Skidpad]

My wife is a Business/Technology teacher at our local high-school. She has a pre-defined curriculum, but I am going to do a couple of demonstrations this year to educate/inform/open eyes & minds on OpenSource/Linux/OOo. Should be fun!

[SomeBuntu]

I think that I will put Ubuntu on my old Dell laptop. She can take ot to class and show them what Linux is all about. Maybe install a really flashy them......

[macogw]

I am always dismayed (but not shocked) by how easily people (especially those supposedly in the know/trusted sources of information) make such ignorant and unfounded absolute statements about subjects they clearly know little about.

Personally, I'd just uproot my 5 year old p4 machine (heck, might even break out an old p3 I have somewhere and load that up) and take a crummy monitor and plop it down in front of the guy during his class, turn Beryl+other great apps on and blow the guys mind. That's me though, and I hate when people do such things.

Oh and ya can't change names of accounts, you'd have to make a new one. I don't see much of a problem >.>.

I volunteer my Pentium II / 192MB RAM with Debian and E17! It runs as fast as a new computer. And I don't mean one with slow slow Vista. I mean a new computer with XP. Ya know, if you ignore the fact that the BIOS itself takes over a minute to boot before handing off to GRUB :P

[gnuman]

Sad world, huh?

I'm a teacher myself. I sponser a high school computer programming club and we look for donated computers so we can wipe ******* off of them and give them new life with Linux--either Ubuntu or Xubuntu or MepisLite or PuppyLinux.....

The sad thing is I have to fight with our district just to get them to consider installing Python in our official computer labs. It never occurs to those nitwits that there are great open source programs we could be using. Either 1) they think it must be crap because it's free, or 2) they think it's dangerous because you'll find the term "hacking" associated with Python.

Our district chooses not to hire real IT professionals. Instead we get former teachers who think computer science is limited to teaching kids how to use MS Office apps. (No, they have never heard of openoffice.org, and react to it the same way they do about Python.)

Good teachers teach themselves, btw.:-({|=:-({|=

[jgrabham]

Sad world, huh?

I'm a teacher myself. I sponser a high school computer programming club and we look for donated computers so we can wipe ******* off of them and give them new life with Linux--either Ubuntu or Xubuntu or MepisLite or PuppyLinux.....

The sad thing is I have to fight with our district just to get them to consider installing Python in our official computer labs. It never occurs to those nitwits that there are great open source programs we could be using. Either 1) they think it must be crap because it's free, or 2) they think it's dangerous because you'll find the term "hacking" associated with Python.

Our district chooses not to hire real IT professionals. Instead we get former teachers who think computer science is limited to teaching kids how to use MS Office apps. (No, they have never heard of openoffice.org, and react to it the same way they do about Python.)

Good teachers teach themselves, btw.:-({|=:-({|=

My mums a school secratary, and she told me that the council have posted on the LEA, that under no circumstances, should schools install vista on their computers :D

[gnuman]

The LEA, as in Local Education Authority? You have advantages not being in the U.S.

Unfortunately here the only teachers around me that don't use ******* are those that go to Mac because they think Macs are more user friendly. I still remember the semester when all those iMacs were delivered and all the teachers were raving about how the instructions had no words--just those numbered pictures showing the power chord and internet cable being plugged in (example for the iBook can be seen in the middle of this page):

http://www.wap.org/journal/ibook/ibookvision.html

I have nothing against Macs, really. But for a laugh:

http://cache.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.gif