On Sat, 2003-04-05 at 10:45, Benjamin Kinsey wrote: > > This is where I want your help. I need honest feedback, both > positive and negative, from HOSEF members about the challenges > of Linux within the scope of education. For example, besides > Office and Web surfing, what will students actually be doing > at the Linux cluster? What educational software is available > for Linux?
There is a great deal of educational software available, either free or commercial. Much of the free native Linux educational software is already included in K12LTSP (and soon Fedora Linux). Also much existing Windows educational software can run on Linux after some tweaks. There are a great number of Linux for education sites. I can't list them all in a single e-mail. Please search Google. > Particularly, how can Linux be useful for math and > science education (the focus of the HNLC grant)? Several ways, mainly dealing with technology: * Tons of Free Programming tools and IDE's that would normally cost thousands of dollars. Students could learn it at school, and take it home and install it on any number of computers completely legally. * http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/press/2003/press_rhacademy/ Programs like Red Hat academy for High Schools, equivalent to Cisco or Oracle or Microsoft Academy * Networking and Security - Linux and Open Source Software are very well suited for learning about networking, network servers and security compared to any proprietary product out there. Furthermore students can use this software at home to study it or actually use it in practice, completely free and legally. The same cannot be said for Cisco products, for example. There are also a few math programs like Mathematica, science and engineering programs available, but I haven't looked too deeply into these yet since I don't use them personally. Eric Hattemer would know more about the math/science/tech desktop applications available on Linux. > Is there any > hope of turning an "average" Mac or PC person into a Linux > system administrator? The learning curve is harder, so we attack this problem in three ways. 1) Training training training 2) Write better tools, package software to make it easier to install and maintain. This has a lot to do with my Fedora Linux project. http://www.fedora.us 3) HOSEF members will do initial configuration and help with long term maintenance. Once Open Source systems are setup properly and documented for reproducibility, they tend not to break if a minimal amount of maintenance is done on a regular basis. #2 tools and software will help this long term maintenance, while #1 training will help by training users to know these easier every day tasks. Warren Togami [EMAIL PROTECTED]
