On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 06:25:42PM +0100, Nicolas Ferré wrote: > Hi, > > Some years ago, as a PhD student, I decided to learn LaTeX to be able to > write scientific stuff directly on my workstation. A few time later, I > found LyX and I am using it now for the last 5 years. > > Now that I am on the other side (the teaching one), I decided to share > my enthusiasm with students. Like I know some of the LyX users have very > little knowledge of LaTeX, I am confused: shall I start teach LaTeX or LyX ? > > Any opinion or experience is welcomed.
I would go with LyX initially. Several reasons come to mind for this approach. First, the students will immediately have positve feedback, both visually and in printed results, with little or no need for the underlying LaTeX. This would allow the introduction of LaTeX in the form of ERT in planned stages--determine a good example where it is needed and lead them into its use. While I don't know LaTeX much at all, it seems fairly obvious that its direct use up front would be more disenchanting to those less inclined to move away from a GUI format. As the usefulness and frank beauty of its results (via LyX) become more apparent, though, people will be more easily led into the LaTeX end. People are very used to visual feedback on computers, within apps, and LaTeX doesn't do that without effort that is unusual compared with other approaches to document creation. Remember that it's a "sell job." ;-) Additionally, I suggest that you let the students create documents using both LyX and whatever app they choose, and compare them side by side. Show them some of your own and allow them to recreate those to see what the differneces are in the writing process. Be sure you include mathematical formulae! :) Lastly, be sure they have any helper apps set up to maximize the ease of said feedback. An example of this: I have gv set up to watch the file it's displaying, so an update of my document is shown immediately on a ctrl-shift-T, with no need to search for the same place in the document as would be the case with a ctrl-T. HTH, Kenward (also a professor, at a community college) -- In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be _teachers_ and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. - Lee Iacocca
