[plug] PLUG sponsored newbie tutorials

[Sol]

Hi Anthony (and PLUG crew),

Sorry I haven't replied sooner - but it's the thick of semester once again.

>
>I am keen to work with you on the project. Perhaps we could organise a 
>meeting for everyone who is interested in this (which I assume for now is 
>just you and I).
>
First of all thanks for volunteering to help out on this project! :-)   
The meeting is definitely a good idea. At this stage, I plan to start 
the course at the beginning of August. I'm flat out up to the end of 
May, but that should still leave a couple of months to draw it all 
together. An open mind and flexible approach will be necessary in 
approaching this first course, so it might be that we only offer courses 
that we have volunteers to teach. However, I don't think it will be a 
drama getting volunteers for at least 10 classes.

It would be good if we were able to meet at the said time and in the 
venue we book to hold the course in the weeks before the commencement of 
the course. That way we'll all be familiar with the framework and have 
some idea of what each of us is going to cover. It will also allow us to 
suss out the technical capacity of the venue so we know what we'll need 
to bring along to do the presentation. I'm hoping to book a university 
lecture theatre so that we can display the vga output on a projection 
screen - that way everyone will be able to see what going on. It may be 
possible to do multi-media stuff for those that need it too (ie: 
demonstrating Xine).

There are ancillary issue too, like possibly video recording the 
lectures and making them available on video/DVD (under an Open Content 
licence of course) for those not able to get to Perth. However, I think 
that two months should be sufficient to organise these matters.

>
>
>Perhaps the best way would be to summarise the pros and cons of a number of 
>products in each category then choose one which we will teach in each 
>category. I see the main point of this course is to demonstrate that Linux 
>can do everything that Windoze can and give people enough information so that 
>if they get their machine set up at one of the PLUG workshops then they can 
>simply take it home and use it. Think of it as after sales service.
>
I've been thinking about it, and I agree. We will all have to pick a 
favourite app and run with that. But it would be a shame to not mention 
that there are others and to provide some sort of reference. And it 
would be wrong to play favourites.

>
>>This leads me onto my "icing on the cake" proposal: What do people think of 
>>
>the idea of issuing some form of certification (post-assessment) for those 
>who've completed the course. My preference would be for a practical 
>assessment where students demonstrate competencies and recieve a pass or fail 
>as opposed to a written examination which would only test memory, not 
>competency.
>
>I'm not keen on a pass/fail type thing. Linux is a community based OS. This 
>is a community based course. I think it would be much more community spirited 
>to disseminate information without forcing people to compete against 
>one-another.
>
>This is just my opinion and we can always ask the "students" what they want 
>to out of the course.
>
Assessment could be very difficult to arrange anyway. So I think that 
we'll scratch the idea of assessment for this first course. However, I 
do think that it would be worth asking "students" if they're interested

Regards,

Sol

>