July 2004 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Mounted Floppies
by Thomas Adam 02 Jul '04

02 Jul '04

--- Matt Johnson <johnsonmlw(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > I don't understand your comment (not that I posted the > comment anyway). What does top post mean? Ta very > much. It's best described here: http://www.hants.lug.org.uk/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?MailingList/TopPosting -- Thomas Adam ===== "The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- http://linuxgazette.net "TAG Editor" -- http://linuxgazette.net "<shrug> We'll just save up your sins, Thomas, and punish you for all of them at once when you get better. The experience will probably kill you. :)" -- Benjamin A. Okopnik (Linux Gazette Technical Editor) ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - sooooo many all-new ways to express yourself http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] OpenExchange experiences requested
by Tony Whitmore 01 Jul '04

01 Jul '04

Chris Puttick wrote: > SuSE Linux (Enterprise or Standard) Server 8 (aka United Linux 1) SP2, > which I think is 2.4.2x OK, thanks. The SUSE homepage for SLES 8 reckons a 2.4.19 kernel. (The x86 specs from [1].) I'm not sure about this whole SP2 thing - that may have included a kernel upgrade. If it _is_ running 2.4.19, that not only knocks SATA on the head, but also Adaptec 79xx SCSI controllers. Looks like this could be harder than I thought...... Tony [1]http://www.suse.co.uk/uk/business/products/server/sles/index.html

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OO and exam boards
by Paul Taylor 01 Jul '04

01 Jul '04

I take everyone's points on board and I was rather devil's advocating (English is such a wonderful language that you can invent words to suit..). I am pushing Ingots at my SMT Ian but the same argument remains from Tony and Thomas that it is tried and tested things that managemant want. Many of the school's I have worked at the leaders have been very thin on technical knowledge so getting 60 more Windows boxes in is an easy option compared to a suit of LTSP. On Thomas's particular point that it is tried and tested I did say that Edexcel's Units 24/25 can only really be taught by Cisco Academys and I know there are not that many about. I would say there are as many people knowledgeable enough with Linux to teach it as there are Cisco Academys but obviously pressure and money have been applied there. On Joe's more specific example that does not necessarily negate what I am saying as I too have taught with Linux material and at a recent AQA moderation meeting I was told that the chief moderator used LAMP stuff like Moodle but added that he didn't really promote it. People who use Linux are generally more computer savvy and it would be a harsh examiner that penalised a student for something that they obviously knew as much about or more than a moderator, regardless of whether it was mentioned in the official syllabus. This brings me back in a way to Thomas's more general point that it relates to teachers. He says that in some way it relates to qualified teachers who can handle the units. That is only partly true. All exam boards offer Programming as a portfolio unit but I doubt there are more than 1% of schools in the country that have staff that could teach it properly (or networking, CGI, Computer Accounts et al for that fact). I am no complete philanthropist and if I could write good C++ I doubt I would be fighting teenage rebellions in my classroom day in day out :) I bet there are more than 1% of staff in schools in the UK who have dabbled in Linux. Every school I have so far taught at in the SW has had some ICT teacher who has set up a Linux server for the school's web. I suppose, again to answer Thomas's comments, I would create a unit to supplement the other units offered by the boards. As Joe points out, it is easy to do database and networking units using Linux but only if you know a bit about it. Why not have a general Linux unit to support the other ones. Every student could use Knoppix or similar (SuSE 9.1 live if this is still a SuSE site post-Roger) and not make a mess of the school's network and as Joe did (and in conjunction with Ian) everyone could write it up on OOo with their knowledge acquired from Ingot training. Paul -- De Omnibus Dubitandum

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] OO and exam boards]
by Ian Lynch 01 Jul '04

01 Jul '04

On Thu, 2004-07-01 at 02:25, Thomas Adam wrote: > --- Paul Taylor <ptaylor(a)uklinux.net> wrote: > > > some ICT teacher who has set up a Linux server for the school's web. > > I suppose, again to answer Thomas's comments, I would create a unit to > > supplement the other units offered by the boards. As Joe points out, it > > This is certainly a good idea. The only problem I see is that when using > Linux, how would you go about it? You could, say, use Webmin and/or all > the pretty GUI configs that Linux has to offer, but this hides away a lot > of what *is* Linux, and if this were the case, you might as well go back > to Windows. > > If you were going to configure a web-server, would you teach them how to > do it from Vi for instance? Or would this be considered too "difficult" by > the exam board? I know it sounds like a patronising comment, but having > concrete reasons from the examining-boards as to why they're not willing; > or are reluctant to endorse the idea would help. You differentiate and allow different routes depending on the abilities of the students. > Then you have the issue of programming. You mentioned the very low > percentage of schools that allow for that option -- this is indeed very > true. It's often quite hard to know where to start and indeed, where to > draw the line. This is probably why VB is used in such instances. :/ Python would probably be a good place to start - except for the lack of knowledge of it in teachers but since most teachers in general lack programming knowledge perhaps the advantage is you can use anything to start :-) -- Ian Lynch <ian.lynch(a)zmsl.com> ZMS Ltd

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