[clug] Linux in education

[Andrew Janke]

> If we really want to see Linux (or other non-M$ offerings) take a hold,
> we need to address this M$ brainwashing exercise with our kids.

Aye, in our own kids cases I suspect this will be little problem. My
4.5 year old already asks "where is the button for the black window"*
when using other kids computers so that he can start his games (in
edubuntu).

As for other kids well this is going to be a tad harder as if you
watch "them" (where them == kids of 8-12 yeats old) their entire
perception of the internet is something along the lines of how much
you can customise your myspace/hotmail/etc page with SMS speak.  (as
this is K00wl and makes you a computer 4aX0R).

My experience in the matter is that kids have no care how they get
their email/SMS/etc so long as they can get it.  This is to the point
that my M$ brainwashed niece and nephew who are visiting this week
didn't even have any clue that they were using OSX and/or Ubuntu this
last week. All they needed to know was where the Firefox Icon was.
>From this I can only gather that kids really are not interested in
OpenOffice/etc (they have google docs and other things to do that).

As for talk around the table about computers at school, in this case
the conversation generally revolves around how to use search terms to
get around school firewalls... ;)

a

* Black window == xterm