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Re: [LUG] Education techniques?
Grant Sewell wrote:
I would advocate a more softly-softly approach. Use lots of analogies.
Agreed. It's always best to take an explanation into the area the
questioner knows than try to explain it precisely. For example, when
someone ranted at me that they hadn't used the Internet in a year (and
hadn't bothered cancelling) my response was usualy something along the
lines of:
"You pay breakdown cover for your car, but do you demand a refund if you
didn't break down?"
Or "Why slow down the modem to make it faster?":
"Think of the data from your computer like a stream of cars on a
motorway. Your modem is like a tunnel to get out of the computer and
the port is the motorway itself. If you send four cars wide into a
tunnel only wide enough for two you'll get tangled metal and no
movement. If you send two at a time they will all get through quickly.
So, if you widen the port all the way, and set the modem to its' maximum
speed you'll get best efficiency."
(Don't pick me up on the accuracy.. I know it's not precise but it's
close enough for the job at hand :))
Most customers left their modems at 115200, which with a port speed at
the default of 9600 caused a LOT of "tangled metal".
To which my response was:
"You volunteer for St. John's Ambulance and do 'First Aid' in your spare time? You volunteer to appear as a JP in your spare time? You can't be a very good first-aider or judge, then, can you?"
I like it! :)
Alternatively, I have used:
"Most of these people are 'professional' software developers anyway. If David Beckham plays football free-of-charge for a charity do, will he necessarily play a bad game simply because he's not getting paid?"
I'll not mention Greece or penalties then *cough*
I don't believe that covering one topic [in great depth] before moving onto another topic is the key to education. I think that covering all related topics concurrently, but doing so in a stepped manner so that the depth of knowledge of any given individual topic increases at the same rate that all the other related topics, is a much better approach.
True. My main point was simply that a lot of beginners won't about the
GNU model, Free Software or Open Source. Sad to say that although in
some cases you will be correct, in many others I feel they just won't
care provided the computer does what they want it to (with apologies to
Neil for using the "just make it work" argument again ;))
Have you had anyone requesting "the Internet copied to this floppy disk" yet?
Regrettably YES! One chap going back a few years couldn't access the
information he wanted online. Turned out he had installed the software
the day before, spent all day downloading, then uninstalled as he had
"downloaded the Internet" so didn't see any need to dialup anymore. And
we have had people asking "Do you supply the Internet on a floppy
disk?" Of course they *mean* is the install software on FD, but that's
not what they *said* :)
What brings you to this conclusion? What is an "average" user? And of which system?
16000 people in 7 years barking "just fix it" at me :) And yes I freely
admit that has probably coloured my perceptions a lot.
I'm thinking of the computer user who turns on the PC, plays games,
writes a couple of letters and emails etc. The type who, to use an
analogy ;), gets in the car and drives everywhere without a single clue,
or care, about the inner workings of the car. In a nutshell, the type
of person who takes available resources for granted, not caring how they
work, just that they do.
As Neil so correctly pointed out a lot of effort goes into "it just
works". On this list, I would assume that by subscribing, there is a
general desire to know more about *how*. Unfortunately, the converse is
likely to be true also. Those who haven't subscribed would, IMHO, fall
into a couple of categories:
1. Those who don't need help. Self-taught. In a way they are missing
the point of the Linux community, because if they can get into Linux
without help then they would be a valuable resource to those of us who
need hep occasionally.
2. Those who know someone who can help them. Again missing the boat in
terms of the Linux community.
3. Those who install Linux, expect it to work, and at the first problem
reinstall Windows. This group is, I feel, larger than we would like to
believe. A friend has had Windows for over three years, yet still can't
use the Explorer and has no interest in learning how to. As a direct
result of the push to make computers accessible to all, the retail
market has made them accessible to a great many people who do need to
take baby steps in learning, but then learn as much as they want to and
then stop.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Why learn how
Windows/MacOS/Linux/BSD etc arrange the file structure when all you want
to do is surf and write emails? It's like asking me to take a car
mechanics course just because I want to drive 3 miles to a friend's house.
The problem comes when trying to coax these people away from the comfort
zone of their current OS (and we're mostly talking Windows here). Their
first comment/question will be:
Why? Windows works for me, I like it and I know how to do what I want
with it.
Demoing is the answer IMHO, and someone else replied to my comment about
this month's Computer Shopper having SUSE 9.2 Live cover mounted
(apologies if that was you, my memorry is appalling :)). Live CDs
popped round to a friend's house, or demoed for a group, or even a
laptop with Linux installed is the best way to actively show people that:
a) Linux is not scary or "techie" if you don't want it to be.
b) In many cases (if not all) it does the same jobs better than Windows.
c) The programs may have different names but OOO etc do an identical job
in an identical way to the commercial variants on other OSs.
BTW, something I thought of earlier. This whole discussion embodies (to
me) the essence of Open Source and Free Software. We're not locked into
a "This is how it is, live with it" corporate mentality. We can have a
reasoned intelligent discussion about the topics at hand, throw ideas
around and remain open to the viewpoints of others.
I like that! :)
Kind regards,
Julian
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