"Kozhikode: An information technology project prepared by the students of KPES High School, Kayakkodi, near Kutyadi in Kozhikode, aims at popularising the use of the free software, Linux, in the panchayat with the help of trained student volunteers of the IT Club at the school.
The school authorities said the project was already in the implementation stage at the Kayakkodi panchayat. IT coordinator of the school K.T. Kunhammad said 70 students had been trained by experts to install the GNU/Linux operating system in the households in the panchayath.
Initially, a survey was conducted in the panchayat with the assistance of IT experts from different institutes, including the National Institute of Technology (NIT-C), to study the current nature of system usage. It was found that at least one member in 90 per cent of the families in the panchayat was computer literate. According to Mr. Kunhammad, the study found that 15 per cent of the households owned PCs with 67 per cent of them using Microsoft’s Windows as the operating system.
As many as 27 per cent of the households have Windows and Linux on their computers. “Only 7 per cent had only Linux on their computers,” he said.
Mr. Kunhammad said the people were not aware of the “moral” and “legal” angles of using a “pirated” copy of Windows operating system on their computers. The project will create awareness among the students and the households.
The school have already conducted study classes and seminars to sensitise people about the legal and moral dimensions of using a pirated version of the Windows. ...."
Complete story at http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/13/stories/2009121352630300.htm
coordinator of the school K.T. Kunhammad said 70 students had been trained by experts to install the GNU/Linux operating system in the households in the panchayath.
Great work!
A few months back, I helped a neighbour of mine to choose a PC for his school kids. The kids wanted to run GNU/Linux on the system and being the local "expert", I was expecting a call from them asking me to help them install GNU/Linux. The call never came! Curious, I asked this fellow whether his kids had the "LINUX" thing installed on their system. He replied: "oh yes, they got some CD's from somewhere and put it on the machine the very next day after purchase".
And here I am, "teaching" engineering students who complain to me that this "LINUX" thing is extremely "difficult" to use!
Pramode ------------
The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/
On Sun, 2009-12-13 at 11:10 +0530, Pramode C.E. wrote:
And here I am, "teaching" engineering students who complain to me that this "LINUX" thing is extremely "difficult" to use!
My experience seems to show that this perceived difficulty increases with age and education. In a sort of very generalised statement, I would say that children learn these things very fast, school teachers come with a mental block but learn soon, college teachers tend to think that all these "new" things are a waste of time and "scientists" and such "highly educated" people find it extremely difficult and unnecessary to even move from using MS Office to OpenOffice. Of course this is a highly generalised statement. This is a very interesting phenomenon.
Best
On Sunday 13 December 2009, V. Sasi Kumar wrote:
On Sun, 2009-12-13 at 11:10 +0530, Pramode C.E. wrote:
And here I am, "teaching" engineering students who complain to me that this "LINUX" thing is extremely "difficult" to use!
My experience seems to show that this perceived difficulty increases with age and education. In a sort of very generalised statement, I would say that children learn these things very fast, school teachers come with a mental block but learn soon, college teachers tend to think that all these "new" things are a waste of time and "scientists" and such "highly educated" people find it extremely difficult and unnecessary to even move from using MS Office to OpenOffice. Of course this is a highly generalised statement. This is a very interesting phenomenon.
Best
Hello dear Sasi and others:
I´m in this moment in Bolivia (south-America). (Our hope comes from India)
I had an experience like that in Argentina (Posadas, Misiones) some years back. I started with a laboratory for around 20 kids (from 5 to 12 around) on free software during holiday time (not official school time). Just a lab 3 hours weekly (usually we worked more than proposed time reaching 6 7 hours) and for 2 month.
One of the resault was that 3 kids of 8,9,10 years old, after coming to the lab, refused to go to the normal school lab (when the normal school started again) with m$ window$. The president of the school called me to migrate to free software the complete school for 1500 kids. In the other hand during the lab many many parents come to me also because kids at home wanted to have FS. After that also parents asked me to have a lab for them. If we migrate brains (youngs kids). The ´thing´ is done.
thanks to India again.
warm regards
juan
On Sun, 2009-12-13 at 11:07 -0300, Juan Carlos Gentile Fagundez wrote:
I had an experience like that in Argentina (Posadas, Misiones) some years back. I started with a laboratory for around 20 kids (from 5 to 12 around) on free software during holiday time (not official school time). Just a lab 3 hours weekly (usually we worked more than proposed time reaching 6 7 hours) and for 2 month.
One of the resault was that 3 kids of 8,9,10 years old, after coming to the lab, refused to go to the normal school lab (when the normal school started again) with m$ window$. The president of the school called me to migrate to free software the complete school for 1500 kids. In the other hand during the lab many many parents come to me also because kids at home wanted to have FS. After that also parents asked me to have a lab for them. If we migrate brains (youngs kids). The ´thing´ is done.
Thank you, Juan. You are right. Once we are able to introduce FS to children, and show them, train them, in FS as long as they are in school, at least many of them will stick with FS. We also have an interesting experience. In Calicut (Kozhikode) University, the person in charge of the Computer Centre installed Windows in ten machines and GNU/Linux in another ten machines that were kept there for the staff and students to browse the Internet. Initially, everyone used the Windows machines, if they were not occupied. But when all Windows machines were occupied, they had to use the machines with GNU/Linux. After some time, people first looked for the GNU/Linux machines, and went to Windows machines only if the others were occupied! They simply found that the GNU/Linux machines worked better and faster!
Regards
-
ck raju -
Juan Carlos Gentile Fagundez -
Pramode C.E. -
V. Sasi Kumar