On Mon, Jul 07, 2003 at 10:55:42PM +0000, Colin Hards wrote:
I can't do anything as I see myself as the pupil here. Do you mean I should be organising a venue? Alug seem to have this reasonable sorted, at least I've been to Syleham, Elmswell, King's Lynn, Norwich. Do you mean I should be badgering members to act as lecturers? I don't think I'm able to. I
Why can you not arrange a series of lectures? If you take care of the organising bits that only leaves you to find some people willing to talk. I figure lots of people are more likely to be willing to talk if you give them a subject and a time/date to give the talk.
Great. If this is so please get together with one or other of the main Alug organisers to see if a program of instruction or lectures could be arranged.
I am one of the Alug organisers, if you wish for a talk then as has been said already ask for it. If people want to give talks at the meetings then they can, it is a free stage really.
but until someone asks for them they are not likely to do them
That's what I'm doing - asking for them. I also saw some suggestions before
The way you asked was to say that the meetings were not worthwhile and say that Alug was not doing enough. That is not a very good way to get on the right side of people, a much more tactful way of doing it would be to say something along the lines of "I feel I would get more out of meetings if" or "Would someone please give a talk on how a linux system starts and stops itself and the details of some of the bits inbetween"
If anyone comes to us with a specific need or topic they need a talk on then we will try and arrange something.
I could quote you quite a few. But I'd rather ALUG set up a series of tutorials - maybe an hour at the beginning of a meeting - dedicated to a topic to help beginners. Or perhaps at another time if you want to keep the
What do beginners need to know? I could give you a version of a talk that I am preparing to give soon for an introduction to linux to a group of highly experienced windows nt administrators but it would fly over the heads of most beginners. Give me an idea of what you want and maybe I will consider it more.
Well, perhaps the Alug web site would help here. If the user group organised a series of lectures, then it should be publicised as widely as possible. On the web site. A5 leaflets in computer stores if they're agreeable, leaflets to schools / colleges. Give us a file to download from the web site, we each print out 100 or so at home. Leave some with local computer businesses. We all live near to some of these. I'll walk about and deliver some in Dereham if ALUG has a firm plan and publishes it a few weeks / months in advance. If no one registers to book a place at these lectures, well cancel the whole idea and there's only a little wasted effort or expense, but probably on the plus side the benefit of getting some exercise. But you need a thought out viable program up front to start with.
If you try and start the program you could arrange all of the above, the only thing you need is some willing volunteers (or victims) ;) to do the training.
But what's so terrible about paying for a course? I don't expect something for nothing. If you managed to get 10 beginners together for a day and each contributed a small fee, then you'd have quite a useful recompense even allowing for provision of computers and some travel expenses - or scale this for an evening etc.
Again I think this is a chicken and egg scenario, people don't want to be bothered sorting this kind of thing out without people asking. You could try and find 9 more people willing to pay for a days introduction and then ask here for people willing to do it. You would probably find lots of willing people when you got to mention cash was waiting :)
This sounds like a 'one to one', and of course that would be expensive. So would a 'complete' course, and that implies decent training manuals and course notes, and would be time consuming for the trainer to set up and run. I'm thinking about a group, gathered around a computer or three, seeing a demo, taking notes themselves if they want to, maybe between 5 and 15 at a time?
Not necessarily, if you again got up to 10 people willing to pay a decent amount for a week then tried to find the training it would probably work out ok.
Yes, great. I'd go for that as well. Choose a piece of software, and give half an hour about the basics, then take a Q&A on it, or allow a bit of hands on. Sounds good. Again, I'm happy to suggest a few for the list.
Tell me what bits of software and I will try and demo anything that I know about at a meeting.
I'll wait for further reaction to this reply first, but if a list of subjects is needed I'll post one. Most of this will be pretty obvious, but I hope I'm past the point where it bothers me too much to admit my ignorance. I hope others in a similar position or sharing this view will also post to this list. If they don't, then I will have to conclude what I'm after really isn't required - as has been suggested.
Ok, now i am sounding like a stuck record, list of subjects please :)
My reason for raising this subject was the huge number of messages on this list about Microsoft overcharging for software. This topic then drifted onto how to educate / get schools into the Linux camp. I'm jumping onto this bandwagon to champion a similar approach for the public. If this is not your remit then I'll say no more.
I am still more interested in getting schools to start slapping copies of Star Office on everything in sight, and using more free software to start with but not necessarily replacing windows yet. People will get more out of starting with a "stable" base OS (stable meaning they can fix it) and putting free software on top that they are unfamilar with. I think going down the put linux on first and then make it all work later route is a bit too much for most computer users.
Adam