Linux.com: Learning and Linux

Feb 17, 2000, 06:57 (6 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Matt Michie)

"My school uses Linux almost exclusively in the undergraduate labs, yet my experience with Linux wasn't gained there. It is a bit disheartening when one realizes that spending 15 hours a week in class isn't teaching you as much as spending 5 hours on the weekend playing with Linux. How could this be? I began to question whether it was simply my individual learning style that was a factor or whether there was something else going on here...."

"I noticed it wasn't so much the material as my attitudes towards how it was presented and what I was allowed to do with it. Learning Linux and programming on my own let me learn things non-linearly, and at my own pace. If I write a program that isn't exactly correct, the world won't end, I'll just fix the problems and probably learn something in the process. If I trash my Linux partition, I'll probably learn twice as much attempting to fix it."

"The key words I seemed to be coming across were playing and exploration. Another factor to consider was how fast and easy it was to get a technical question answered on the Internet. Usually, I didn't even have to ask it, because it was asked three years ago and is archived on Usenet or in a mailing list archive."

Complete Story

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• osOpinion: Linux curriculum begins today in Utah Public Schools(Jan 19, 2000)
• osOpinion: Elementary Linux: Penguins in the School(Nov 01, 1999)
• Guido van Rossum: Computer Programming for Everybody(Sep 09, 1999)
• UPDATED: Unix as an element of literacy(Dec 25, 1998)
• Linux Focus: Linux as an educational tool(Oct 22, 1998)