Ubuntu Wiki

This page has been created to facilitate the planning and delivery of one or more learning sessions. Participants in this project should edit the page with their comments and indicate where they'd like to help. This page is meant to be the authoritative source for all materials related to these sessions. If you are contributing to this project please also remember to "subscribe" to the page so you will know when things are changed.

Attempt to organize this info to make it more accessible

Ubuntu Vancouver Summer Youth Learning Sessions

Background

A call went out to the mailing list on June 22 as follows:

"With summer upon us, our Vancouver schools dismissed (or soon to be), there is a GOLDEN opportunity for us to reach out to the younger set and energize a whole new generation of Ubuntu folks, while strengthening our local community.

The idea? "Ubuntu Youth Summer Workshops"

This is a work-in-progress, but the thinking is that we'd poster some local communities and community centers with Ubuntu related materials inviting (parents and) kids to sign up for a summer session of afternoon learning about everyone's favourite computing platform. This will create local buzz while at the same time open up our younger set to all things Ubuntu, start building deeper community relationships, and foster learning and educational enrichment.

I'd love to hear any feedback, and also from anyone who would be interested in leading a session or two, and people who'd like to help spread the word with printed posters and materials. Delight for me would be to see the mailing list energized with a discussion about how we'd best do this!!

Thanks in advance for your help.

Cheers, Randall Ubuntu Vancouver Buzz Generator. --

Planning

Leader: We need to designate a point-person to lead the project, or at least one to act as contact point for organizations that want to partner with.

General Help: Kim, brand0con, Larry , Craig, Randall, Roscoe, brand0con, Joe, Eric

Marketing Buzz: Distributing posters and materials Craig, Randall, others needed. Please add your names.

Possible Session Leaders: Craig, Kim, Aaron, Roscoe, brand0con, Larry

Curriculum planning Eric (for audio, midi, music creation/editing, video and graphics editing)

Curriculum suggestions:

• Gaming aspects of Ubuntu front and centre (Roscoe)
• Social aspects (Facebook, Twitter and Messaging) (Roscoe)
• Obtaining, Installing and Configuring Ubuntu Linux (Craig)
• Performing common computing tasks with Ubuntu Linux (email, web surfing, word processing/OpenOffice -- for school assignments that have to be handed in as Word documents, backing up data, etc.) (Craig)
• Introduction to Command Line (Craig)
• Introduction to Programming by building a simple web application with Ubuntu Linux (Craig)
• Introduction to GIMP (Craig suggested this one, but would like somebody else to do it as his GIMP skills are not so impressive)
• Getting multiple IM accounts setup in Pidgin with a single unified buddy-list, and micro-blogging from there - Jamu
• Limit the teaching of command line, system administration tasks, or programming tasks. (Audience inappropriate) - Jamu
• What games are popular and run on Ubuntu, (or in emulation/wine?) - Larry
• Participants decide what they want to do, on the spot - Larry
• Live comparisons (head-to-head) with Windows apps - Joe
• Freedom Ubuntu. You don't have to "steal" copies of the OS or applications. Very few youths are willing to buy certain software these days. - Joe
• Value of the knowledge of unix-based computing, and how it can lead to other opportunities and career paths. - Joe
• Gaming in Ubuntu - Cedega[1] - Jamu
• Ubuntu installation basics - Jamu
• Gwibber (for micro-blogging) - Jamu
• Demo how Ubuntu is a slick experience and, in many ways, a much better one. - Jamu
• Eye-candy (Compiz-fusion) noting that we'd need modern hardware and good video acceleration. Youths are impressed by the "wow" and "cool" factors.
• Some courses (where appropriate) should be project-based (or goal-based if you will). That is, at the end of a course, they should have completed something they feel proud of/accomplished/learned something. This is a good way to give the course structure and focus. - Craig
• Also, I think inviting the parents to partner up with their child would be a good idea. - Craig
• Would a philosophy/history course be too Zzzzz? (boring?) (RR - I think the philosophy part is what makes this course special. We should include it!) Teaching kids about why Ubuntu/GNU/Linux exist at all, both as a community and an operating system, may be attractive to those who are more politically-minded (Fight the oppressive Software corporations who want to restrict our freedoms!) I think also telling the students about how Linux came to be, might also help in forwarding this goal. - Craig

Other Considerations

• Record check prior to being involved with the kids? (Roscoe)
• Size, space, and facilities we're each envisioning, or can conceive for such workshops. - Aaron

Marketing

• Posters with "tear-off" URL's needed. - Randall

(Randall is creating a poster/flyer. Draft is attached. Expecting to have samples printed for the upcoming general meeting on July 09.)

Community Centres

• Need volunteers to poster bulletin boards in libraries and community centres (and vicinity). . (Please adopt a location and sign up for as many as you can help with by adding your name in brackets after the site you will poster):

Vancouver Community Centres

• 1 Britannia 2 Champlain 3 Coal Harbour 4 Douglas Park 5 Dunbar 6 False Creek 7 Hastings 8 Kensington 9 Kerrisdale 10 Killarney 11 Kitsilano 12 Marpole 13 Mt. Pleasant 14 Ray-Cam 15 Renfrew 16 Riley Park 17 Roundhouse 18 Strathcona 19 Sunset 20 Thunderbird 21 Trout Lake 22 West End 23 West Pt. Grey

Vancouver Library Locations

• 1 Britannia Branch 1661 Napier Street 2 Carnegie Branch 401 Main Street 3 Central Library 350 West Georgia Street 4 Champlain Heights Branch 7110 Kerr St. 5 Collingwood Branch 2985 Kingsway 6 Dunbar Branch 4515 Dunbar St. 7 Firehall Branch 1455 West 10th Avenue 8 Fraserview Branch 1950 Argyle Drive 9 Hastings Branch 2674 East Hastings Street 10 Joe Fortes Branch 870 Denman Street 11 Kensington Branch 1428 Cedar Cottage Mews 12 Kerrisdale Branch 2112 West 42 Avenue

  13 Kitsilano Branch 2425 MacDonald Street 14 Marpole Branch 8386 Granville Street 15 Mount Pleasant Branch 370 East Broadway 16 Oakridge Branch 191 - 650 West 41st Avenue 17 Outreach Branch 302 - 345 Robson Street 18 Renfrew Branch 2969 East 22nd Avenue 19 Riley Park Branch 3981 Main Street 20 South Hill Branch 6076 Fraser Street 21 Strathcona Branch 592 East Pender Street 22 West Point Grey Branch 4480 West 10th Avenue

• Introduction letter needed to give/send to prospective summer camps and others stating what we are trying to do and seeking help - Randall has created a draft. Please review and edit as needed. (click on the Attachments link to view)

Course Content

• Brief introduction to Operating Systems (not the theory, just what they do. I've noticed a lot of people are unaware there are different choices for OS'es, since most computers just come with one.)
• General Ubuntu Linux Introduction
• Booting into Ubuntu for the first time (using a USB stick)
• How to configure/optimize an Ubuntu Linux system using Ubuntu's facilities
• Please add more...
• Introduction to command line
  • What is the command line and why it's a good way to understand computing and why it's the hallmark of every UNIX-based system. (RR: This may be too arcane for a youth group).
  • This course will have as its project MP3s/documents and other types of files (familiar filetypes) which the student will work on.
  • File system management (moving, deleting, renaming files, creating directories)
  • Project: Writing a script to automate such tasks when there are (let's say 1000 mp3s) as doing so one by one could eat up a lot of time not to mention tedious.
  • Cool factors: It's distinctly UNIX, it's often regarded as daunting and esoteric--the student will feel they will have acquired a skill that them doe-eyed Windows users don't have. Members of the opposite sex will swoon.
• How to build a simple web application using Ubuntu Linux
  • This might not be such a good/feasible idea in hindsight (RR agrees. Too big a topic.) as 1) I need to teach them a programming language 2) explain how the program interacts with the web 3) help them build it. However, if there is demand, I think this should be fun. I intend to build a very simple Facebook wall web app so that kids know what's happening behind the scenes when they're using Facebook. Also illustrate why UNIX systems come off-the-shelf with a programming workbench.

Instructors

Logistics

• "Scouts" needed to find out whether/where existing youth sessions are and possibly get invited as guest instructors
• Computer equipment - Free~Geek might have some we could use (Kim, but beware of performance). Some participants could bring their own. We could leverage existing computer labs at colleges/universities and provide Live USB sticks or netboot.
• Need contacts and introductions to UBC/SFU/BCIT, others

• Subscription mechanism: use existing Meetup infrastructure as the target destination when youths sign up. Add a couple questions regarding interests. Side-effect will be additional UV members. (Randall) May need to add some custom database of a support site to manage the ongoing communications and sign ups. Can someone volunteer to help with this? (RR update 07/07: no volunteers yet. Am proceeding with a short URL ( http://is.gd/1qzbc )that hits the UV wiki here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CanadianTeam/Vancouver/SummerYouthSessions2009Public, then redirects to meetup.com after a brief introduction that resembles the poster/flyer. That way I can get some layout tools and still have a way to sign people up.)

Potential Groups to Tap Into

• Britannia Teen Centre: http://vancouver.ca/parks/cc/britannia/website/facilities/teencentre.html. Tom says that at this time of year they have less attendance to the drop-in program: Partly the nicer weather, and partly that many kids are in the more structured summer programs. He's going to ask some of the other programs if they have a spot for us.

• Thunderbird Community Centre has a computer lab: http://vancouver.ca/Parks/cc/thunderbird/index.htm

• North Vancouver has a pretty organized youth program, but I don't know if they have a way for us to hook in: http://www.northvanrec.com/programs/youth/youth-centres.aspx

Larry will follow up with these early next week, and find more.

Meeting Notes 7 July 2009

• Reviewed first draft of intro letter. Overall awesome!
  • Slip in keywords "video", "music or audio", "games".
  • benefits to kids of using Linux
    • cheaper, older computers
    • lots of free software (no need to pirate)
    • greater opportunity to learn basics of computing, nothing is hidden
    • opportunity to contribute to community in a real way
    • build awareness of alternatives
  • Need "elevator talk" version of the letter.

• Ubuntu outreach [http://osdir.com/ml/linux.ubuntu.marketing/2008-05/msg00022.html]

  • Calls to action:
    • Ubuntu Outreach Challenge: Put up 10 posters, explain and pass out 5 cd's, Help one new user install/setup Ubuntu in a one week period
    • Ubuntu Learning Day: Schedule a talk at the local University, Community College, or Highschool
    • Ubuntu Temp Tattoo Day: Get every supporter to wear an Ubuntu Logo Temp-Tattoo (or sticker) for one day and explain Ubuntu to anyone who asks that day.
• Make list of things to do and assign responsibilities
• Make presentation to full group on Thursday