“Meet the Techs of Tomorrow Where They Are Today” — by Ankush Das

I’ve been piddling wid Linux since 1996, and even tho Win11 Pro is my primary OS I still enjoy piddling wid, testing, and learning about Linux. In this modern world most of us already use 2-3 OSes – maybe without even knowing it, so checking out one more OS isn’t going to be that difficult, IMHO. 👏👍👌🙂

It’s FOSS has a great article by Ankush Das“Meet the Techs of Tomorrow Where They Are Today”: A Conversation With Stu Keroff:

Meet the teacher who makes learning Linux cool and exciting for students.

Stu Keroff is an excellent teacher with a mission to change the world, one computer at a time.

He uses Linux and educates students to make the best use of it in school. Stu’s approach to Linux clubs in schools and communities has had a massive impact.

Q. We have read about your small and big Linux clubs and the idea of it inspiring other teachers to spread the knowledge of Linux to students. What kind of hurdles did you face initially? Did it all go as you’d expected?

A: I first started doing Linux clubs at school back in 2012, and the whole thing started by accident. Our school had started a 1:1 laptop program that year, and almost immediately students started breaking and losing laptops. I wanted to integrate tech into my teaching, but I would have students in each class that did not have a laptop because they had broken it.

I received a hardware grant from a local non-profit called Free Geek Twin Cities, which gave me four Linux desktop computers for my classroom. I figured kids who didn’t have laptops could take turns on those. The kids loved the computers. Some of them started coming to my classroom after school to play on the computers while waiting for the after-school program to begin. I figured since they wouldn’t leave, I would teach them some lessons on how the computers worked. That grew into the first club: the Community School of Excellence Asian Penguins.

Then over the next 11 years, through a lot of trial and error, we came up with a lot of ideas of what a school Linux club could be, what types of activities the kids could do, and what they could learn.

Be sure to read the entire interview — as it goes into saving their “school over $150,000” thru donations ‘n such, a “kid’s face when he or she learns how to make a computer usable for another student,” and how Stu Keroff overcame the roadblocks of trying to get Linux into schools – due to its unfamiliarity and tight school budgets – by bypassing the “front door” and “bringing Linux in the back door.” 😊

Conclusion

Maybe your kid isn’t a ‘Tech of Tomorrow‘, but Linux is suited for all kinds of purposes, e.g., Special *PURPOSE* Linuxes:

  • 1) install it on a USB for ‘Portability
  • 2) use it as a ‘Rescue‘ OS
  • 3)Anti-forensic‘ OS
  • 4)Privacy Surfing‘ OS
  • 5)Multimedia‘ OS on an old machine running your own Jukebox
  • 6) an OS for the ‘Visually Impaired

I use Porteus 5.0 Cinnamon & Fedora 38 Cinnamon SPIN as ‘Companion‘ OSes to Win11 Pro, but there are many uses for Linux other than for ‘Techs‘ or as a replacement for Windows.

Linux can also keep your kids busy ‘n outta the streets… 😉

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