BeginnersCurriculum

Overview

Status of this document: DRAFT, to be discussed at ctte mtg 9th May 2011

schedule

We're aiming for a roughly two-year cycle, ie 20 talks. In practice, we don't intend to keep to a fixed schedule, more that after 18 months, a talk will not count as "already given".

rationale

• to avoid inadvertently drifting into "intermediate".
• to remain relevant to new beginners.

type

We would like to emphasise talks which include activities for the users to do.., hands-on beats demo beats talk with slides...

Streams

In the interest of keeping balance, we should classify each talk roughly into the categories and keep the proportions close to the target percentages indicated.

use and enjoyment (50%)

• managing your photos
• making backups simple
• a tour of text editors
• internet relay chat, instant messaging and micro-blogging
• free software games (last given Mar 2010)

• Open Office (scheduled Jun 2011)
• Gimp
• Inkscape (scheduled Oct 2011)
• MythTV

• Home computing with Ubuntu (last given Mar 2011)

setup and maintenance (25%)

• intro to command line
• buying a computer that's compatible with free software
• how to compile a program from source
• tips and tricks for installing GNU/Linux
• GNU/Linux maintenance
  • "Package management" (last given Apr 2010)
• reporting bugs
• Where to Get Help
• An Introduction to Hardware

programming (15%)

• what is programming (last given Oct 2010)
• intro to programming in Python (scheduled May 2011)
  • intro to PHP (last given Jun 2010)
• version control systems

software freedom (10%)

• what is free software (last given Apr 2011)
• about the community (last given May 2010)