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Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Suggestions for a coding club that is just sta


From: brendanpmurray
Subject: Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Suggestions for a coding club that is just starting?
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 08:36:29 +0000

Teaching coding doesn't involve explaining licences: that is something that should be instilled by practice and leading the kids to use solutions that have the appropriate licence.

From my experience, those approaching coding for the first time learn most from solutions that provide immediate feedback and that guide the user to avoid errors. A perfect example of this is Scratch from MIT (GPLv2 licence) - it's a visual programming environment that introduces all the usual programming constructs, while allowing the user to run the code immediately.

Once they grasp the basics through Scratch, many kids prefer to move to web development. This requires a text editor that preferably supports colour-coding: Notepad++ (GPL) is a very popular product for this. 

Beyond this, the kids try all kinds of stuff, including Mobile using Cordova (ASL) and native, Java, Python, C/C++, etc. running on every imaginable platform. Of course there are many who want to write iPhone apps and there's no way to avoid proprietary stuff there - while it's great to promote OSS, we have to be realistic and focus on the goal at hand which is to get kids to code.

=Brendan

On Fri, 18 Sep 2015 at 07:38 hellekin <hellekin@gnu.org> wrote:
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On 09/17/2015 07:50 PM, Pen-Yuan Hsing wrote:
> Thank you Brendan and Thomas for your replies.
>
> I see that (1) to start it is nice to think about something you could
> benefit from coding, and (2) CoderDojo is a nice organisation to join.
> Both sound good! I'll past this information along, and I hope the lead
> teacher can involve their students in CoderDojo events.
>
> With that said, I think I might need to re-phrase my original post a
> bit: How do you broach the subject of Free Software to someone for the
> first time? Specifically, what about in the case of a new coding club
> for secondary school students? Are there examples of successful coding
> clubs that started with an emphasise on Free Software? Are there
> people with experience in communicating to these groups that "remember
> to release your software under a Free license", "make the source code
> available", etc.? Thanks!
>
>

Bonjour,

first of all, congratulations on caring for this project.  Je te
souhaite tout le succès du monde dans la promotion du logiciel libre.
In order to talk about free software, it's
always good to refer to its originator, Richard Stallman.  The GNU.org
website (disclaimer: I'm part of the webmasters team) has a philosophy
section with a number of articles to understand to position of free
software.  I recommend reading:

https://gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.fr.html
https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.fr.html

The first one explains a list of ambiguous or misleading terms, while
the second reaffirms the importance of free software today.

The GNU project also maintains a specific section on free software in
education:

https://gnu.org/education/education.fr.html

The most important point in your case is "Why Schools Should Exclusively
Use Free Software":

https://gnu.org/education/edu-schools.fr.html

Where are you located?  Chances are, in France, that you will find a
hackerspace near you (other disclaimer: I'm a staff member of this
voluntary network), and many of them align with the ideas of free
software.  Check out https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/France

Almost all programming language also have local user groups.  Ask
around!  On Freenode's IRC #frlab a number of people may be able to
direct you to relevant French resources.

Happy hacking!

==
hk
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