Re: Recommendations of LMS

[Jonathan Sandoval]

Thanks for the valuable insights.

You're right, the idea is to adopt free software and learn programming
too. Eventually, emacs could be an option.

Jean Louis writes:

> That is great Jonathan.
>
> * Jonathan Sandoval <cloudneozero@gmail.com> [2020-08-10 03:35]:
>> Techela-emacs was a nice discovery and I'll surely give it a try. But, I
>> think it wouldn't be a good fit for our use case.
>
> Probably not. You need small gradient, simpler approach. And do you
> really need too much of a distant software?
>
> We have been running Computer Club back in time and many interesting
> people came, so we made a schedule.
>
> At some time there would be game playing, at some time explanation how
> computers work related to hardware, at some specific time there would
> be courses of BASIC, some other time courses of LOGO programming
> language. That is how it was.
>
> Emacs is great learning resource, you could put schedule for Emacs
> Tutorial, at some time you could demonstrate what is IRC or you could
> enable XMPP server for your cultural club. You could help each of them
> connect with the world. For small kids there is QCompris software.
>
>> Because of COVID-19, our activites halted. As I mentioned, the people of
>> the cultural house are a mix of academics from univerties, but common
>> people without formal education and not much knowledge on computing. We
>> have a teacher of agroecology who is knowleadgeable about that topic,
>> but not much in computers.
>
> As I had a similar situation, I can tell you that common people, even
> farmers, they could complete course for BASIC programming language, if
> I would have LISP at that time, I would be using that one, it does not
> matter. There was no person that could not complete a programming
> course, none of them completed university ever.
>
> You can teach a teacher how to teach others, and teacher could provide
> course during the week, helping people to learn as I said, about
> hardware, CPU, input and output devices, then you give people time for
> games, time for communication setup, time for programming, anything,
> you can make the good time with people.
>
>> I taught them to use Jitsi Meet and BigBlueButton. It was not
>> easy. Jitsi was a little simpler, but not everyone could use BBB. I
>> suspect the reason is an old cellphone, but the preventive isolation
>> does not allow me to really diagnose the problem. It's an example. Other
>> guys have really slow computers and most of them have Windows. We're
>> just beginning with free software and I haven't had the opportunity to
>> make an installation festival. And other problems have arisen.
>
> I would setup XMPP server, I use Prosody, and I would help them each
> to setup XMPP chat for their own society from any device they have,
> and I would help them use free software regardless of their operating
> system. That would connect your own people together in a safe manner,
> network would not be proprietary but your own. US $5 per month is
> enough today to run your own website, chat server, and something more.
>
>> So, expecting them to learn emacs, in Windows and Git does not sound
>> like a very good idea.
>
> I understand.
>
> Yet you can teach them how to use Emacs. Then you empower them to
> teach them how to handle their life by using Org mode. Think about
> that, many things may improve in their life. Emacs is much better
> learning interface than just a browser alone, as Emacs can teach a
> person how to program, how computer works, and what is free software,
> it was for decades a good starting program to teach people about GNU,
> and today even more so.
>
>> For them, accesing a site with their browsers is more natural,
>> because all of them at least have an e-mail account.
>
> There is nothing wrong having people use browser, yet if you only
> focus on one interface, you would not teach, you limit them. Emacs is
> good for reading emails and good for understanding how emails work.
>
> You have plethora of other educational software, there is music
> software, there is chemistry software. Make a schedule of various
> activities, that is my proposal for you.
>
>> I doubt 30 minutes are enough for learning emacs (I recently tried
>> to show the basics to a friend who's a programmer and is used to
>> VSCode and he seemed really confused and kind of gave up).
>
> It is because you may have jumped over some misunderstood and he
> become confused. Emacs Tutorial is simple and can be done by anybody
> without any background of education. If person does not anything about
> computers of course that you would need to explain better what and
> where is Ctrl key or what is Meta or Alt key and so on.
>
> I have trained people in using Emacs without any problem within 20-30
> minutes, just by opening the tutorial and telling them to
> excercise. After the tutorial those some people were opening files for
> me, they have been translating files into Swahili language, and saving
> files and later sharing with me.
>
> You could Emacs if not for anything, then for Tetris and promotion of
> free software. If you are not yourself Emacs user, you may need more
> experience to understand the usefulness.
>
> Even just for presentations, Emacs would be good resource, for the
> simple fact that size of fonts can be enlarged quick enough to make
> short notes to demonstrate to people. Many times I have helped people
> understand pieces of information even if they displace their glasses
> somewhere, just because fonts can be quickly enlarged. For games, you
> could use Tetris, or install Sudoku and already have a good time,
> teaching somebody Sudoku or working with 5 people together on one
> computer to play 3 session of Sudoku will already bring them good
> time.
>
> Jean


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