The goal of this project is to assemble and develop a syllabus of lesson plans that can be used cyclically to teach at each MDLUG meeting, according to a schedule advertized to attract new members. The goal of the syllabus is to teach students to become effective computer users, able to setup a basic computer on their own, and interpret online references to develop further capabilities.
Consequently, most lessons will teach to the application level (ability to adapt to circumstances) and focus on software engineering principles and computer concepts rather than "recipes" for particular tools.
The syllabus employs "The Art of Unix Programming" by Eric Raymond as the principle textbook, available in print (ISBN 0-131-42901-9) from Addison-Wesley (http://www.amazon.com/) as well as online (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/)
To assure successful and efficient training, the teaching experience is captured in standard lesson plans. Please feel free to add material beyond that required.
Learning from the success of aviation training, each lesson plan follows a template based on Thomson's Rules of Learning. Among the required features, each lesson plan includes
The dean maintains a set of lesson plans. Candidate teachers submit lesson plans to the dean. When the dean verifies that the lesson plans are complete, compliant with the template, fit into the syllabus, (and legally includable), they are approved and may be added to the set.
The dean maintains a list of teacher qualified to teach at an MDLUG meeting, Teachers are qualified by their proven ability to use lesson plans and demonstrated ability in class. Ability to use lesson plans is proven by submitting and receiving successful approval of at least two lesson plans, at least one of which is an original work by the candidate teacher.
The secretary will schedule lessons in order such that all prerequisites of a given lesson have been taught (and verified by completion standards) earlier. The schedule must be suitable for publication and will be used to attract the public to MDLUG meetings.
As of 2006.05.15, the first lesson plan teaches howto create a persistent Knoppix environment suitable for use as a "lab" for subsequent lessons.