Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!ima!mirror!rayssd!hxe From: hxe@rayssd.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: edu'ing new UNIX users Message-ID: <635@rayssd.RAY.COM> Date: Thu, 5-Feb-87 12:42:37 EST Article-I.D.: rayssd.635 Posted: Thu Feb 5 12:42:37 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Feb-87 15:38:02 EST References: <1097@msudoc.UUCP> <416@nitrex.UUCP> Sender: hxe@rayssd.RAY.COM (Heather Emanuel @ Raytheon Company, Portsmouth RI) Organization: Raytheon Company, Portsmouth RI Lines: 111 Keywords: UNIX, education, training, introduction Summary: UNIX training in an industrial environment John (I'm sorry, I forget your last name) asked what approaches people use for teaching UNIX to beginners. I am the "Supervisor of Training and Development for the Software Development Lab" at a largish (~3500 employees) company, and I am solely responsible for training all employees who want to know the ins and outs of UNIX. My environment seems to be slightly different from the ones described so far, in that this is not academia and so my `students' are not "students", but rather people who have discovered that they need UNIX to do their jobs. Their reaction ranges from wild enthusiasm to bitter resentment. I also don't do a lot of `selling' to managers in the context of training (that's a separate function altogether), so my audience is committed -- like it or not -- to learning UNIX. I have two basic types of students: people who have never touched a computer before and computer literate people who just haven't used UNIX before. Obviously, I have very different approaches for the two types. The "never touched a computer" types tend to be secretaries and clerks who will use UNIX almost exclusively for text processing and file manipulation. In a six-day course of all-morning sessions, I devote the entire first day to a basic "what is a computer" lecture so they don't feel so dumb about jargon, a demonstration of the difference between the terminals on their desks and the computers in the computer room (most novices do not know that a terminal is not a computer, and thus get confused when presented with the concept of a multi-user system with a computer someplace where they can't see it), a discussion of how computers are used here at our company, and our network and port selectors. I then ease them into the concept of multi-user systems, what an account is and why their login is unique, and, finally, how to log in. We then do very basic commands just so they'll learn how to type a command -- who, date, talk (or write, depending on the system), and hangman (to help them conquer their fear of the strangeness of it all). We finish up with a tour of the computer room so they can see where their files are really stored. I use props (disk packs, tapes, floppies, you name it) and flip charts and hands-on sessions and anything to liven up the class and to make concrete analogies for these abstract concepts. I have found that a first session with no real UNIX or job-specific topics eases a lot of the tension. It has made a world of difference in the level of retention of my students. (I didn't used to do this, so I have a basis for comparison.) On the second day I introduce them to the concept of files and directories, using the office filing cabinet analogy, and teach them all the file and directory manipulation commands, such as ls, mkdir, cp, cd, mv, rm, and rmdir. We practice pathnames forever and ever, moving up and down and all around the file system, so they have a concrete understanding of where they are and what is "home." On the third day we learn vi, and they get to practice that until they're blue in the face. I try to give them fun files to type (like bad lightbulb jokes), so they don't get bored. By this time they have typed the "cd" command so many times that it is practically instinctive for them to change to the correct directory before they begin to type their new files. On the fourth day they learn to use vi to insert nroff commands in their files, and then do some very basic text formatting. In this session I stress again and again the difference between vi and nroff, which seems to confuse some people. On the fifth day we reiterate the nroff lessons, add a few troff commands, and then learn to create some basic tables using tbl. On the sixth day we return to the operating system and discuss pipes and funnels and foreground and background processing. By this time they have an actual need for all this (redirecting nroff output and the like), so it makes a lot more sense to them and tends to stay with them longer. We also set up a few startup files (like .profile and .exrc) and learn how to use mail, man and apropos (man -k). All in all, it is a *lot* of information packed into 6 sessions, but I give massive amounts of documentation (most of which I wrote myself) and *always* give them the means to find out more information, either by looking it up in the reference materials or by calling me. Also, their lab session/homework assignments are designed to be used as step-by-step reference guides when they are through. I think the MOST IMPORTANT thing, and I can't stress this enough, is that I remember what it was like to learn something from absolute scratch, so I break everything down into its most basic concepts. I find this to be the biggest problem with people who were computer science engineers first and trainers later -- they do not get basic enough. It simply DOESN'T WORK to assume a level of technical sophistication or savvy on the part of your students if common sense tells you they don't have the background. No, I don't talk down to my students; I simply break everything down into manageable, concrete descriptions of abstract concepts. I also try to make class a lot of fun. We joke a lot, I use the students in all my examples, etc. So far it has been a resounding success. This is way too long for me to discuss how I train the people who already know computers but need to know UNIX, but if anyone wants me to post that, I'll do it in a separate posting. --Heather Emanuel {allegra,cci632,gatech,ihnp4,linus,raybed2}!rayssd!hxe OR hxe@rayssd.ray.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't think my company *has* an opinion, so the ones in this article are obviously my own. -------------------------------------------------------------------- "The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sing the best." --Thoreau