Hello everyone!

I'm an elementary school teacher and the school has asked me if I want to teach Linux to the students this fall. There will only be three students, age 7 to 9. I'm not quite steady in Linux myself, but I have tried a few Distros. I never quite got comfortable with Mint or Ubuntu, but I've started to get the hang of Arch now.

However I feel like Arch might be a tad too ambitious for young kids who don't have English as their first language. You know... just a teeny tiny bit...

So I suppose my question is: How to best introduce Linux to children. They're not really used to Windows at all, we barely use computers at school. They're brilliant with tablets and phones though. So I suppose there will be few habits to "unlearn" when it comes to computers.

And what are your thoughts on dual booting with Windows? Should we jump in and go full Linux, or is it worth the trouble of keeping windows 10?

It's a bonus that they are not familiar with Windows. They won't have to unlearn stuff.

If you are not comfortable with Mint or Ubuntu, ask yourself a question: Is it the OSes you are uncomfortable with or it is the desktop environments you have used on them? If it's the OS, I'd suggest you take a look at Mageia. Slackware and Debian are my two favorites, but Magiea is very close behind them.

If the students have already been identified and if they know that this is coming, you might consider asking them some questions about what they most want to learn. Of course, the answer may be "play games," but it could give you some ideas for a strategy to lead them in productive directions.

A web search for teach elementary students linux turned up a number of interesting articles. This one seems particularly germane.

Just a few thoughts.

Oh, and welcome to LQ!

That's a good thing because then they will not have to "unlearn" windows before learning Linux. Learning Linux certainly won't be any more difficult that learning windows or any other operating system. Learn it better yourself, you won't be able to teach people to use something until you understand it yourself. If you do an online search for "teach children to use Linux" you will find many sites. There are also some Linux systems designed specifically for children.

as far as the graphical UI is concerned, i don't see that there's any "learning linux", at least not at that age, but it might be a good thing to simply let them use some Linux desktop environment (just to notice the differences and, more imprtantly, common factors).
personally i think 7 is a bit young to even remotely grasp what an operating system is.

what are you planning to do anyway?

there is some graphical coding software, name eludes me atm, was it scratch?
could be good.
the raspberry pi (and other sbcs) universe offers a lot of software, websites, tutorials for all sorts of things suitable for kids all ages (still, i maintain that 7 is a tad too young).

command line?
i recently read an article where a dad "taught" a 5 or 6 year old to use the terminal.
all he was interested in was generating errors that started with the funny verb "bash".
it's a good start.

the good thing for kids that age: they are still entering the world of letters and writing, and using a keyboard (and understandable commands) is fascinating.
like, tell my terminal to "clear", and it clears etc.
which brings us to English - do they know that?

Hi and welcome.

Best way to teach Linux is the same way as to teach Windows or Mac OS - let the kids play on it. At their age all most (not all) of them will learn is how to start/stop programmes, how to write using a word processor and how to draw with a graphics programme - you won't generally be teaching system administration. You may or may not be allowed to use the school network with Linux boxes - talk to your IT staff because it depends how they have security set up (at my last school they used Red Hat).

My experience with older students suggests that teaching them how to use something different to what they'll see at home or their friends' places will not cause them any problems and may give them better problem solving skills with Windows or Macs (because they'll be used to seeing "unusual" things).

And if anyone says "that's not a good idea" just reply with "using closed source software is pedagogically unsound" - after all, the ones who decide to go further won't be allowed to look into how Mac or Windows software works. Just make sure you stress that only open source software can be freely shared - not commercial software.

You could consider using Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) to teach the children simple programming.

It's not quite "teaching them Linux" but the environment in which they will be learning will be a Linux one and they will therefore pick it up that way. That I feel is a good general concept - don't worry about actually teaching the kids Linux, instead find some projects, perhaps artistic, perhaps programming like Scratch, perhaps environmental, and make the projects the goal. Because the children will be using Linux as an operating system, they will learn how to use Linux as a by-product of the fun and interesting projects they are carrying out.

No prior knowledge of MS products is a bonus.

I would seriously consider looking into using Raspbian Desktop, it is based on Debian, a main line distro, is designed to teach children to use computers & to program.

Also, it is the same system as is used on the Raspberry Pi (S.O.C.) computers that are designed & made so that the less well off can afford their own computer.

They have software to easily install & run a school/classroom network, online support, & good documentation.

What more could you want.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/

I find Kids are sharp cookies. My autistic grandson fell right into flow with a graphical environment like I provided him.

He is not age 7 to 9 though. But his mind is different than most folks.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post5648944

Good luck with your new class and job requirements.

As mentioned above, a raspberry pi is a super learning tool for kids. Not only do they learn Linux, they can learn about hardware and programming.
There are hundreds if not thousands of projects that can be built with a pi using the WiFi, Bluetooth and the gpio pins.

I do like the price on these boards

But all that aside: Set Linux up and let them figure it out, they are smart and they'll figure it out. You might what to demonstrate how to use man, --help, etc to find help.

Here's a Linux distro actually made in Norway!
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?di...ion=skolelinux
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/
I'd install the Mate desktop: less cluttered and less demanding on the computer.

There's a lot of software aimed at children:
https://linuxappfinder.com/education

https://lifehacker.com/5974087/i-rai...d-they-love-it.

I think at that age it's mostly 'teaching kids how to use computers'. It really doesn't matter which os.

Well, it does, because you don't learn how to use a computer by using Windows. Windows was designed from the first to hide the workings of the computer from the user, who was assumed to be too dumb to understand such things.