Does Santa Monica offer any Linux certifications?<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 11/19/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">dmoore</b> <<a href="mailto:dmoorelists@dslextreme.com">dmoorelists@dslextreme.com</a>> wrote:
</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>Are you interested in linux ed? I teach a linux class at Santa Monica<br>College (CS41). I'm doing it now for the 3rd time this fall. It took me
<br>a few years to convince them to offer such linux but we've now got it in<br>the curriculum. I'm half-time and the only instructor there who knows<br>linux, the other faculty seem (disappointingly) unmotivated to learn
<br>about it. Not that it doesn't take a certain significant commitment to<br>do so, so I don't judge at all.<br><br>Every semester it's a question mark whether enough students will sign up<br>to avoid canceling classes offered in the published catalog, but so far
<br>so good CS41 gets about 20 or 25 at the beginning of the semester (they<br>cancel below 18) then it dwindles some but mostly as you know there's an<br>undercurrent of interest in the computing/IT community and it's<br>
sustaining this class. I teach a networking class too (CS70) and base it<br>totally on linux. Plus, we/they won some grant money from NASA to put<br>together new curriculum about, among other things, network security and<br>
implementing it is my baby. I got some budget for the first time and we<br>will introduce 3 new classes next year, 2 being mine (CS78 CS75) and<br>being linux-based. We bought a big-memory server (from Clay Claiborne,<br>
Cosmos Engineering) and I'm going to use VMware to build some virtual<br>networks out of virtual PCs in that memory, then interact them (VPNs,<br>perimeter networks, subnets, low electric bills). I'm learning from it<br>and it's fun.
<br><br>Linux ed in socal is patchy. Some schools have a good course or two,<br>it's really personnel driven-- whether they have the person motivated<br>and knowledgeable to teach it. Most don't. Those that do are islands,
<br>and sometimes the linux instructor leaves and that's the end of their<br>curriculum. It's not uniform or consistent. Santa Monica College, apart<br>from me happening to be there, is otherwise a Windows place<br>thru-and-thru. Dan Kegel maintains some links about linux ed at his
<br><a href="http://lalugs.org">lalugs.org</a> website.<br><br><br>David Lawyer wrote:<br>> I once took a Linux class at PCC which didn't have many students and<br>> was not given again. It was called "Unix Administration". I was at
<br>> the PCC bookstore the other day and noticed they have again offered a<br>> Linux class. It uses the textbook: Introduction to Unix and Linux.<br>> The textbook only covers the command line and doesn't have anything
<br>> about email. I doubt if it has much about networks. It has a lot of<br>> step-by-step exercises where it gives you a sequence of commands to<br>> type so you can see what happens. Thus it's more elementary than the
<br>> class previously offered. It's aimed at people that know almost<br>> nothing about Linux (or computers ??) and comes with a RedHat CD so<br>> you can install Linux (probably an old version of it) on your PC.
<br>><br>> So if someone shows up at SGVLUG who knows almost nothing about Linux<br>> or commands like cd, ls, etc. Then this class would teach them the<br>> basics of the command line interface. I looked up "chroot" and
<br>> "emacs"in the index and found nothing. But I did find a lot about the<br>> vi editor. Sorry but I didn't have time to check it out more. The<br>> class has already started and I don't know if it will be offered
<br>> again.<br>><br>> David Lawyer<br>><br>><br>><br><br></blockquote></div><br>