Patroncast - S04E36 - My current issues with Linux & teaching update
Added 2024-09-09 09:58:17 +0000 UTCHey everyone!
In this episode, I rant about:
00:54 A Linux user report, basically my list of small issues I have under Linux, on the laptop and on the gaming PC
14:19 An update on teaching, after the first day, the fact that it's a LOT more work than I thought, and using OnlyOffice to crete presentations
I hope you'll enjpy listening to this one, and I hope you'll have a great week!
Best,
Nick
Comments
I'll second what Sebastian says. When I used presentations in my classes, mine were just black text on a white background with default fonts. The interaction between you and your students is much more important.
Chris Sears
2024-09-14 21:16:04 +0000 UTCOkay, I missed that part where you said that it's a private business school, but yeah the fact that they hire contract teachers in public schools shows how bad public infrastructures are getting in France, it's kinda similar with public healthcare tbh... Must have been tough for your mother to see her work conditions degrade in those 15 years, teaching small children is probably a dream for a lot of people.
UsernamesAreHard
2024-09-10 10:24:18 +0000 UTCNot sure my issues are linked to apps specifically, apart maybe from OnlyOffice, where the format could definitely be the issue! As per teaching, it's pretty specific: I don't teach in the public system, at a public school, I teach at a business school, so it's a proivate institution. They tend to only recruit professionals in various fields, not necessarily teachers that have the academic background you'd need to teach at a University (public) for example. So, they did brief me on how to teach, and what the "style" they wanted was, what surprised me more was the time it takes to create the Presentation I'm showing to the students as the support for the lecture :) Teaching itself is great, and the 1h45 long sessions fly by really quickly, but crafting that damned PPT presentation is super long :D As per the education system in France, yeah, our system is completely broken. My mother was a teacher for Maternelle for about 15 years, and she saw how things degraded year after year. They just close down classes everywhere, you end up with 35 kids to handle on your own, and since wages are extremely low, no one wants to even try to become a teacher anymore. Admission is difficult, if you fail you have to wait for a full year, and then you can't really choose where you want to work, all of that for a miserly pay and classes that are too packed, I'm not surprised no one wants to work in the public system anymore :/
The Linux Experiment
2024-09-10 07:39:41 +0000 UTCI'm sure this comes into play: when i'm writing in English, I'm able to make more elaborate sentences, but when I'm talking, facing the camera, I tend to want to make shorter ones, because I make mistakes, which means that if my train of thought is long winded, I have a lot more opportunites to mess up, and then I'll have to re-record the entire part of the video :D
The Linux Experiment
2024-09-10 07:34:39 +0000 UTCYeha, I tried WPS yesterday, and it failed at loading a lot of fonts as well, and borked some layouts, so I quickly gave up. FreeOffice might be another thing I could try, we'll see if OnlyOffice becomes tooo cumbersome
The Linux Experiment
2024-09-10 07:33:28 +0000 UTCHaha that "sit further back to dodge questions" is a nice idea! My slides aren't packed with information, they're really simple, but I try to design them well, so they look nice, maybe I'm just wasting my time!
The Linux Experiment
2024-09-10 07:32:50 +0000 UTCIf Linux is too troublesome, you could always try switching to Windows 😉. Jokes aside, something I have noticed with apps on Linux is that their quality can vary a great deal depending on the packaging method used or who packages it. I'll take the Elisa music player for example on Linux Mint. For me the Deb package provided on Mint's repository was completely broken and the app's Ui would be completely broken at launch when I opened an mp3 and it wouldn't play the song. When I tried Elisa from flathub, the app would launch but the first 6-8 seconds of the song were really choppy. To compare I also added Fedora's flatpak repository and tried their Elisa flatpak and surprisingly the app worked perfectly there. So I don't know what packaging format you're using but maybe that's something to investigate, maybe look for a different packaging format or for a different app maintainer? Maybe Fedora maintains and curates their flatpaks better than flathub does? Have you tried audacity's appimage? I'm a bit surprised to hear you say that the teaching job is more work than you thought, didn't you get briefed by the school or get at least a few days of training to prepare you for teaching or for what to expect from this job? I'm french so I know that the situation in France with schools is problematic because from what I last read on the news, there are a bunch of teachers that are missing in the school system and there are difficulties to recruit new teachers so they hire contract teachers to plug the holes so to say. Now that you're teaching, how bad is the situation from your point of view?
UsernamesAreHard
2024-09-09 21:15:44 +0000 UTCTried to remember about uni teaching styles that I did and didn't like. Some profs didn't make slides available online so the students were busy just copying the slides. Don't be like that, make the slides available. If possible also make the homework available online too. I wasn't bothered at all when presentation slides were simple. I actually liked it when there wasn't too much info on those and the prof used the board in addition to elaborate ideas plus was interactive with students, ask questions, etc. Prof was like: "ok, if you don't want to be asked questions, that is ok, just sit at the last 2 rows and I'll not bother you." I liked that, especially when I was partying way too hard the evening before 😅
Sebastian
2024-09-09 17:46:42 +0000 UTCNever thought about it, but one of the reasons I listen/watch your content is because it is often much more clear and concise. It certainly could be related to English not being your native language. I know, as a native English speaker, I have been told I am a bit too verbose when I have provided training or seminars in the past and had to learn to be more concise.
Clint Eschberger
2024-09-09 17:46:35 +0000 UTCAnother Office alternative might be FreeOffice. But that is closed source.
Pommes
2024-09-09 14:47:59 +0000 UTC
