Teaching Young Children About Software Freedom
338 | Sat 03 Aug 3 p.m.–3:45 p.m.
Presented by
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Aaron Wolf
https://wolftune.com/
Aaron is a community music teacher, co-founder of Snowdrift.coop (a long-struggling and principled platform working to solve economic coordination dilemmas around FLO public goods), and an activist and volunteer in many other areas. Originally from Ann Arbor, MI; he lives now in Oregon City with his wife, dog, and two kids.
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Rowan is 8 years old (as of this time at FOSSY 2024) and is an advocate for software-freedom. He is author of Cowmath (https://codeberg.org/RDW/cowmath). Along with his dad, he has presented at multiple conferences on the topic of software-freedom-for-kids. Although he likes programming and learning about politics and ethics, he actually prefers to play Minetest, SuperTuxKart, and other FLO (free/libre/open) video games — though he does *really* care about avoiding proprietary software.
Otherwise, Rowan attends the bilingual Spanish-English program at Candy Lane elementary school in Oregon City (well, in the school district but actually on the other side of the neighboring city of Gladstone, and he bikes 5 miles each way to school and also has strong opinions about biking and transportation).
Aaron Wolf
https://wolftune.com/
Abstract
Kids today grow up in a world dominated by computers. Yet education normally focuses only on computer use or programming. Where topics of power and ethics do come up, they focus on concerns like privilege, bigotry, and social-media. How can young people learn about the inherent issues with software freedom at the foundations of the tech that surrounds them?
Thinking about this dilemma, I asked others for ideas. Mostly, the responses mentioned pseudo-educational games or other fun-computer-things for kids that just happen to be Free/Libre/Open (FLO). Only a few were great, and none emphasized teaching FLO concepts directly.
To develop a FLO-first approach, I set up a computer for my then-6-year-old with focus on basic terminal. We started playing with things like making espeak TTS say funny things or gibberish. Over time, our explorations evolved into his own first program: Cowmath — a Bash script in which cowsay and espeak together quiz the user on random math questions.
All along, I emphasized the larger context: we are using FLO software that we can freely use, study, and adapt; and we can share our code for others in the same way. We talked about licenses and economics and the difference between FLO and proprietary software. We now publish this in-progress FLO-first educational curriculum at codeberg.org/FLO-Conscience/FLO-kids and invite others to join us in improving and expanding the resources.
Now, Rowan is eager to get better at introducing other kids to FLO software. And he appreciates meeting people at conferences who understand these things already. In our talk, we'll share our story and discuss the challenges and best methods for inspiring the next generation of software-freedom activists.
Kids today grow up in a world dominated by computers. Yet education normally focuses only on computer use or programming. Where topics of power and ethics do come up, they focus on concerns like privilege, bigotry, and social-media. How can young people learn about the inherent issues with software freedom at the foundations of the tech that surrounds them? Thinking about this dilemma, I asked others for ideas. Mostly, the responses mentioned pseudo-educational games or other fun-computer-things for kids that just happen to be Free/Libre/Open (FLO). Only a few were great, and none emphasized teaching FLO concepts directly. To develop a FLO-first approach, I set up a computer for my then-6-year-old with focus on basic terminal. We started playing with things like making espeak TTS say funny things or gibberish. Over time, our explorations evolved into his own first program: Cowmath — a Bash script in which cowsay and espeak together quiz the user on random math questions. All along, I emphasized the larger context: we are using FLO software that we can freely use, study, and adapt; and we can share our code for others in the same way. We talked about licenses and economics and the difference between FLO and proprietary software. We now publish this in-progress FLO-first educational curriculum at codeberg.org/FLO-Conscience/FLO-kids and invite others to join us in improving and expanding the resources. Now, Rowan is eager to get better at introducing other kids to FLO software. And he appreciates meeting people at conferences who understand these things already. In our talk, we'll share our story and discuss the challenges and best methods for inspiring the next generation of software-freedom activists.