On Jul 6, 2015 8:17 PM, "Marc D Ronell" <mronell@alumni.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
>
> As a test, I purchased a laptop (Toshiba Satellite C75-B7180) on sale
> for $350 at our local Microcenter in Cambridge and was able to load
> GNU/Linux for my son. I am thinking of working some programming
> assignments in Squeak (Smalltalk), but maybe C is a better choice for
> an OS class?
>
I agree - no on the extra laptop. Virtualbox would be fine (a Pi might work too but then you've got to consider peripherals).
Smalltalk is fine but I'd go with pharoh. No on c too - too complex. Maybe teach js if you don't want Smalltalk. Don't teach bash either - too many edge cases and weirdness (when to quote, not being able to return date from functions properly, etc.
If you did ruby or js you could probably get help from a local group.
I would also teach the system separate from programming. They're both big topics and you'll end up overwhelming everyone (yourself included).