[fedora-classroom] Welcome and some ideas/thoughts moving forward

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Fri, 15 May 2009 12:37:56 +1000
David <bouncingcats at gmail.com> wrote:

> I used to work in education. I think this Fedora Classroom is a
> wonderful initiative. I have some thoughts in response to your request
> for feedback.

Excellent. I am hoping for more feedback. ;) 

> I like the idea of flexible scheduling. But it doesn't have to
> entirely replace a regular schedule. You can have a known regular
> schedule, but allow variations from it if necessary.
> 
> Another thought is rather than having the teachers define the topics,
> consider measuring potential demand for topics, and then seek
> teachers.

Absolutely. We have in the past tried to list out class suggestions and
see if anyone wishes to teach on those subjects. Several of the last
sessions I have just picked something from there to teach on. ;) 

It would be great if we had a way to get votes for suggested classes or
the like, but at least we can accept suggestions and have them as a
pool for teachers. 

> My own Classroom use-profile is this: I'm in GMT+1000. I can be on IRC
> any hour of any day. I attend only the class topics that interest me,
> or read the logs if I miss the class. So I don't care at all about
> scheduling, what I find really valuable about the classes are: 1)
> graded introduction to a topic; 2) opportunity for questions.

Yes. Being able to ask questions is very very usefull. 
Also being able to move the class based on your audience is good. 

> I can imagine a very different group of users who might not have their
> own internet connected computer, perhaps a group of them has to get
> together to book in advance and travel to a common location and
> collectively pay for an access time to a shared computer. I imagine
> that for a group like this, the scheduling would be important and that
> once the session had started, they would appreciate being able to have
> several topics covered.

Agreed, but I don't know that this type of student is common. 
Internet is pretty common for fedora users, especially given the amount
of updates and desire to keep up with new package versions. 
There may well be some in this area however. 

> So I suspect that the student group will have very diverse needs that
> cannot possibly all be met simultaneously, so I think the policy
> should be as flexible as possible to allow for this diversity.

Sure. 

> I suggest a recommendation rather than a rule about minimum period
> notice between announcing and delivering the class. It is obvious to
> any presenter that attendance will be poor with too short a
> notification time.

True. 

> As well as the wiki Classroom page, I suggest intensive use of the
> fedora-announce list or fedora-general list to promote the classroom.
> Email is cheap and easily filtered and has a very wide audience. I
> suggest: 1) weekly announce email for all classes for the coming week;
> 2) another reminder announce 24 hours prior to each class or set of
> classes; 3) another announce 1 hour prior to each class. My thinking
> behind each of these is: "1" allows students to make advance
> arrangements; "2" is a timely reminder; "3" could really help to boost
> the numbers attending, it will catch people who are already online and
> interested. Perhaps "1" belongs on the classroom mailing list, but "3"
> should definitely be on the fedora-general list.

Well, since email reading is so varied I'm not sure a 1 hour reminder
would be very helpfull. I do think it's worth announcing classes a bit
before hand in other irc channels like #fedora to catch last minute
folks who may not have known about the classes. 

Also, I think advertising on the fedoraforum is a good idea. 

We don't want to wear out our welcome on fedora-announce as that is
supposed to be a very low traffic list. Perhaps just a monthly reminder
there about upcoming classes and archives of completed classes in the
last week? 

Another place we could advertise would be FWN (fedora weekly news). 

> Also, having participated in several classrooms, several times I have
> seen presenters have to rush the latter part of their presentation and
> question sessions cut short. I strongly suggest for this mode of
> delivery that 90 minutes would should be allowed, with presenters
> aiming for a 45 minute presentation and a 30 minute interactive
> question session.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's very easy to misjudge times for an irc
class if you are used to giving live or other presentations/classes. 
All that typing can take a while! :)

> Thanks for this opportunity to give feedback. My ongoing appreciation
> to all the organisers and presenters in the Classroom.

It's very welcome. I hope we can build a good setup and community here. 

> David

kevin
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