Class Duration
by David
On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin(a)scrye.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 15 May 2009 12:37:56 +1000
> David <bouncingcats(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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! :)
I'd just like to emphasise that my point is not about the amount of
content in the class. I think all the presenters have done great with
this.
My point is: Given the limitations of IRC as a communications medium,
60 minutes is not enough time for a interesting class plus interesting
questions, so I suggest scheduling class start times to begin at not
less than 90 minute intervals.
What I am really getting at is that optimising the class duration
should be more important than scheduling the class into 1 hour slots.
The fact that we generally conceptualise each day in 24 equal
intervals does not make 1 hour the optimum time for an activity.
It is a tiny inconvenience to begin a classes on the half hour (eg at
xx30 hours), but would allow better classes in my opinion.
I think the classes are great. So once we have got everyone together
in the channel and have a great session going, lets not cut it short
without a good reason. Thats how I'm looking at it.
I dont want to see pressure on presenters to fill the time. If the
class reaches an early finish due to completeing the content or
exhausting the questions, no problem. But lets not prevent great
classes by making the timeslot too short.
14 years, 4 months
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Welcome and some ideas/thoughts moving forward
by Kevin Fenzi
Welcome to the list everyone. :)
Hopefully there are enough folks here now that we can get started.
Som first, a bit of history:
We started out the Classroom doing the first weekend of the month (both
days) and then moving around the times of classes so we could include
all timezones in things. (Ie, one month it would be good for North
America, another for Europe, etc). The downside to this is that it made
it hard for folks in another zone to attend/teach classes, so they had
to wait until the right time came around for them. Also, I think it
caused confusion as to what time classes were being held.
So, next cut, we moved to our current system. This is one day the first
weekend per month where we block off the entire day (in UTC time) and
just ask teachers to sign up for when they like to teach their class.
This has the advantage that every timezone can teach/attend if there is
desire, and there is less confusion about when classes are. However, it
also has some downsides: mostly it's only once a month, so if teachers
can't make that day they are out of luck.
So, I would like to propose for comment/consideration a new setup:
Classroom sessions can be anytime a teacher wishes to sign up for and
tech. We either keep the wiki page updated or try and come up with
some calendar/feed for announcements about classes. (Or both).
Pro: Classes can be given anytime there is an interested teacher.
Pro: Folks can idle in the IRC channel and just note/participate in
classes as they come up, or read back in their scrollback on classes
that have recently happened.
Pro: No need to try and push to get teachers for a specific day or
weekend, or try and announce classes widely.
Con: It's hard to announce classes if there is shorter notice.
Especially if a teacher signs up to teach right before their class,
there may not be much notice to interested students.
Con: If there is only 1 class in a time period, it may be hard to
gather students who know to specifically attend at that time. If there
is a number of classes ( like a weekend ) some students may be more
interested in attending.
Con: If we are not announcing widely, there may be less students in
general.
What do people think? Is this something we should look at going to?
Or are their better ideas moving forward?
I look forward to feedback.
kevin
14 years, 4 months
- 5
- 8
Re: classroom Digest, Vol 1, Issue 3
by Sikhumbuzo Ntsada
Much apreciated B
On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 2:00 PM,
<classroom-request(a)lists.fedoraproject.org>wrote:
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> 1. Re: Welcome and some ideas/thoughts moving forward (David)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 12:37:56 +1000
> From: David <bouncingcats(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Welcome and some ideas/thoughts moving forward
> To: Fedora IRC Classroom discussion and feedback list
> <classroom(a)lists.fedoraproject.org>
> Message-ID:
> <974cfff50905141937w7a5db325q5a7cd5b1bf3a0e48(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 5:01 AM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin(a)scrye.com> wrote:
> > So, I would like to propose for comment/consideration a new setup:
> >
> > Classroom sessions can be anytime a teacher wishes to sign up for and
> > tech. We either keep the wiki page updated or try and come up with
> > some calendar/feed for announcements about classes. (Or both).
> >
> > What do people think? Is this something we should look at going to?
> > Or are their better ideas moving forward?
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Thanks for this opportunity to give feedback. My ongoing appreciation
> to all the organisers and presenters in the Classroom.
>
> David
>
>
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> End of classroom Digest, Vol 1, Issue 3
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