Welcome and some ideas/thoughts moving forward

[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

[Balaji G]

Hi

> 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). 
Yes thats a better idea so that from the people who are taking the sessions
its quite easy coz it becomes quite tough to plan for 1st Week of every
month during the second week of the previous month so as to get proper slots
:). If its gonna happen anytime and just a prior communication and proper
advertising is gonna hold good, this is gonna be the best option

> 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. 
Lets keep a 2 week headroom and we could have a mail format for sending
presentation submissions.

> 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. 
I guess that shouldn't be a problem because if we kickstart with having more
sessions i am sure people would chip in to take sessions for sure.

> Con: If we are not announcing widely, there may be less students in
> general. 
Announcing it a wider audience should be important and we are already doing
it for sure and let us continue and improve it even further.

> What do people think? Is this something we should look at going to?
> Or are their better ideas moving forward? 
I feel this is a good initiative and we could start off with this.

My thoughts !

Thanks,
Cheers,
Balaji







On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 12:31 AM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin(a)scrye.com&gt; wrote:

>  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
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  classroom mailing list
>  classroom(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/classroom
>
>

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Tue, 12 May 2009 21:32:48 +0530
Balaji G <balajig.foss(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  Hi
>  
>  >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).
>  
>  Yes thats a better idea so that from the people who are taking the
>  sessions its quite easy coz it becomes quite tough to plan for 1st
>  Week of every month during the second week of the previous month so
>  as to get proper slots :). If its gonna happen anytime and just a
>  prior communication and proper advertising is gonna hold good, this
>  is gonna be the best option 
Yeah. 

>  >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.
>  
>  Lets keep a 2 week headroom and we could have a mail format for
>  sending presentation submissions. 
In the past I was hoping we could start doing something like last
minute classes. Ie, someone sees a few people who want to learn and
uses the irc classroom. Then people who idle in channel would be able
to see and participate. Of course you loose a chance to market these
kinds of classes. 

>  >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.
>  
>  I guess that shouldn't be a problem because if we kickstart with
>  having more sessions i am sure people would chip in to take sessions
>  for sure. 
True. I guess time will tell. 

>  >Con: If we are not announcing widely, there may be less students
> in
>  >general.
>  
>  Announcing it a wider audience should be important and we are already
>  doing it for sure and let us continue and improve it even further.
>  
>  >What do people think? Is this something we should look at going to?
>  >Or are their better ideas moving forward?
>  
>  I feel this is a good initiative and we could start off with this.
>  
>  My thoughts ! 
Thanks for the feedback!

>  Thanks,
>  Cheers,
>  Balaji 
kevin

[David]

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 5:01 AM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin(a)scrye.com&gt; 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

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Fri, 15 May 2009 12:37:56 +1000
David <bouncingcats(a)gmail.com&gt; 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

[David]

On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin(a)scrye.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Fri, 15 May 2009 12:37:56 +1000
>  David <bouncingcats(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>
> > 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? 
OK, what do you think about my suggestions 1), 2), 3) above if applied
to this classroom mailing list?

I can imagine getting an email "oh there's a class starting in an
hour, great, I'm online so I'll check it out". Personally, I /would/
find a 1 hour reminder helpful, thats why I suggested it. YMMV,
depends on one's individual use habits I suppose. I monitor my email
closely and find email header lists a lot easier to setup a filter or
visually scan than chatter in an IRC channel.

I think one of the hardest things about being a teacher is to be open
to different ways of operating other than one's own, and to be able to
put oneself in the students shoes and listen when the students say
what will help them.

[Dave Stevens]

On Monday 11 May 2009 12:01:43 pm Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>  Welcome to the list everyone. :)
>
>  Hopefully there are enough folks here now that we can get started.
>  
Kevin,

I'm happy to see this initiative and hope to participate and I have a 
suggestion: could you configure the list manager so that the subject line 
starts with [fedora-classroom] or some such distinguishing text? I have a 
large volume of email and it would help sort this out a bit better for me 
(and perhaps others).

TIA,
Dave




-- 
Canada must refuse to be entangled in any more wars fought to make the world 
safe for capitalism.

-- The Regina Manifesto, 1933

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Fri, 15 May 2009 15:46:12 -0700
Dave Stevens <geek(a)uniserve.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Monday 11 May 2009 12:01:43 pm Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>  > Welcome to the list everyone. :)
>  >
>  > Hopefully there are enough folks here now that we can get started.
>  >
>  
>  Kevin,
>  
>  I'm happy to see this initiative and hope to participate and I have a 
>  suggestion: could you configure the list manager so that the subject
>  line starts with [fedora-classroom] or some such distinguishing text?
>  I have a large volume of email and it would help sort this out a bit
>  better for me (and perhaps others). 
Sure. Happy to. 

>  TIA,
>  Dave 
kevin