IRC Meetings/2009-03-24/IRC Log

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gkesden try that again -- yo! 11:05
gregdek Our chairman is here! 11:06
humph hi gkesden 11:06
mchua gkesden: YAY! 11:06
azneita yay! :D 11:06
ctyler Excellent! 11:06
lh gkesden: hello 11:06
gkesden sorry -- embarassing -- I confused UTC 11:06
humph s'ok 11:06
gkesden Ciera saved me 11:06
* ciera (n=chatzill@VOLTAGE.ISRI.CMU.EDU) has joined #teachingopensource 11:06
* ctyler high-fives Ciera 11:07
humph gkesden: so you're at cmu too, then? 11:07
gkesden yes 11:07
humph 10:27 * humph has been working with a couple of students from cmu on mozilla bugs, impressive guys. 11:07
* ctyler gives channel operator status to gkesden 11:07
* ChanServ removes channel operator status from gkesden 11:07
ciera yes, thanks for that 11:07
gkesden i work mostly with ugrad classes and labs here 11:07
ciera those were students in my SE course 11:08
humph they are doing good work, ciera 11:08
gkesden as you can tell, i know the important people here 11:08
* slef (n=mjr@serene.ttllp.co.uk) has joined #teachingopensource 11:09
gkesden So, we've had a busy couple of weeks on the mailing list 11:09
gkesden I'm curious to see if we've got a center of mass in terms of the priorities 11:09
gregdek How do we whip it into a frenzy of activity?  :) 11:09
ctyler http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Category:Projects # Looks like 5 centres of mass shaping up (?) 11:10
* gregdek looks. 11:11
* lazzurs clearly needs to write a wiki page 11:11
lazzurs or two 11:11
slef hi - is this open floor or moderated or what? 11:11
lh I've been having some success asking FOSS projects to list themselves as mentors. I'd like to see a few more folks on that list, but the next step would be matchmaking between those folks and professors. 11:11
* mchua has been slacking on journals, sorry... attack of the RSI took place, will try to fix late tonight 11:11
ctyler slef: gkesden is leading 11:11
gkesden hahah 11:11
gkesden Well, I'm looking at the moment 11:12
humph lh: I'll add for Mozilla 11:12
lh humph: thank you 11:12
ctyler for quick reference by letter: [A] FOSS mentorship project (incl. gsoc overflow) [B] OSS directory project [C] OSS education papers in scholarly journals [D] Teaching materials project (cataloging) [E] Teaching Open Source Summit 11:13
gkesden so, i guess the thing that is of biggest interest to me, personally, is how we successfully get oss into the curriculum 11:13
gkesden I 11:14
* scarter4 (n=evets@net1.senecac.on.ca) has joined #teachingopensource 11:14
gkesden My intuition is that the biggest challenge is getting instructors comfortable with projects 11:14
lazzurs gkesden: to be clear are you talking about university level there? 11:14
ctyler +1 on getting instructors comfortable 11:14
gkesden both 11:14
lh gkesden: agreed. i think finding local FOSS mentors for them will help a great deal. 11:15
gregdek Send profs to RH POSSE, pls.  :) 11:15
ctyler gregdek: any applications for POSSE yet? 11:15
gkesden i think hs teachers right now, in some cases, are more motivated, but also more isolated 11:15
dlavigne1 marketing what is already happening is good, we often don't know who is doing what 11:15
gregdek ctyler: Many questions, but no official applications. 11:15
gkesden it also occurs to me at the secondary level that the loss of AP AB is both a loss and an opportunity 11:16
ctyler AP AB? 11:16
lazzurs gkesden: agreed all of the teachers I have spoke to are very motivated but lacking guidence on where to go next. 11:16
gkesden motivated secondary students and teachers are presently homeless 11:16
lh ctyler: you mentioned yesterday you were going to write about TOS for the O'Reilly Radar. that's certainly a great start. 11:16
slef ctyler++ (btw what agenda point are we on?) 11:16
gkesden the second ap course got nuked 11:16
ciera yikes 11:16
* gregdek has a question: what's the diff between: 11:17
gregdek http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/OSS_Directory_Project 11:17
gregdek and 11:17
gkesden so, on the first point of the agenda about teaching materials 11:17
gregdek http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Teaching_Materials_Project 11:17
gregdek  ? 11:17
gkesden presenting them with a structure that is easy to adopt is essential 11:18
mchua lazzurs: can we point them towards the 5 projects on tos? are the people there ready to harness newcomers? 11:18
ctyler I think OSS_Directory_Project was to be a catalog of successful projects, Teaching_Materials_Project was to be a catalog of (remixable?) teaching materials 11:18
gkesden for example, well-known skill-building and familiarization exercises before real bugs and features 11:18
lh ctyler: that's my understanding from Ross 11:19
gregdek gkesden: Seems like the strategy is to identify as many available materials as possible, and then fill gaps. If, after an assessment, we feel that skill-building exercises are missing, we add them. 11:19
ctyler gkesden: I think there are two skillsets here, and both are a challenge to first learn and then teach. The first is operating at scale (large projects, real world) and the second is operating in community. 11:20
gkesden yes, yes 11:20
* gregdek wonders if it's useful to build a basic curriculum framework first, or to get the fullest possible assessment of available materials first, or to do them in parallel? 11:20
* ctyler votes parallel 11:21
gkesden gregdek: My own intuition would be to start with one or two, turn the wheel, and see what is learned 11:21
gregdek "start with one or two..." clarify? 11:22
gkesden if we take one or two projects and provide really good ramps, we can put a lot of effort into them 11:22
rossand In the context of TOS, I'd like to suggest it makes sense to catalog projects that are actively engaged in teaching. For example: seeking mentors/interns or producing/distributing teaching materials. I'm not sure there's need to produce a galactic encyclopedia of FOSS. 11:22
gkesden we can also learn a bunch 11:22
gkesden if they are widely adopted, even a couple of projects can have a huge impact 11:23
gkesden I also think it is easier to market one or two than a menu 11:23
lazzurs gregdek: well the way I have started working is to match up the goals in the the curriculum with what we can provide from the open source developement model 11:24
lh so, we have the work that ralph et al. are doing with hfoss, and the OpenMRS project has already put together a curriculum to train developers in rwanda. http://blog.openmrs.org/?p=93 11:24
ciera what courses are these resources aimed at? courses specifically on oss, or general courses that can use oss as part of the existing curriculum? 11:24
gregdek rossand: My only concern is that if we provide a bunch of materials without context, already overburden profs won't have a context to start with -- whereas a basic curriculum framework, and I mean *basic*, would be: 1. what is a patch? 2. what is revision control? and so forth. 11:25
lh seems like a great deal of work has already been done for this one project, which has the added benefit of appeal from a humanitarian angle. 11:25
ctyler gkesden: still trying to understand "one or two projects" -- is that one or two courses? one or two open source projects that we build courses around? one or two schools? 11:25
gkesden ih: which one? 11:25
lh gregdek: how intensive would such a beginner's course need to be to be effective 11:25
lh gkesden: openmrs = open medical record system project, for use in the developing world, mostly javva 11:26
lazzurs gregdek: why not match up the teaching materials you are looking to provide with the requirements of the courses you are targeting? 11:26
rossand gregdek: Agreed. That was where I was headed. Focus rather than a very broad scope makes sense. There is a risk of course... 11:26
gkesden ctyler: one or two open source projects for which we establish ramps. Exercises to help students become comfortable with the scale, in particular 11:26
mchua also, the tos pages mention oss in the context of non-cs curriculums - business, sociology, etc... is that an interest/focus of anyone here or is it back burner while the sw development stuff gets underway? 11:26
rossand How do we decide what to focus on or not? i.e. picking one project over another. 11:26
gkesden il: thx 11:26
lh mchua: i am very interested in that but think we should nail down the SW side of things first. 11:27
gregdek My take: any project that has a leader, who is committed to leading and making things happen, will make progress. 11:27
ctyler gkesden, lh: the concern with focusing on one or two open source projects is that it's too easy to overwhelm the project. If we try similar things across more projects, it scales better. 11:27
lh rossand: i think choosing a project that already has some academic support behind it would be helpful. fewer barriers to overcome, some academics already sold. 11:27
lazzurs mchua: for me that is something that we are working on from the start as it is a requirement of the curriculum here 11:28
rossand lh: agreed. Good point. 11:28
gkesden rossand: mozilla seems to have a huge effort. If there is one with clearly non-computer humanitarian goals, that might be good, too. 11:28
lh ctyler: agreed, but if we have a proven model we can use adapt it for use with other projects. 11:28
gkesden well, I think all of us need to run interference for the projects we pick 11:28
gregdek Fedora, Mozilla, and the HFOSS projects are already doing this stuff. 11:28
lh gkesden: completely agreed. 11:28
rossand gregdek: Sounds like the "let many flowers bloom approach" with a natural expectation that projects already doing work will tend to emerge more quickly - agreeing with lh. 11:29
gregdek Yeah, I think that's right. 11:29
gkesden if we can put together good structure, teach the tools, exercises with the code, and the community can support it 11:29
gkesden gregdek: whmmm. I'm wondering how much, for example, Mozilla can bloom without more help 11:30
mchua lazzurs: will ping you on that after meeting - definitely want to hear more. :) 11:30
ctyler humph and I have been wondering if it makes sense for schools to develop faculty expertise in specific projects, and to network between the schools to cross-collaborate. E.g., for Moz stuff, students from any school can interface with humph@seneca, for Apache stuff, $x@$y, for Gnome, $a@$b, etc 11:30
ctyler virtualize this a bit 11:30
gregdek ctyler: I think that if we set up the structure appropriately, that kind of thing will just happen. 11:30
* lh agrees with gregdek 11:31
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gregdek fardad! 11:31
fardad Hello... 11:31
lazzurs agreed, the issue is getting the students and teachers aware of the facilities available to them in the community once you have all of the materials in place 11:31
gkesden ciera: you're playing -- your thoughts? 11:31
lh perhaps the best use of the FOSS mentor projects directory [A] is to ask those projects to teach professors the "basics" of FOSS - the what is a patch, what is bug, how to use an issue tracker 11:31
ciera well, I think faculty contacts will help a lot 11:32
mchua I put down #3 and #4 on the agenda http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/IRC_Meetings/2009-03-24/Agenda to start the "that kind of thing will just happen" ball that gregdek and lh mentioned rolling, if folks think that would be useful now 11:32
ciera having a mentor on the project helped our students 11:32
mchua # 11:32
mchua # Plans for 09-10 school year, and activities over the summer to prep? (Go around the circle) 11:32
mchua # Problems encountering that you would like the metabrain to ponder, and tips/expertise you can share? (Go around the circle) 11:32
lh after these initial lessons, we could help these professors engage with a FOSS project that is appropriate to their needs in the classroom. 11:32
ciera yes, that's basically what we do now 11:33
ciera students enter the projects with basic information on software process 11:33
ciera the main goal is to get them to engage with other developers and dive into a large codebase 11:33
lh ciera: wonderful, but i was referring to teaching professors who may not have that domain expertise. 11:33
lh agreed that both groups need mentoring. 11:34
ciera I think what we need to know though is what their goals are 11:34
ciera why would they want to use OSS? 11:34
lazzurs ciera: indeed there has to be something in this for the tutors/teachers as well as the students 11:35
ctyler I agree that teach-the-teacher is needed, but otoh, why is no one signed up for POSSE? 11:35
lh ciera: that would really depend on the individual prof. i can imagine having someone help you write a new curriculum or offer a new type of course is good motivation. 11:35
gkesden ciera: real world experience, external validation, path that doesn't end with graduation, tools and process, community 11:36
lh ctyler: i suspect the poor economy has a lot to do with it. 11:36
gkesden ciera: most of all, effort=something broadly useful when done 11:37
lazzurs ciera: in my case it is un the US and not the UK AFAIK 11:37
lh perhaps we are putting the cart before the proverbial horse. would it be more useful for us to start with a document/video that sells professors on the value of teaching open source, pointing them to tos for further support and mentoring? 11:37
slef ok, I'll bite: what's POSSE? 11:37
lh slef: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Professors_Open_Source_Summer_Experience 11:37
lazzurs lh: exactly 11:37
lazzurs I have been using the Stephen Fry video recently for just that to show why FOSS is a good thing(tm) 11:38
rossand ctyler: lh: Is there danger that some events are perceived as vendor-specific? 11:38
mchua well, who's the target for posse? profs who have heard about this oss thing but don't know how to teach it, is my guess. 11:38
lazzurs but something along similar lines explaining why it would be a good thing to them would be even better 11:38
lh rossand: possible, but i am not sure how much that would stave off prof. interest. 11:39
slef I'm guessing that Clemson Uni isn't in the EU, so that's why no profs I know would be signed up. 11:39
mchua that's a huge chasm to cross, from my limited experience. 11:39
gregdek If all of the profs are in Europe, I'd hold it in Europe. srsly. 11:39
gkesden who is involved at clemson? 11:39
lh can the educators here comment on continuing education requirements for profs? maybe the lack of interest is because such a workshop does not meet those requirements. 11:39
gregdek Right now, the goal is to get the thing off the ground.  :) 11:39
gregdek gkesden: A local user group that can get us space, cheap. 11:39
mchua why would i want to teach it, I don't know how, am i going to get support after posse because how can I possibly learn everything needed to navigate this new world in a week, how did others do it, etc. 11:40
lazzurs gregdek: I should be able to fill a room with teachers soon in the UK 11:40
gkesden gregdek: 'k, my alma mater, was on the faculty for a bit 11:40
gregdek gkesden: Hm. We should talk.  :) 11:40
gregdek lazzurs: Maybe we should talk as well. 11:40
* lh is sensing that a "why teaching open source in your classroom is a good thing(tm)" communications strategy is needed 11:40
gkesden gregdek: plenty of friends over there 11:40
lazzurs lh: indeed 11:40
ctyler It seems incredible to me that there aren't more faculty that realize that open source is here to stay and on the way to dominance in our industry. 11:41
gregdek Here's the thing: the goal is to get *any* professor workshop going, for as cheap as possible. 11:41
slef lh: I'm thinking that some market research is needed to sense anything but ICBW and it may already exist. 11:41
mchua lh: what i'd actually love is for the profs here to write their getting-started stories - from "I didn't know what OSS was" to "and now I'm teaching it." 11:41
gregdek Something to say "hey, we did it, and it was awesome, and here are REAL PROFS who took it, and we're gonna do it again!" 11:41
gkesden ctyler: don't think that is the barrier, many faculty don't care about industrial cs, oss or otherwise 11:41
lh gregdek: i think you need to start issuing invitations to specific people who are interested, use the time to develop some case studies too 11:42
humph what I don't get is that if you teach software, and you want to show your students real software, open source is really the best way, leaving alone the issues of "open" as open. 11:42
humph I think profs don't do it because they are scared of it 11:42
slef Do we have any market research? Maybe as a by-product of past work by others groups? 11:42
humph it's bloody big and complicated vs. some toy thing you can use term ater term 11:43
lh humph: this argues for case studies. if another professor is doing this, clearly it is accessible. useful. :) 11:43
humph I'm doing it, it can be done 11:43
gregdek humph is dead right. 11:43
ctyler Our hour is 2/3rds up, can I raise the question of how we're going to proceed going forward? I'd like to suggest that we need a leader for each subproject to organize that project and get it going, and that the subprojects should give an update at the monthly conference calls. 11:43
slef please can we do research before collecting case studies? 11:43
gkesden it is also easier to cook up something static than to learn something big and dynamic 11:43
mchua would the profs in here be willing to do an interview over IRC to get the case study stuff out, if it's not already? 11:44
humph gkesden: and less useful, imho 11:44
gkesden slef: what specific questions? 11:44
slef found http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/vre-report.xml 11:44
gkesden humph: agreed 11:44
* humph notes that Mozilla/Creative Commons are doing a case study on our course here starting soon - https://wiki.mozilla.org/Education/EduCourse 11:44
slef gkesden: I don't have specific questions. General topic seems to be "what's stopping you teaching FOSS?" 11:44
mchua humph: do you already have a "my story" out there I've missed? if not i'd love to get some braindumps from you and the other profs here on irc and clean them up into postable things 11:44
lh slef: we have some decent anecdotal evidence gathered from educators at a few conferences 11:45
humph mchua: ctyler has a good paper on this - http://chris.tylers.info/ols2008/opensource-seneca-ols2008.pdf 11:45
gregdek slef: Exactly! And the anecdotal evidence that lh refers to shows some very strong trends, that we think are actionable. 11:45
humph mchua: I can talk to you about it, sure 11:45
lh ctyler suggested we assign project leaders and figure out next steps in the next 15 minutes, +1 to that 11:46
* gregdek agrees with ctyler, +1 11:46
mchua humph: ooh, nice framework, thanks! 11:46
slef anecdotes are insightful, but they're not data and should be built on 11:46
mchua humph: will ping post meeting. 11:46
mchua ctyler +1 11:46
slef ctyler +1 11:47
ctyler volunteers then? :-) 11:47
lh i'm happy to lead the cataloging of projects who are willing to mentor students and educators [A] 11:47
ctyler excellent! Need leaders for [B] OSS directory project [C] OSS education papers in scholarly journals [D] Teaching materials project (cataloging) [E] Teaching Open Source Summit 11:48
gregdek I'm happy to drive [D]. 11:48
lazzurs ctyler: I am willing to help with D as I am going to be doing this anyhoo 11:48
lazzurs gregdek: excellent :) 11:48
lh gregdek: will be happy to help you with D also. 11:48
gregdek ALthough I think that [B] and [D] are perhaps strongly related, and may end up subsuming B.  :) 11:49
dlavigne1 I'll help with C 11:49
gregdek s/help with/lead?  :) 11:50
dlavigne1 I think mchua is leading 11:50
ctyler And I think Ross Gardler was up for B 11:50
gregdek mchua: Are you leading [C]? 11:50
lh ctyler: correct. ross is at apachecon eu this week, but he mentioned on list that he wanted to drive B. 11:50
ctyler I need someone to run with D, I'll liase with that group for FSOSS logistics 11:50
ctyler Sorry, I mean E 11:51
gkesden So, no one is stepping up to E. I'm happy to do that. But, I'm not the most connected member,myself 11:51
gregdek Will [E] be held at Seneca, or do we know yet? 11:51
gkesden but, absent other volunteers, I can run with it 11:51
ctyler gregdek: We're good for the first [E] to be held at Seneca, and hope there will be more elsewhere. 11:52
* ctyler steps out (late!) to go teach, will read logs later 11:52
* lh waves goodbye to ctyler 11:52
jsmith ctyler: Would [E] include teaching open source outside of a higher-education environment? 11:52
humph jsmith: what do you have in mind? 11:53
gregdek Clearly lower education.  ;) 11:53
jsmith humph: I teach classes on open-source Asterisk for a living 11:53
humph I'm not sure that's the same thing, but others can correct me 11:53
slef can we query projects now, here, later, elsewhere? Like why does [D] settle for "open licence" and not a FOSS licence? There are already several things under open licences but they seem to struggle 11:54
gkesden slef: that seems like a big discussion 11:54
humph slef: honestly, the "F" argument is not what's happening here 11:54
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humph you can find plenty of places for it, I'd encourage you to have it elsewhere 11:54
gregdek slef: I would rather gather as many materials as possible, and categorize them so that people can make their own choices. 11:55
gregdek There are many materials that profs have made available without any license at all, for instance. 11:55
mchua|xo Argh, sorry folks - computer making me take an rsi break 11:55
gregdek Bye Mel. *hugs* 11:55
slef humph: I mean, whether we settle for reproducible or aim for reusable/modifiable somehow... 11:55
slef gregdek: so it's cataloguing/gathering, not production? 11:55
gregdek slef: It's both. But it starts with cataloguing/gathering. 11:56
gregdek Both are necessary. 11:56
lh mchua|xo: be well. 11:56
gkesden okay -- so, licensing aside -- what else can we achieve right now? 11:56
mchua|xo gregdek: nah, I just booted an xo instead :) 11:56
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dlavigne1 there are many existing oer resources available 11:56
dlavigne1 oer==open educational resource 11:56
mchua|xo (the mchua acct is on the laptop with the locked kbd) 11:56
humph my work to develop such material will continue at Mozilla/Seneca, but linking to if seems a good idea (vs. trying to move it all here) 11:57
gregdek Ayup. 11:57
gregdek If it's a big link farm, that's fine, so long as it's (a) current, (b) well-categorized, (c) easy to find, and (d) easy to use. 11:57
slef gkesden: did anyone answer # Is there interest in a weekly list summary? Mchua 11:58
gregdek Oh, yes! 11:58
lh dlavigne1: there are many. i think it would be helpful to have FOSS projects evaluate the resources for usefulness for their individual projects 11:58
slef from http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/IRC_Meetings/2009-03-24/Agenda 11:58
gkesden slef: No answer, but I think there is 11:58
gregdek We should probably have every leader reporting weekly to the list about progress. 11:58
mchua|xo I'll be reading and summarizing the mailing list archives so far tonight, since I need to catch up too... don't know that I can keep it up but there will be at least one ;) 11:59
slef should we document that it's expected of leaders and check they're ok with that? 11:59
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mchua|xo +1 to gregdek! 11:59
lh gregdek: +1 11:59
slef mchua|xo: thanks. I'm feeling a bit snowed by the TOS list. 12:00
gregdek It's a big 'un.  :) 12:00
mchua I'll take a run through the journals [C] conversation and summarize it to the list tonight, and see if it is something I can run with further depending on the direction that takes. If not, I'll find a successor. 12:00
dlavigne1 mchua: if you can't, I can lead 12:00
mchua (now that my laptop is unlocked and I can read the backlog and reply belatedly.) 12:00
mchua dlavigne1: YAY! 12:00
dlavigne1 mchua: we can touch base later 12:01
mchua dlavigne1: yep. 12:01
slef small request: try to link the wiki project pages to the summary mails, please. 12:01
* slef is cheeky 12:01
gkesden lesse', what loose ends are left for now? 12:02
mchua slef: good idea! feel free to yell at me if I forget that in the first summary round and I'll fix it (but I'll try to remember). 12:03
mchua gkesden: next meeting time? 12:03
slef mchua: I'll try to remember but my memory is fried and I've no resources for TOS yet ;-) 12:03
gkesden we've got a concall monday 12:03
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gregdek WHEN IS MY REPORT DUE, BOSS? 12:04
gkesden do we want to follow-up with an irc later in the week? wednesday or thursday? 12:04
slef gkesden: http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/TOS_Conference_Call suggests monday week. Is it wrong? 12:04
* humph lives on irc, will be happy to chat with people whenever 12:04
gkesden slef: Nope! I am 12:04
* lh seconds humph 12:05
gkesden How about we do this again tuesday? 12:05
slef humph: catch you after the meeting? 12:05
lazzurs heh I guess we all do then 12:05
humph slef: I'm here 12:05
humph gkesden: I'll happily join if you want to meet next tues, sure 12:06
slef I think I'm out of office, but I've no resources, so go ahead and I'll read logs. 12:06
gkesden who is in for next week, same time? 12:06
* mchua cheers for logs 12:07
lh +1 same time next week, same bat channel 12:07
* gregdek likes this time. 12:07
slef finally got answer from calendar server - I'm 50-50 12:07
mchua +1 same time same place (though I may be traveling next week, but can usually make this time) 12:07
dlavigne1 +1 12:07
gkesden okay -- let's do it again next week and see what evolves on email between now and then 12:09
gkesden exciting stuff! 12:09
humph thanks for leading, gkesden 12:09
lh gkesden: yes, thank you. 12:09
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gkesden thanks ya'll 12:09
slef thanks gkesden 12:09