[TOS] Summer efforts (was: Re: Textbook: Getting the Code IRC log)

Matthew Jadud mjadud at allegheny.edu
Thu Apr 15 17:25:19 UTC 2010


Hi Asheesh,

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 12:39, Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at openhatch.org> wrote:
> We'll have a programmatic backend for checking students' work.

Are you developing this for a specific course or instructor? If not,
then you might discover you're solving a problem no one has. (Put
another way, if you're writing an educational app that doesn't solve
at least one instructor's specific problems, then it might not solve
anyone's problems.)

I spent some time talking to Mel about an idea in this space while she
was here, and I haven't had time to write this up. Really, what I want
is a "portfolio engine" or "portfolio aggregator." It would serve as
an uber-aggregator, where I could capture all of my FLOSS interactions
(wiki edits, blog posts, IRC conversations, mailing list interactions)
with minimal effort. This way, as a student working in FLOSS, my
instructor can easily see what I've been doing. This naturally ties
into various "dashboard" concepts that have been discussed before. Put
simply, I want a way for 1. students to easily (minimal/no overhead)
have a log of their open contributions, and 2. faculty to easily be
able to see what they've done for making sure they're
engaging/prodding if they need help.

It might solve problems for others as well, but first and foremost,
I'm interested in developing this so that I can bring students into a
community, do an interesting project with them for 10 weeks, and come
back out with a rich set of logs that can easily be used by the
students and faculty for reflection---without the students having to
manage it all themselves. As an example: zodbot, while a very nice
fellow, does not cut it---the student and faculty member have to do
too much work to get the log and to find it later.

I can write this up in a wikispace if you'd like me to; I was planning
on writing it up and putting a prototype together after classes ended,
but I can sketch it out sooner rather than later if there is interest.

Cheers,
Matt



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