[TOS] POSSE mini + remote modules - first format draft, feedback requested

Matthew Jadud mjadud at allegheny.edu
Sun Jan 9 20:25:21 UTC 2011


On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 15:07, Mel Chua <mel at redhat.com> wrote:
> Total time required: 40 hours + conference. It'll take more than a week
> - maybe it'll even take a year - but this might be more flexible and
> manageable for academics.

A year, definitely.

I have a UOCD-type question: why does the user want to take part in
this? If I walk up to a colleague at SIGCSE, what can I tell them in
30 seconds or less that will make them want to 1. apply and 2. take
part in a 40-hour process that then 3. requires them to come up with
funding to attend <insert-conference-here>? Will this generate a
publication or a grant? If not, how do I convince my institution to
pay for the conference travel?

Related, but different: although most people I would talk to are
committed to excellence in teaching (at, say, SIGCSE), the reality for
many is that their research still matters a great deal. What if I ran
into this guy?

http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/dec-10/the-last-five-years.html
http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/dec-10/whats-in-it-for-me.html

Keep in mind that "that guy" isn't that different from some of the
active voices in the SIGCSE community, so it isn't completely
hypothetical. (I don't know said blogger personally, so he's really is
just a case-in-point.)

> Page text below for your convenience, but feel free to edit directly.
> Our main questions to you: does this resonate with you? Are the course
> descriptions what you'd consider important, and do they sound like ones
> you'd like to take? (Which ones sound particularly good, and which ones
> don't excite you at all? Are we missing any?)

A meta-question that comes from looking at these modules and thinking
about the kinds of interactions (or lack thereof?) that the
participants might have while completing this "course". It is another
UOCD-type concern: faculty make their careers on personal
relationships, both with our students and our colleagues. How does
FOSS participation relate to those kinds of relationships?

I want to highlight a quote from a recent post of humphd's (
http://vocamus.net/dave/?p=1247):

[quote]
I make a promise to my students at the start of every term:  if you’re
hungry, if you’re willing, if you’re dedicated to pushing yourself to
do something important, I’m going to do everything I can to help you
get there.  I have a lot of energy to spend on people who are taking
risks and giving it all they have.  I tell them they can because I
know it’s true.  There are enough people other people in their lives
who will caution them against attempting great work that I don’t need
to add to it.
[/quote]

This resonates strongly with me, which is (in part) why it stuck.

I will claim that this is not what our students get from open source
communities, nor is it what we, as educators, get from them either.
(Perhaps some people would call that flaimbait. I don't intend it as
such, but I do consider it a point to be debated, and I don't know
that I believe it strongly.) Yes, there is value in bringing our
students to FOSS communities, and they can grow and excel in them, but
I believe it will take commitment like David describes, on the part of
the faculty, to make that work -- because (in general) FOSS
communities are not coming to the table to support the students in
that way.

Something that I think Fedora/Red Hat could help with is establishing
a list of projects/communities who are ready to come to the table, and
aggregating those on the TOS wiki. Or, perhaps the TOS community could
do this as a group -- vetting FOSS projects and communities that are
positive and responsive and supportive of our students when we attempt
to engage them meaningfully.

This past semester, I found a mixed bag from our Human Centered Design
experience -- one project was very interactive, but it was small, so
the (one? two?) developers were very keen on any contribution we could
make. A larger project, which was already collaborating with graduate
students at a large university, was largely unresponsive, despite
being very positive about our participation early on. This impacted
one of my teams rather negatively. We recovered, but it hurt their
work and, ultimately, my evaluations. (I know this is an incredibly
small data point, but it leads me to see the value of David's model
for participating: involve students in the project that you are
already deeply involved in yourself. Without that connection and
expertise, it is hard to support the students well.)

> * How do we decide whether people "pass" (how strict should the criteria
> be?)

What happens if they pass?

And why, if you are in Doha, Qatar, are you writing this instead of
seeing more of the place? Admittedly, it's no Meadville, but still...
:)

Cheers,
Matt



More information about the tos mailing list