Online TurboGears Class (Redux)
I learned a lot from my first attempt at an online class. So, I am going to try again having learned my lessons.
- Online classes require more structure than the last one had.
- We need weekly IRC chats, or at least weekly reading lists, projects, and screencasts.
- We need a group project with a group accessable SVN repository so people can check in their changes.
- We need a Forum or Mailing list for class discussion
- I need more people to be involved in helping with the class. 100 people in the class, with just me helping to keep things organized and moving forward was too much!
- We need more multimedia content — more screencasts, more diagrams, more code.
- I need to post “office hours” for me and other class helpers, and we need to be avalable (on IRC or something…) to help participants with whatever problems they are having durring those times.
So, given all of that, and my commitments with work and the TurboGears book — I’n not planning to set up another class untill July. But I do want to start with prep-work for the class now.
If you are interested in helping new TurboGears users get up to speed, and have about an hour or two a week you can donate to that project let me know, and we can talk a little bit about how you can help out.
And, equally if you have thoughts on how we can improve the pedagogy (teaching methods) of online courses like this, or software suggestions, let me know.
You can contact me by e-mail at Mark at (this web site address).com, or you can just leave a message here.
I’m planning on creating most of the class content, and I think we have the potential to create some fantastic resources for learning TurboGears.
I would love to be able to help out. Please send me a mail if you’r intressted and we can talk it through.
I would also like to help out. Same deal as Elvelind, throw me an email and we can see what I can do for the class.
Thanks both of you!
With the help I have now, I think we could open up the class to about 60 people, and if we get more support people, we can invite even more people!
Hi, I’m one of the founders of ShowMeDo.com. If we can help with hosting tutorial videos, or sharing knowledge on how to make them, Kyran and I will be glad to help. ShowMeDo is all about hosting tutorial videos to help people to learn about new skills and tools.
Shortly we will have a section on our site for the existing TurboGears videos, so they are all in one place (TG Wiki, TurboTunes, Selenium, CatWalk etc) and we’d love to add to the collection. Most of our 33 videos are about Python and since we use TG, we’d love to give a little back.
We already have a long forum entry on making screencasts, along with videos showing how to make them on Windows and Linux.
On the subject of pedagogy, we also have a discussion on Python tutorials for newbies discussing how video can be best used for tuition, perhaps it will give you some ideas?
Hi Mark! I was in that first online class, glad to hear you’ll be trying again!
I really am writing because I wanted to let you know that the Amazon blurb about the new TG book points to the wrong blog. (a blogspot site).