[Ubuntu-Classroom] [UCLP] Suggestions for next user day

[J Mark Cox]

On Sun, 2010-01-24 at 08:57 -0500, Elizabeth Krumbach wrote:
> I'm including the entirety of Nigel's email because I'm moving this
> over to the Ubuntu Classroom list where it's more appropriate :)

> On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 8:07 AM, Nigel Babu <nigelbabu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello folks:
> >
> > Thanks everyone for the wonderful time and spending that many hours at
> > the computer.  I've got a few suggestions for the next User Day which I
> > hope will be considered or shot down by everyone ;)
> 
> Thanks for helping yesterday and in the past few weeks!
> 
> > (a) Date set around 2 weeks to 1 month after Lucid release.  Then, sync
> > with release cycles like every first weekend of May and November.  If
> > possible, get release announcements (at least unoffical ones) to talk
> > about User Days.
> > (b) Sessions on whats new in Lucid (gnome shell!)
> > (c) Total of 24 hours, but across 3 days like Day 1 - 0000 UTC to 0800
> > UTC, Day 2 - 0800 UTC to 1600 UTC, and Day 3 - 1600 UTC to 0000 UTC.
> > Probably only 2 of us per day.  We could divide work according to TZ's
> > (this could be shot down but its a way to get everyone an opportunity to
> > participate at some point and no complaints of Oh no!, it was night here)
> 
> Finding volunteers to run it is going to be key here, maybe contact
> locos in the other timezones?
> 

If we can manage to pull together enough volunteers to go 24 hours this
might be a good way to add in Alan's suggestion. By having some keynote
presentation once every eight hours.

> > (d) We planned to do screencasts, but due to various reasons, it was not
> > ready.  Probably, get this ready by then.
> 
> I don't remember this discussion so I don't really know how
> screencasts would work with an IRC session, but I think it's good to
> keep in mind that this makes the barrier to entry for participation
> higher. No longer is it just connecting to IRC, you also now have to
> be able to run the screencasts.
> 

The idea of screencasts wasn't for use during the day. Rather to have
demos showing folks how to connect to -classroom and -classroom-chat
with various clients. Considering our experience on the 23rd we probably
need to add "how to set ignore" in various clients and add one for
Lernid.

> A discussion should also be had about using more features of Lernid
> next time, and exploring how something like slides would work for
> those who are still just using IRC for the session.
> 
> > (e) Have a meeting with all instructors beforehand on IRC.
> 
> Good idea. Maybe instead of a single meeting, have a few times the
> week before that they can drop by the -learning channel to make sure
> we have ironed out all the expectations and details?
> 

Also to have leaders divide up the intro, question forward, etc work.

> > (f) Having Duane and Jeremy around this time helped a great deal.  We
> > should probably have a disaster management plan ;) (I think I'm being
> > paranoid, shoot me down on this one if so)
> 
> Sounds good. I mentioned this last night because we really were quite
> fortunate to have them fill in. I think the disaster management plan
> doesn't have to be super formal, just "hey, if someone can't make it,
> $foo can pull something together"
> 

I think this is far better than what I suggested Saturday: bumping a
session up.


-mark