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Ubuntu Open Week - Learning Project - Elizabeth Krumbach - Tue, Nov 3, 2009

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(03:00:41 PM) pleia2: Hi everyone, welcome to the Ubuntu Open Week session on the Ubuntu Community Learning Project (UCLP).
(03:01:02 PM) pleia2: My name is Elizabeth Krumbach, I'm a board member of the UCLP, have been involved with technical review of professional coursework, have worked to coordinate classes in #ubuntu-classroom and am involved locally with my LoCo team which seeks to launch classroom training.
(03:01:30 PM) pleia2: As a pretty new project, this session will give details about the UCLP, I will be covering project goals, general project status and how to individuals can get involved, I'll pause for questions throughout.
(03:02:03 PM) pleia2: The goal of this project is to create coursework that can be used by individuals for teaching, for Ubuntu LoCo teams, for Linux Users Groups, for presentations at conferences, for IRC, for Moodle-based teaching - anywhere you're teaching folks about Ubuntu.
(03:02:20 PM) pleia2: Our project page is here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning
(03:02:31 PM) pleia2: We have an IRC channel on this network over at #ubuntu-learning
(03:02:52 PM) pleia2: Our mailing list is here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-learning
(03:02:55 PM) ara left the room (quit: "Ex-Chat").
(03:03:09 PM) pleia2: And we have a Moodle installation over at http://learn.ufbt.net/ which supports openid logins (so you an use your launchpad account)
(03:03:42 PM) pleia2: < mhall119|work> QUESTION: isn't there a SuSe project to develop open learning material based on moodle?
(03:04:02 PM) pleia2: I don't know, but it would be interesting to find out and perhaps coordinate some things with them material-wise
(03:04:33 PM) pleia2: Moodle isn't our only format though, since our goal is to service a number of different venus
(03:04:37 PM) pleia2: venues
(03:04:41 PM) pleia2: So, to actually achieve this goal, we seek to develop core material for use in 3 major deployment formats:
(03:04:49 PM) pleia2:  * Live classes
(03:04:54 PM) pleia2:  * Moodle
(03:04:55 PM) pleia2:  * IRC
(03:05:09 PM) pleia2: And we've recruited a diverse group of individuals to be on our team board, whose expertise cover various portions of the "Learning" spectrum, including primary education, Moodle deployments, training in IRC and live class training.
(03:05:37 PM) pleia2: < yos> Question: I'm a n00b...what is moodle ?
(03:05:49 PM) pleia2: the main site for Moodle is http://moodle.org/
(03:06:09 PM) pleia2: it's used for online-based training, the site describes it as "Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites."
(03:06:34 PM) pleia2: Now, as far as material goes, we have five core sections we seek to cover:
(03:06:46 PM) pleia2:  * How to Use Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/UbuntuDesktopTopics
(03:06:57 PM) pleia2:  * How to Maintain Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/SystemAdminTopics
(03:07:06 PM) pleia2:  * How to Develop Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/DeveloperTopics
(03:07:14 PM) pleia2:  * How to Spread Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/AdvocateTopics
(03:07:21 PM) pleia2:  * How to Teach Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/TeachingTopics
(03:07:53 PM) pleia2: you may want to take a look at those pages now, and they'll give you some idea as to how the informal layouts are for each
(03:08:16 PM) pleia2: As you can see from these pages, we've been developing course outlines and collecting resources for each of these topics - but we need more help!
(03:08:33 PM) pleia2: Before I get into talking about our workflow, are there any questions so far?
(03:09:47 PM) pleia2: < doctormo> QUESTION: Are there people who manage each of those sections? responsbility for editing and keeping things sane?
(03:10:26 PM) pleia2: That'll be talked about some in workflow, but yes - there is a loose collaboration between folks to control who is editing what when, and we hope to have more of it as the project progresses
(03:10:32 PM) pleia2: < openweek1_> QUESTION: The goal is to have materials in help of LOCO teams?
(03:11:05 PM) pleia2: yes, one of our goals is to have materials for loco teams to teach, doctormo is already teaching several of the courses he's developed for "How to Maintain Ubuntu" at his loco tea m:)
(03:11:36 PM) pleia2: and the Pennsylvania team will be using some of the desktop courses for our outreach to a local non-profit
(03:12:06 PM) pleia2: < mhall119|work> QUESTION: is Edubuntu involved in this project?
(03:12:47 PM) pleia2: yes, I'm in contact with LaserJock about the project, but they've been very busy with polishing up Edubuntu these past few months
(03:13:31 PM) pleia2: hopefully we'll expand our partnership with them moving forward, along with other teams like the Doc team, Ubuntu Classroom and others
(03:13:52 PM) pleia2: on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning if you go down to "Affiliates & Key People" you can see some of the contacts we've already made with existing teams
(03:14:01 PM) pleia2: < mhall119|work> QUESTION: can I contribute instructional material for ubuntu derivatives like Qimo?
(03:14:27 PM) pleia2: absolutely! we'd just need to define it as such on our wiki so people know where it belongs
(03:15:01 PM) pleia2:  < sebsebseb> QUESTION:  Unfortunately these days most computer courses are Windows only or mainly, especially at low levels.  Would this be one of the projects goals,  provideing  exams and coursework  for  Educational  Establishments who are then teaching students/pupils about
(03:15:13 PM) pleia2: Ubuntu and opensource/freesoftware in general.  With the people passing the course gaining a qualification that in the future many employers, at least in the computer industry, would be interested in.
(03:15:49 PM) pleia2: yes, but our coursework is not at all related to getting any kind of certification
(03:16:23 PM) pleia2: if you're looking for a program to get some formal qualifications you probably want to check out Canonical's training options: http://www.ubuntu.com/training
(03:16:34 PM) pleia2: < openweek1_> QUESTION: What is the policy about using these materials in university courses about Linux?
(03:17:02 PM) pleia2: it's perfectly fine as long as they abide by the CC-BY-SA license we're releasing them under
(03:17:11 PM) pleia2: < kennethvenken> QUESTION: which versions of ubuntu will be covered by this project? Supported versions? Newest version? LTS version?
(03:17:43 PM) pleia2: great question, we're focusing on LTS version, but that's up for discussion
(03:18:16 PM) pleia2: ok, I'm going to move on and talk a little bit about workflow
(03:18:33 PM) pleia2: The workflow for course development is essentially:
(03:18:39 PM) pleia2: Step 1: Collaborative discussion and outlining on the wiki
(03:18:54 PM) pleia2: For instance, if you take a look at our "How to Use Ubuntu" wiki page, you'll see that I've taken "ownership" of the Introduction: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/UbuntuDesktopTopics
(03:19:21 PM) pleia2: As people want to write classes, they update the wiki page so others know they're working on it.
(03:19:39 PM) pleia2: You'll also see links on that page to existing documentation - we leverage this as much as possible
(03:20:15 PM) pleia2: straight wiki pages aren't great for teaching people from, so we take this material, reference it, and build a framework around it so a teacher can teach it (in real life or irc), or it can be put into moodle
(03:20:29 PM) pleia2: Step 2: Further development and fleshing out in bzr+asciidoc
(03:20:43 PM) pleia2: We track core cores material in Bazaar and the asciidoc format. While it's not required for people to write in this format (.odt is fine if that's all you can do!) this is the preferred method for the team due to the ability to easily transform it into other formats.
(03:20:52 PM) pleia2: s/cores/course
(03:21:13 PM) pleia2: This portion of the development process will be the real meat of the course, putting it into a format that people can learn from, linking to the raw documentation from the wiki and other online resources, and essentially turning raw wiki documentation into a teachable format.
(03:21:31 PM) pleia2: To have a peek at the Sysadmin courses currently in bzr check out: https://code.launchpad.net/ubuntu-learning-materials
(03:21:46 PM) pleia2: Step 3: Putting material from B into our 3 major deployment formats - live classes, irc, moodle
(03:21:53 PM) pleia2: s/B/Step 2
(03:22:06 PM) pleia2: In this section we hand it off to our experts in live classes, irc and moodle for them to put it into their respective formats.
(03:22:32 PM) pleia2: so someone familiar with moodle will take the raw documents produced and put it into a moodle course
(03:22:53 PM) pleia2: a live classroom teacher may export the lesson plan as PDF directly and follow that for teaching
(03:23:04 PM) pleia2: ...but this is our workflow in a perfect world, and we don't live in one :)
(03:23:12 PM) pleia2: To account for this, the project is very flexbile with this workflow.
(03:23:26 PM) pleia2: Want to join the project and just do an IRC session? Great! Update the wiki to show the class you're covering and link to the session logs so we can gain from your expertise.
(03:23:42 PM) pleia2: Want to join the project and just do development directly in Moodle? Excellent! Update the wiki to show what you'll be covering in your Moodle course and link to your progress.
(03:24:20 PM) pleia2: This is a pretty preliminary view of how we're doing things now and it'll be worked through in the coming months, but are there any questions before I move on to how to get involved?
(03:24:57 PM) pleia2: < axisys> how do I pull this https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-learning-board/ubuntu-learning-materials/trunk
(03:25:12 PM) mode (+v doctormo ) by pleia2
(03:25:34 PM) pleia2: doctormo is the bzr expert on the team, so I'll let him answer this one :)
(03:25:57 PM) doctormo: OK so there are a few old branches you should ignore, one is trunk, which is filled with odfs.
(03:26:07 PM) doctormo: the best thing to do is to pull from the development focus
(03:26:22 PM) doctormo: bzr branch lp:ubuntu-learning-materials
(03:27:12 PM) pleia2: thanks doctormo
(03:27:14 PM) doctormo: Make sure you keep your branches up to date, and then commit your branches when you've made changes.
(03:27:28 PM) pleia2: we're going to be writing some documentation specifically targeted toward contributors to help with this
(03:27:42 PM) doctormo: We'll do merge requests and variosu thijngs, to be taught.
(03:28:03 PM) pleia2: < mhall119|work> QUESTION: going back to linux-for-education.org, which uses moodle, can we put out moddle versions there ?  Is there any objection to that?
(03:28:08 PM) pleia2: < mhall119|work> if we want to translate asciidocs into moodle, can we do it there and link to them?
(03:28:13 PM) pleia2: < mhall119|work> or is there a moodle site for this project we can put them into?
(03:28:34 PM) pleia2: so, Moodle is not actually my forte, but the license allows us to share this material and contribute it to any other moodle deployments
(03:28:51 PM) pleia2: asciidoc can be exported into html, and that would be put into moodle
(03:29:02 PM) pleia2: and our moodle site is here: http://learn.ufbt.net/ :)
(03:29:39 PM) pleia2: we've already imported at least one course from another source since the license was friendly
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