[sf-lug] Teaching programming at SF-LUG meetings

[Jeffrey Malone]

You could of course just use straight vnc, and have all the
participants install a vnc viewer and connect to you in a monitor only
mode (or if you prefer, the iTalc program is GPL, and you could have
people install it).

In fact, after reviewing that features of iTalc, it sounds great for a
lab -- but I would never install it on my own system.  Something about
giving someone else the ability to lock, reboot, and otherwise control
my computer at will is not encouraging.
But in short of a projector, which we would be highly unlikely to
have, the idea of using something like VNC seems good.  It can be
quite nice to see it done first hand.

It seems likely that I'll be attending today, in part to learn.
I already have a working knowledge of python, but it could stand to be
well expanded upon.  I imagine I could also assist Asheesh in
answering question people may have, as my general programming
knowledge is somewhat robust on top of the knowledge of python I
already have.

Jeffrey


On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at asheesh.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008, Christian Einfeldt wrote:
>
>> hi
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 11:27 PM, Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at asheesh.org>wrote:
>>
>>> There was some discussion earlier on this list about teaching introductory
>>> programming.  Thinking about it, I would love to be more directly involved
>>> in that sort of thing.
>>
>> I am willing to host such meetings at the school.  The advantage of
>> doing it there is that we would have the lab, and so Asheesh would be
>> able to take advantage of iTalc in teaching us how to do program.
>> iTalc is an instructional tool that allows an instructor to broadcast
>> his / her desktop to other machines, so we could watch Asheesh do his
>> programming and follow along as he speaks.  We would see Asheesh's mouse
>> move, and we would see characters appear on our screen as he typed.
>
> Interesting!
>
> The model I'm imagining for the class is:
>
> * Everyone does their reading
> * Everyone either does the assignments before the meet-up or
>   (in a pinch) at the meet-up
> ** If you do them before, and you have questions (like something doesn't
>    work or you don't know how), bring in or email me your assignment
>
> ** If you don't do the assignments before the meet-up, you do them
>    at the meet-up, and you and I can discuss how.
>
> If people plan to bring in laptops, then that eliminates one advantage of
> the lab: everyone having a computer to play with.  But Christian's point
> about me being able to teach using that machine is a good one.  I don't
> like the idea of doing it there just because as far as I know it requires
> Christian to be there promptly to unlock and lock the place; I don't like
> the idea of relying on him for that, since if he's sick or busy it might
> put a dent in the plans.
>
> One reason I like the idea of doing this at SF-LUG meetings, at least some
> of the time, so that the group can be discovered by accident by people
> passing by.  That does not preclude doing it at the school sometimes.
>
> Another reason I like the idea of doing it at always at a cafe around a
> time when I'll be hungry is that if no one shows up, at least I can get
> some wifi + eating time in.  Basically, I'm trying to optimize for "No
> hard feelings" so that everyone is happy with the way things turn out, for
> whatever variation may exist with the way things turn out.
>
> That's just me thinking aloud; this does not resemble a decision.
>
> -- Asheesh.
>
> --
> Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs.
>                -- Kernighan
>
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