Deck: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4948426/slidedeck.pdf
Draft Challenges: http://webmaking101.jamiecurle.com
Background blog post: http://blogs.p2pu.org/blog/2011/08/19/state-of-webcraft-webmaking-101/
Schedule: http://pad.p2pu.org/webcraft-plan
Example Challenge: http://webmaking101.jamiecurle.com/challenges/13
Background
- We started with courses, ask and offer were too high friction. Sign up for a six week course, or run one for others.
- Revised plan is to lower barrier to entry
- Offer: Learn web development by completing challenges. Build useful things, develop a portfolio of projects, get help and recognition.
- Ask: Create a challenge that helps people learn by doing. Become a volunteer mentor and help new developers.
Questions
(1) How can we best engage "experts" regular helpful folks in Webmaking 101? specifically as:
- Mentors (one-to-one, or one-to-few)
- Clear ask: "Volunteer one hour per month (week?) to help a School of Webcraft learner."
- (If we ask for less time, we may end up actually getting more, but reality might not match up with ask.) Or we let them choose:
- perhaps - mentor donates 'x' hours eg. 8 redeemable in blocks, weekly or monthly
- Wherever we land on this, let's keep it simple. Should be super flexible and up to indivudal learners and mentors to work out.
- what are the benefits of being a mentor?
- Be specific about what kind of mentors we're looking for. esp for roles other than mentors
- Yes, need to clarify ask for Monday call
- Experts want to know exactly how much time will this take +1
- Can users who have passed the challenge become allegible for being a mentor on that specific challenge?
- Idea: Media partners: blogs, magazines, etc. for general outreach
- Definitely should do this -- but may not be ready yet. Still in prototyping & testing phase.
- Useful for mentor recruitment, can Barbara help?
- it seems like there would be an opportunity to engage IT grad programs/ or CS schools +1
- Help on demand (IRC)
- hang out in the IRC channel and help with questions
- - this can be time consuming, especially if there are tons of questions getting pinged around. Maybe time shifts might work?
- army of awesome model?
- Challenge design reviewers and creators - possibly experts to contribute challenges
- OWEA community
- Be clear about where and how they can review / suggest changes agreed this need a clear pathway
- clarify the range of edits (technical / grammatical)
- Where is this stored: Wiki / GitHub / Lernanta ( github atm)+1
- Are suggestions reviewed - and accepted? How do you review the reviewers :-)
- Creating related content eg videos / tutorials I like the idea of tutorials. I have taken many on-line courses and like to learn at my own pace. You could use experts for answering questions like a Tutorial leader
- Create a template for this +1
- Use Chris Heilman to develop a model (then others can follow)
- School of Webcraft badges program
- NOTE: we can use badges to incent the experts to participate, build reputation, etc.
- Participation asks:
- Helping to set assessment criteria - eventually yes, Jamie is handling this for this round but ultimately we need experts to help expand the skills/challenges so that we have a comprehensive assessment/badge program
- e.g., "Hey, Chris Heilmann -- what are the core skills you think someone needs to demonstrate to call themselves an 'HTML5 expert?'"
- Reviewing work that is posted for assessment - some assessments require a higher level of skill/mastery for reviewing the work
(2) Is the content of Webmaking 101 appropriate, what would you add or remove? Is the portfolio model compelling?
- What content would you include?
- more lower barrier challenges- not html + css, just html for some is hard enough
- Does the portfolio model make you want to participate, any other ideas to make it more compelling
- Allow search for particular characteristics (e.g. all CSS people based in Argentina)
- useful
- how can potential employers search through portfolios
- how can we track any job offers that come through the portfolios?
- Example Challenge: http://webmaking101.jamiecurle.com/challenges/13
- More tasks to help focus on expected outputs - beware things becoming too open ended
- Is there value in breaking tasks into 'Beginner', 'Intermediate' and 'Advanced'? Multiple exit points with the chance to add value maybe later (after completion)+1 like the Choose your own adventure model :-) <<Reading my mind
- Mainly focus on sequential challenges or encourage different entry points?
- Clarify Audience. Who is this for?
- track responses and experiences with the challenges in a \'demographic' / sociological / anthropological manner - is it a universal engagement we're looking for or certain audiences? Who is this successful with?
- Add some detail to "Hello World." Given that it's listed as the "first and possibly biggest task," a little more explanation would be useful. << definately, just fleshing out at the moment.
- Challenges need stornger tie-in with existing resources (MDN, etc.) Yes : )
- voice - this is a very friendly set of challenges - is this voice going to be easy to maintain? and especially - to localise.
- Badges
- Badges associated with different challenges (not one-to-one)
- Leveling up badges (webmaker) connected to certain pathways
Notes
- Webmaking 101 Challenges / Learning Projects
- Bite-sized. Breaks learning down into small pieces. Individual challenges that can be completed in a day or two.
- Practical. Making genuinely useful stuff along the way.
- Tagged. e.g., "HTML," "CSS", "User Experience." Builds in a competency map / learning pathway / learning ecology.
- Wordsmithing copy for Webmaking 101 challenges page http://webmaking101.jamiecurle.com/challenges
- Matt: This is awesome. I can probably help tighten some of the wording.
- @Jamie / John: woul that be helpful? if so, what's the easiest way for me to do that? (It's a Django app so I can set you up with a login for that content - there is a small amount of hardcoded content) and yes, very very helpful.
- http://github.com/jamiecurle/webmaking101
- Should we move into lernanta? (rather than build this out as separate app)+1 (super happy to do this, it's just a scratchpad for me atm)
- longer term - how is this stored and maintained? Is Lernanta the right place for versioning / translation / external distribution to other audiences eg. community college audiences etc. - yes
- Minor copysmithing nit: "Webcraft" is one word as is Webmaking ;-) (Done a quick update on the source code, I'll update the database content after call)
- (Medium-term): Test the terminology with learners. Do terms like "challenges" and "disciplines" make sense to them? What words do they use to describe their experience?
- Informal focus grouping in person may be more useful than waiting for feedback to come in online.
- Work with media partners to attract "experts" or general outreach