Training the trainers
How to run an Open Source Comes to Campus event
Asheesh Laroia
Open Source Bridge 2013
hello@openhatch.org
About me
@asheeshlaroia
and about OpenHatch
Get all the outreach
goodness you can!
- 2:30: My First Year of Pull Requests (Fiona Tay)
- 3:45: Diversity in open source:
What's changed in 2012 and 2013 (Panel, incl. me)
- 4:45: Quantitative community management (me)
Topics
- History
- Laptop setup
- Interactive exercises
- History
- Training missions
- Curriculum
- Logistics
- Train yourselves
History!
"My involvement with open source is primarily composed of unabashed admiration and adulation."
Sign-up questions
One sentence about how they discovered the event website
One sentence about their current involvement in open source (e.g., "never heard of it", "run Ubuntu", "wrote most of the Linux kernel")
One sentence about something they were excited about learning
Saturday schedule
- 9am-10, coffee and breakfast and laptop setup
- 10-11: Module 1
- 11-12: Module 2
- 12-1:00: Lunch
- 1-2: history & ethics of open source software
- 2-3: Module 3
- 3-4: Module 4
- 4-4:30: Wrap-up, including door prizes
- Modules:
- Communication technologies
- How to get, build, and modify open source code
- Project organization, including version control, bug trackers, and individual roles within a project
- Linux and command line skills
Saturday + Sunday
- 9am-10, coffee and breakfast and laptop setup
- 10-11: Module 1
- 11-12: Module 2
- 12-1:00: Lunch
- 1-2: history & ethics of open source software
- 2-3: Module 3
- 3-4: Module 4
- 4-4:30: Wrap-up, including door prizes
- Sunday:
Ways we failed
- Under-prepared teachers
- “Hackathon” terminology
- Too little focus on projects
- No focus on retention
- Under-aggressive TAs
History!
in which our hero reflects
Retention?
Ned Batchelder, Boston Python user group
Things BPW got right
- Pre-event conversation
- Laptop setup guide
- Play-tested curriculum
- Retention
Staffers...
...how does Windows work?
Make-believe!
If you're the four: http://smarturl.it/stuck
Make-believe!
Goal: work on http://smarturl.it/patch
History!
what our hero learned
In a nutshell
- Set a goal
- Measure, and revise
- Publicize
- events@lists.openhatch.org
- openhatch.org/wiki/
Events/Affiliated
Finding host organization
- site:jhu.edu computer club
- site:jhu.edu women computer science
- site:jhu.edu linux
- site:jhu.edu acm
- size: 2000+
Within the host
- Find two local contacts
- Pick a date
- Pick a space
- Staff + staff email list
- search OpenHatch
- site:github.com baltimore
Publicity
- Save the date: ASAP
- Website: ASAP
- Announcement email: 2-4 weeks before
- Non-CS departments!
- Nearby e.g. women's colleges
- Email reminders to attendees
At the event
- Sign-in, e.g. whiteboard
- Photography
- Staffers should take notes,
esp. student questions
- Food
- Wrap-up, with exit survey
After the event
- Follow-up emails
- alumni mailing list
- The Thanks checklist
- Blog posts: “Bug report” and “IAQ”
Obscure tools I like
- python-mailer
- git-remote-mediawiki
- smarturl.it + GDocs forms
General questions?!
Train yourselves!
https://openhatch.org/wiki/OSCTC_Resources
Sign up to be a primed volunteer
or to invite us near you,
or just say hi:
asheesh@asheesh.org
@asheeshlaroia