|
in reply to Perl(Monks) University
I like the idea, but I see some big caveats:
- You mention that something could be done, but not who will be doing it. Big projects like this need somebody who is committed to organize things, and to chime in with the grunt work if nobody else is available, and things need to get done. Are you committed? If not, who is?
- Perlmonks has people that answer questions, but there's still a big part missing for a University: the course materials. For an online course the teaching material should have book quality. Where will you take it from?
- You'll need some submission system for solutions to exercises. Who will program it, set it up, maintain it?
- With money comes envy. How would you deal with it?
If you don't have any good answers to the first two questions, my answer is "nice idea, but ideas alone are not sufficient".
|
Re^2: Perl(Monks) University
by jordanh (Chaplain) on Mar 24, 2011 at 21:30 UTC
|
Perlmonks has people that answer questions, but there's still a big part missing for a University: the course materials. For an online course the teaching material should have book quality. Where will you take it from?
There's a lot of material at Perlmonks other than just questions and answers. There are also a lot of tutorials, examples and meditations.
Someone might need to systematize it into coursework and add material, but there's a lot of good stuff on Perl available for free. The Perldoc is a treasure trove, for example.
| [reply] |
|
|
There's a lot of material at Perlmonks other than just questions and answers.
I know, but it's not in a form that could be readily used for a course. It's also mostly "bits and pieces", there's no common thread across the tutorials and meditations.
My point remains that turning the available material into high quality course material would be a lot of work, and it won't happy all by itself - somebody needs to do it.
(Oh, and just because stuff is on perlmonks doesn't mean you're free to reuse it in any way, you'd still need permission from the author.)
| [reply] |
|
|
I neglected to explain how classes are formed. I used to teach computer subjects for a company in Chicago and have done some instruction in public libraries out here as well. The process for creating a class roughly works as follows:
- Formulate topic of interest
- Write a single paragraph explaining the course overview (called a Course Proposal)
- Specify materials students will need to participate in course and projected costs
- Create detailed syllabus (preferably week-to-week reading/submission schedule for standard length course)
- Denote course pre-requisites
- Specify Instructor qualifications (resume, CV, etc.)
- Submit course proposal to approving body
So, the course materials themselves could literally come from almost anywhere -- blog posts, nodes on PerlMonks, etc. Each instructor would, in the process of forming the class, go out and collect the necesssary materials when building the syllabus. Here's a link to a private library in Chicago that uses a similar methodology for public classes. We would need to implement several things in PerlMonks however to make this work: a) functionality that facilitates the activities of some kind of course approving body b) a course registration system c) etc.
Celebrate Intellectual Diversity
| [reply] |
|
|
|
|
Yeah, someone needs to solve this and do that, surely
| [reply] |
Re^2: Perl(Monks) University
by InfiniteSilence (Curate) on Mar 25, 2011 at 13:05 UTC
|
Let's see if I can answer any of these questions:
- "...who will be doing it.." -- Yeah, I've heard many a wild idea before and asked much the same question. The answer is a multi-faceted one since, as others have noted, this is no small idea. Making this happen requires technical and administrative skills. I'm happy to volunteer my services to help, but the more critical approval would need to come form those who run/manage this site. If they don't like the idea I'll have to take it elsewhere.
- "... the course materials..." - I'm glad you brought this up. I was in my library the other day and I noticed that I had an entire shelf of Perl books. I quickly realized that materials to use for classes are not in short supply, at least preliminarily. I've been to classes that do not use a single book either, the professor collects URLs from online resources or distributes PDFs collected from various sources to teach the class. Also, there is no reason why an instructor could not make up his or her own materials so long as this is clear to the prospective students beforehand.
- "..You'll need some submission system ..." - Yes, these kinds of things require programming and enhancements to this website. Additions to database tables, sizing, perhaps server bandwidth, etc. This falls under the technical aspects of the implementation. It isn't necessary to define these aspects up front, only to take note of them. Right now I would say this idea is in the pre-requirements stage.
- "With money comes envy. How would you deal with it?
" - Considering that we are not really talking about a great deal of money I would think envy would be rather easy to deal with :)
Celebrate Intellectual Diversity
| [reply] |
|
|
