Uwe I 100% percent agree with your comments with regards to the fact that carpentries strength is providing an environment where participants get a personalize instruction experience!
I am not sure if I mentioned this in my presentation, but I do not record any of my workshop sessions for a number of reason. Firstly, I want the participants to be engaged as much as possible, knowing that the sessions are not being recorded ensures they can speak up and ask questions, without the fear of being seen online. Secondly, people learn much more from doing and having someone there helping them to “debug” their issues immediately, ensures no-one gets left behind in their learning journey. Thirdly, I find that if people knows the sessions are being recorded, they tend to think it is okay to get distracted, “as they can catch up later”, which means participants are not as engaged, thus reducing the overall learning experience. Where my opinion differ to your comments, is that I truly believe you can provide a “personalized instruction experience” in a virtual environment. In my sessions, I ensure engagement with everyone is a priority and because we “collaboratively debug issues”, everyone feels like they are being supported throughout the learning process. The difficulties with this though is that participant numbers are lower in these virtual sessions to achieve this high level of engagement and interactivity. At the moment, I have classes of up to 12 participants and I feel with these numbers, I am able to give everyone there individual experiences. If we decided to try larger groups, I am not sure how that will go (but it is something I am considering to see how it might go). Now don’t get me wrong, face-to-face sessions are an extremely effective teaching method and I don’t believe we should do away with this entirely – but my argument is with the notation that virtual training is a poor substitute to face-to-face training. I have had lecturers highlight to me that some of the virtual teaching methods, in particular “collaboratively debugging”, is such a useful concept that they are now thinking about hey they could incorporate the concept into their face-to-face teachings. As always, I am happy to discuss this further with those who might be interested. Cheers, Jason. From: Hilgert, Uwe K K - (hilgert) <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, 13 March 2020 1:11 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [discuss] Re: Is COVID-19 virus demanding alternative software carpentry workshop delivery options? Dear Jason et al. In my opinion, the most significant strength of Software Carpentry workshops is that they are in-person, presented by trained and caring instructors and assisted by an army of passionate helpers that deliver an almost personalized instruction experience. In the past I have therefore steadfastly deflected requests to broadcast the workshops that I organized here at the University of Arizona, referring potential remote participants to the excellent training materials that are available online in the subject matters of command line, version control and programming. That said, could we start thinking about ways to emulate the strength I lined out above in virtual workshops? Maybe recordings of the basic content presented by "master instructors" (who ever these might be), that are then delivered by passionate mentors in a personalized manner in small (up to 5 participants), interactive groups using Zoom or other software? Again, given the existence of superior tutorials to learn computational skills, I do not believe that we should just jump on the band wagon and do the same thing all over again. Then, compiling and disseminating an annotaded Google doc with URLs for tutorials, would seem more time efficient. Thank you. Uwe ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Uwe Hilgert, Ph.D. Associate Research Professor Director of Industry Relations, STEM Training & Workforce Development BIO5 Institute, The University of Arizona (O) 520-626-1367 | (F) 520-626-4824(E) [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> | (W) http://www.bio5.org<http://www.bio5.org> ________________________________ From: Jason Bell <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2020 9:11 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [External][discuss] Is COVID-19 virus demanding alternative software carpentry workshop delivery options? ** External Email - Use Caution with Attachments, Links or Sharing Data ** G’day Software Carpentry colleagues With the COVID-19 virus causing great concern, I am aware of a number of precautionary measures being applied globally to help reduce the spread of this virus. Some of these measures include: events cancellation, travel bands, increase in workforce working from home or being placed in self-isolation, it is my personal opinion that this will have a flow on affect to software carpentry workshops. I am not aware of any software carpentry workshops that have been cancelled because of this virus yet, but I believe that it is a matter of when, not if, that some workshops will be cancelled. With a desire to increase social distance of the general population, the interest in the use of virtual environments for training, presentations and general meetings it rising rapidly. Because I believe strongly in what software carpentry is trying to achieve and I have personally seen my local participants benefitting from software carpentry workshops, I want to highlight my experiences from running virtual software carpentry workshops in Australia! I believe that virtual workshops may provide a viable alternative to the carpentries standard “face-to-face” workshops. Two weeks ago, on behalf of ARDC, CQUniversity and QCIF, I provided a presentation on “Virtual Software Carpentry Workshops - key learnings to make it a success” (which can now be viewed on YouTube https://youtu.be/MzsJyOkxqv8--<https://youtu.be/MzsJyOkxqv8-->) that I am hoping might be of interest to some of you within the Software Carpentry community. Please don’t take this email the wrong way and I am not looking to create additional fears or concerns – I am just hoping that some of my experiences from running virtual software carpentry workshops might be of value to some of you, particularly those who may be considering alternative workshop delivery options. If you have any questions, you are welcomed to email me, or send me a message on the carpentry slack channel. Many thanks for your time, Jason. [cid:[email protected]]<https://www.cqu.edu.au/> Jason Bell Senior Research Technologies Officer | Information and Technology Directorate CQUniversity eResearch Analyst | Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF) CQUniversity Australia, Building 19 Room 1.07, Bruce Highway, Rockhampton QLD 4702 P +61 7 4930 9229 | X 59229 | M 0409 630 897 | E [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [cid:[email protected]]<https://www.cqu.edu.au/social-media> This communication may contain privileged or confidential information. If you have received this in error, please return to sender and delete. CRICOS: 00219C | RTO Code 40939 The Carpentries<https://carpentries.topicbox.com/latest> / discuss / see discussions<https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss> + participants<https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/members> + delivery options<https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription> Permalink<https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T19273d8aadd8d57f-M502989f5fed415e86e67fff5> ------------------------------------------ The Carpentries: discuss Permalink: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T19273d8aadd8d57f-Md808ba83d651a3654d51718b Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
