> On Oct 23, 2018, at 9:11 PM, monica canaza <luz.inf...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello everyone, I am a student of Computer Science at the University in > Bolivia, I am currently volunteering to teach C ++ competitive programming to > boys and girls from 13 to 17 years old, I have had very good results with all > of them and now we set ourselves the challenge with 23 of the boys and girls > participating in this program, I am very excited, but it is also my first > attempt with them, I understand that there are ways to be mentors, could > someone help me with that?
Monica, Having done what you are doing in a classroom setting as well, I applaud you for helping introduce kids to Open Source! As Stephanie noted, you role won’t be that of a mentor, per se. I’d characterize your role (and any other instructor/professor/teacher) as that of a facilitator. Feel free to ask more questions as I’m sure you have many. If I may be gregarious, I do have five points of unofficial advice from my own personal experiences specific to a classroom setting that you may (or may not) find helpful: First, that your role (and anyone else there) should be to introduce them to what GCI is, help them discover and learn about the different Open Source organizations, and then maybe walk them through an example task. You’re a facilitator that helps them get their computer set up and connect them with the program. The GCI infrastructure and interaction with organizations is pretty self-guiding from there, and you want them exploring. Second, that you need to allocate enough time and adequate resource. You'll typically need at least a half day, ideally a full day of time, for them to complete their first task and they’ll typically need to be able to install software (admin privileges). I’ve heard of some classrooms dedicating a week of their schedule so kids can get through a handful of tasks, but don’t set a task quota or they’ll just end up submitting poor quality work and everyone gets frustrated. Encourage them to continue working at home. Third, if you highlight any particular org or small set of orgs, students will typically flock to that org when you let them loose, so I would encourage you to pick what looks arguably like the single most popular / familiar org they all know (or an org not even on the list) for an example task walkthrough, and then tell them they must pick a different org. That way, you don’t end up sending dozens of kids to any particular organization all at once. It can be overwhelming and cause delays. Fourth, know that each organization typically has one or more setup tasks — this is even typically marked in the system as a “Beginner" task. They should start with one of those. The org's mentors will help them if they have questions, but be aware that responses posted into the GCI comment system may come 1-to-24 hours later, so they may need to join mailing lists or use chat software specific to the org they are working with (e.g., if they’re only allocated a day or two). Part of GCI is getting them used to talking with these Open Source communities. Last but not least, if you’ve not introduced them to Open Source yet, I suggest spending an hour going over just that. You’re welcome to use a talk I’ve given successfully to kids these ages a number of times before. It’s only intended for classroom use (not public performance or redistribution) as it relies on academic fair use and doesn't credit the many fun images in talk appropriately, but it gets several points across to the kids in an engaging way and helps to set expectations. There’s a rough talk narrative is in the slide comments. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Rd3dvLRkFMs__eHWAmWG2K-U54EJmHl1qHOQPIBZmEs/edit?usp=sharing <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Rd3dvLRkFMs__eHWAmWG2K-U54EJmHl1qHOQPIBZmEs/edit?usp=sharing> Cheers! Sean -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Code-in Discuss" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to gci-discuss+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to gci-discuss@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/gci-discuss. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
