Hello,
Some advice.
What is a course?
LinuxChix courses are simply a series of posts and some discussion on the
courses list. Previous courses have included:
programming in C/Perl/Python
basic programming skills
running a small business
security
home networking
Courses are normally technical but there's no reason you can't run a
non-technical course if you think it would be interesting.
What's the procedure for proposing and starting a course?
It's not set out in stone, but works something like this:
Tell the volunteers list that you want to run a course. Give them a chance to
comment on your topic and an outline of your "lesson plan". Comments will
normally be along the lines of "go for it".
Ask [EMAIL PROTECTED] to add a courses topic for you (and tell you
how to use it).
Announce your course to the announce list and wait a few days for people to
join the courses list for your course.
Begin posting "lessons" (a lesson a week is about the right rate) and
encourage discussion!
Recommendations
The following are culled from observations of the courses that are taking
place, or have already taken place, on the courses list.
Aim for a fairly tightly focussed course rather than something bigger in scope
(say, "introduction to C pointers" rather than "programming in C"), for the
simple reason that course maintainers have without (I think) exception,
managed no more than about 10 lessons (normally less) before burning out,
losing interest or getting too busy. I would suggest that if you can't cover
your course in 6 mailing list posts that you make it smaller, but that's not
a requirement.
Be prepare to receive little feedback. Sometimes the courses list is very
quiet, and nobody seems to be interested in what you are doing. The articles
format with separate exercises/activities is a very good idea, as you can
later publish the articles at http://www.linuxchix.org/content/courses, or
even turn them into an HOWTO or book for the linux documentation project.
Even if there is no feedback from the list, your articles are a valuable
addition to linuxchix and the courses page. If possible, add a contact email
address to them when you publish them on the courses page, in order to get
(and enjoy) the feedback from people who find them later.
Ask for help with the formatting / HTML-ifying. There are many potential
volunteers floating around who would love to help, but don't know how and
where. This is a perfect starting point for a glorious linuxchix volunteers
career for chix who know HTML ;-) For administrative questions (getting an
account for website editing etc.) send them to this list (volunteers).
Encourage discussion. People tend to be shy on courses, as nobody really knows
how a course on a mailing lists is “done correctly” (answer: there is no
“correct” way), and what they are expected to do if they participate. Ask for
introductions, let them describe what they already know, why they want to
learn this subject, and so on.
Some courses have set fixed dates for exercises to be “turned in,” others
don't. Just do what feels best to you. Be careful not to put too much
pressure on yourself by setting fixed dates (this one caught me once, with
the Programming Basics course which never lived beyond lesson 3). If you have
time and energy at the beginning of your course, perhaps writing as much as
possible in advance would help. And even if you only do half of what you
wanted to do, the course is still a welcome addition to linuxchix.
Have yourself added to the “Who Runs Linuxchix?” page in the courses section.
Just shout “Course has started, please add me!” on Volunteers. You deserve
the fame.
If there are enough people interested in it, you can start an IRC channel on
irc.linuxchix.org ("#htmlcourse", for example) to be available for questions
and discussions. Schedule a fixed time where you will be there (and when
enough participants will be awake, which is a challenge considering all the
different time zones we live in), and announce that time on the courses list.
(And if nobody turns up at first, come over to #linuxchix and tell us how the
course is going ;-))
Remember to have fun!
Additions?
Suggestions for improvements to this document are welcome on the Volunteers
mailing list.
A. Mani
Member, Cal. Math. Soc
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