Re: [Discuss] further reading

[Peter Steinbach]

Dear all,

thank you for all the replies. I think this is a somewhat tricky task. I still 
believe it would be worthwhile to include a short list in every lesson repo. 
This should/would be tailored to the audience of the lesson. I also think this 
list should be curated so that (as Darya suggested) it's content is a perfect 
fit for our learners ... if this is through a quick comment for every item or 
a 5-star rating, does not matter. But I think, it's important that we provide 
a quick statement how useful one title over another is. As a matter of fact, 
we as trainers/teachers are the ones that know the landscape of 
programming/scripting, our learners still need a map!

Also, I believe that the references on software-carpentry.org should stay. I 
consider useful overviews and some/most of them even stretch across topics 
(like the titles on open-source software development etc.) The global 
references page could then also link to the lessen references if needed.

Best -
Peter

On Wednesday, December 09, 2015 11:31:07 AM Darya Vanichkina wrote:
> Thanks for pointing that out, Peter! 
> 
> I think the way the literature is as a separate page gives a nice overview
> of the links we recommend (as opposed to embedded/scattered in/throughout
> the lessons). However, I do feel that page needs to be revamped, since it
> doesn’t seem to be very novice-friendly.
> 
> How clear would it be, for example, as a workshop attendee what I would
> learn by perusing " Effective Computation in Physics: Field Guide to
> Research with Python.” if what I’m told is  "Covers everything from basic
> shell scripting through object-oriented Python to parallel computing.”
> 
> OK, so basic shell scripting is important, but wait there was also this
> thing called the bash shell is this to do with it or am I building on it or
> using the python shell?….  Object oriented?… What does that mean? Is that
> good? Useful? Does this mean I’ll be able to do some fancy visualisation of
> my data and set up a website (which is what I really want)? Parallel
> computing? Why would I want to use parallel computing as a researcher? How
> does that even work?… … Should I even read this book if I’m not in physics?
> 
> Same with " Practical Computing for Biologists. “ - is it useful for non
> biologists? How?…
> 
> 
> What I am trying to say is that the list seems good in terms of content -
> although not exhaustive, and I’m sure we could add more favourite resources
> - but the descriptions are not very accessible to someone who doesn’t
> already know at least a bit of the lingo. 
> 
> Perhaps one way to address this might be to restructure the page more as a
> series of questions:
> 
> Did you love shell scripting? 
> If you’d like to learn more, Unix and Linux: Visual QuickStart Guide
> provides a very gentle introduction, and showcases how to do X, Y and Z
> (tasks that might be tempting to a researcher) 
> 
> 
> Would you like to harness the power of relational databases? 
> Chris Fehily's SQL describes the 5% of SQL that covers 95% of real-world
> needs. [And, yes, we also think that it moves a little slowly in some
> places, but the examples are really clear - for example, we really like the
> one where X, Y and Z are done (again, tempting real world use cases).
> 
> etc …
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Darya


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Re: [Discuss] further reading

[Greg Wilson]

Hi everyone,

I think some recommended readings and links to places to look for next 
steps would be very useful - the question is, who will maintain it?  
(http://software-carpentry.org/bib/reading.html was always meant to be a 
community resource, but we only ever had a couple of contributions once 
I set it up.)  If someone would like to volunteer to be a "readings and 
links" maintainer, similar to the lesson maintainers who oversee our 
lessons, that would be a great way to contribute.


Cheers,
Greg

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Re: [Discuss] Parson's Problems

[Rémi E.]

Thanks Greg for sharing this tool.

From what I tried in 20 minutes, it seems that :
- the project is alive [1]
- and works well [2]
- and can be made to work nice on touch-based interfaces [3]
- and seems to be easy to intregrate, from what I've seen

From a teaching perspective, I feel it is a good intermediate between 
“reading code” and “writing code”. I'll surely try it in my own courses.


Right now, I cannot commit to integrating (considering the technical 
part) it in swc lessons but I'll keep it in my todo list.


Cheers,
Rémi


[1] https://github.com/js-parsons/js-parsons
[2] http://js-parsons.github.io/
[3] https://github.com/js-parsons/js-parsons/issues/22

On 12/09/2015 02:00 PM, Greg Wilson wrote:

Via a post by Mark Guzdial [1], I found links to these two papers:

a) Parsons and Haden: Parson's Programming Puzzles: A Fun and 
Effective Learning Tool for First Programming Courses [2]


b) Ihantola and Karavirta: Two-Dimensional Parson's Puzzles: The 
Concept, Tools, and First Observations [3]


The first one introduces a programming exercise in which learners are 
given the lines of code they need to solve a problem, and have to put 
them in order. The second describes a tool for doing this with Python 
code (where lines need to be indented as well as sorted), and a 
Javascript widget for doing this in a web page.  It would be really 
cool if we could incorporate this into some of our lessons - anyone 
want to take a crack at it and report back?  I'd really like to know:


1. Does the tool work well enough to be worth adopting?

2. Can we nest it in our lessons (which are written in Markdown) 
without heroic mind-bending effort and/or use of quantum entanglement?


Cheers,
Greg

[1] 
https://computinged.wordpress.com/2015/12/09/blog-post-2000-barbara-ericson-proposes/


[2] http://crpit.com/confpapers/CRPITV52Parsons.pdf

[3] http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol10/JITEv10IIPp119-132Ihantola944.pdf




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Re: [Discuss] further reading

[Greg Wilson]

Hi Elizabeth; thanks for your mail, and for volunteering - should we put 
further reading on a single page in the main site (possibly easier to 
find), or put it in the reference guide to each lesson (so that Python 
stuff is in the Python lesson)?  And would anyone else like to volunteer 
to help curate material on other topics?


Cheers,
Greg

On 2015-12-09 12:32 PM, E.W. wrote:
As a python user group leader and when I run workshops, I deal mostly 
with beginners, particularly from humanities and social sciences.  I 
found it helpful to list off resources in a "study guide" format so 
students could follow along rather than just work through a book.  I 
don't really like just pushing a book onto people because it isn't 
always the best way some people learn.  I also reordered some of the 
lessons because I disagreed a bit with things.


I put together a mashup study guide of a variety of resources for 
Python and put it up here: 
http://elizabethwickes.com/guided-self-study-lesson-plan/  I know 
several people who have worked through it and I've used it as a 
syllabus for a multi-week workshop.


Greg, I can volunteer to help out with this.  I can't speak to all the 
domains that SWC and DC work with, but I have a lot of opinions about 
having just presenting people with a wall of books.


Elizabeth

On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 3:57 AM, Greg Wilson 
> wrote:


Hi everyone,

I think some recommended readings and links to places to look for
next steps would be very useful - the question is, who will
maintain it?  (http://software-carpentry.org/bib/reading.html was
always meant to be a community resource, but we only ever had a
couple of contributions once I set it up.)  If someone would like
to volunteer to be a "readings and links" maintainer, similar to
the lesson maintainers who oversee our lessons, that would be a
great way to contribute.

Cheers,
Greg


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--
Dr. Greg Wilson| gvwil...@software-carpentry.org
Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org

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Re: [Discuss] further reading

[E.W.]

In a Beautiful World there would be a corresponding further reading page
for each lesson.  But I wouldn't want to silo them out and reduce internal
discoverability.

Perhaps just one page with sections and anchor links that the individual
lessons can link to?

Elizabeth

On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 11:53 AM, Greg Wilson <
gvwil...@software-carpentry.org> wrote:

> Hi Elizabeth; thanks for your mail, and for volunteering - should we put
> further reading on a single page in the main site (possibly easier to
> find), or put it in the reference guide to each lesson (so that Python
> stuff is in the Python lesson)?  And would anyone else like to volunteer to
> help curate material on other topics?
>
> Cheers,
> Greg
>
>
> On 2015-12-09 12:32 PM, E.W. wrote:
>
> As a python user group leader and when I run workshops, I deal mostly with
> beginners, particularly from humanities and social sciences.  I found it
> helpful to list off resources in a "study guide" format so students could
> follow along rather than just work through a book.  I don't really like
> just pushing a book onto people because it isn't always the best way some
> people learn.  I also reordered some of the lessons because I disagreed a
> bit with things.
>
> I put together a mashup study guide of a variety of resources for Python
> and put it up here:
> 
> http://elizabethwickes.com/guided-self-study-lesson-plan/  I know several
> people who have worked through it and I've used it as a syllabus for a
> multi-week workshop.
>
> Greg, I can volunteer to help out with this.  I can't speak to all the
> domains that SWC and DC work with, but I have a lot of opinions about
> having just presenting people with a wall of books.
>
> Elizabeth
>
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 3:57 AM, Greg Wilson <
> gvwil...@software-carpentry.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I think some recommended readings and links to places to look for next
>> steps would be very useful - the question is, who will maintain it?  (
>> http://software-carpentry.org/bib/reading.html was always meant to be a
>> community resource, but we only ever had a couple of contributions once I
>> set it up.)  If someone would like to volunteer to be a "readings and
>> links" maintainer, similar to the lesson maintainers who oversee our
>> lessons, that would be a great way to contribute.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Greg
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Discuss mailing list
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Dr. Greg Wilson| gvwil...@software-carpentry.org
> Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org
>
>
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Re: [Discuss] further reading

[Greg Wilson]

Thanks everyone - I've opened an issue at 
https://github.com/swcarpentry/site/issues/1212, so please add reading 
suggestions there and we'll get them curated.


Cheers,
Greg

--
Dr. Greg Wilson| gvwil...@software-carpentry.org
Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org


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