The choice between stitching together a system without using a development framework is, primarily, dictated by my lack of familiarity with the framework.
Learning outcomes are the same in both cases, plain PHP/MySQL vs Drupal-based coding. The nature of the activities does not change. Students assume the same roles, the team has a place for everybody, weekly dynamics in and outside class unfold in the same way. What's different is that the non-framework version allows me to plan better the class at the beginning of the semester. Since this is the development I'm most familiar, it's clearer to me what activities and artifacts to expect from students and how they fit on the semester's timeline. Last point and the most important. Added to my lack of familiarity is the students' lack of time and limited self-directedness. Being productively lost is something that makes them very anxious, and widens the gap between what they do and what they think they can do. Being productively lost is probably the most divisive value between my students and me. I would happily delve into something totally new and figure out my way as I go. That approach, however, does not set a role model that's productive and conducive of learning for my students. It is the kind of disruption one wants in the classroom because it's innovative. And I very much like to understand how I'll make it work someday. Mihaela -----Original Message----- From: tos-boun...@teachingopensource.org [mailto:tos-boun...@teachingopensource.org] On Behalf Of Mel Chua Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2012 11:51 PM To: tos@teachingopensource.org Subject: Re: [TOS] TOS speaker on issue tracker > The project is a client-based open source application to manage > donations for non-profits. We use MySQL and PHP. YWCA New Hampshire > and Greater Manchester Big Brothers Big Sisters are the "clients". > Only YWCA has time this semester to meet with the students. Update on this -- sounds like Mihaela has a speaker, Donald Lobo (who's since contacted her for logistics) from the CiviCRM community. Lobo also made the following note, which struck me (and I asked him for permission to repost it here, and he agreed.) Lobo: "I would strongly encourage you to consider using and building on an existing open source project rather than getting your students to develop a system from scratch and deploy it with a non-profit. This has quite a few issues with it, potentially. There are lots of things [in] drupal/civicrm that your students can build on and extend." My first instinct is to agree with Lobo, but I'm coming to realize that not all faculty feel like they can go this route with their classes... and I'd like to better understand why. Is there not enough time in the semester to go into a project? Are there certain learning objectives that really don't work with open source participation? Curious Mel! --Mel _______________________________________________ tos mailing list tos@teachingopensource.org http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos _______________________________________________ tos mailing list tos@teachingopensource.org http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
