00:11:41 <lorip> #startmeeting
00:11:41 <zodbot> Meeting started Tue Apr  8 00:11:41 2014 UTC.  The chair is lorip. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
00:11:41 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
00:11:57 <lorip> #topic update on Karl's course
00:12:05 <lorip> so, how's it going?
00:12:27 <kwurst> The course has slowed down a bit at this point.
00:12:46 <kwurst> At the beginning of the semester, we were doing some of Becka's activities.
00:12:56 <kwurst> And I made up some of my own.
00:13:29 <kwurst> Then the students started choosing tickets from OpenMRS to work on. That's when it started to bog down.
00:13:53 <lorip> why?
00:14:03 <kwurst> Three out of 4 groups chose tickets, assigned them to themselves, and got to work.
00:14:41 <kwurst> The fourth wanted to work on a ticket that was unassigned when they chose it, and then someone else jumped on it before they could assign it to themselves.
00:15:02 <kwurst> So, they found another, but it put them behind by a week or so.
00:15:12 <kwurst> Then the problem struck for them...
00:15:40 <kwurst> They had asked questions about their ticket to clarify what was expected, and they got back answers.
00:15:59 <lorip> and this was a problem because...
00:16:25 <kwurst> The ticket involved wiki gardening. They started to make changes to the wiki based on the comments.
00:16:49 <lorip> and?
00:17:03 <kwurst> Then OpenMRS people started noticing the changes, and didn't like the changes.
00:17:27 <lorip> that's not good - they could reverse the changes, correct?
00:17:43 <kwurst> First they thought it was a bot, since the changes looked very search-and-replace-like. Yes, all their changes were reverted.
00:18:13 <kwurst> All their changes were reverted, and their wiki accounts were locked.
00:18:15 <lorip> hi heidie - just getting an update on kwurst's course
00:18:29 <heidie> Ah, cool!
00:18:40 <kwurst> Not really....
00:18:42 <lorip> yeah, not so cool when you hear what is going on
00:18:45 <heidie> :-)
00:19:07 <heidie> Umm, I came in about "wiki accounts were locked". That doesn't sound good?
00:19:29 <kwurst> The students chose a ticket involving wiki gardening.
00:19:41 <heidie> Ah, OK.
00:20:00 <kwurst> They asked for comments on the ticket to see what they were supposed to do - they even asked about, and were told, how to word their changes.
00:20:31 <kwurst> Then people who had never looked at the ticket got upset about the changes, reverted them, and locked their accounts.
00:20:39 <heidie> What project?
00:20:44 <kwurst> OpenMRS
00:20:44 <lorip> so, what's your take?  did they do what the ticket had requested?
00:21:24 <kwurst> I think they applied the changes a bit too mechanically. The changes made sense in some places, not so much in others.
00:22:03 <lorip> so what do you do now?
00:22:04 <kwurst> I suggested they explain what they were doing, and how they had been instructed on the response to their ticket comment.
00:22:25 <kwurst> They did not get back much in the way of useful feedback.
00:22:46 <kwurst> So, they are moving on to another ticket at this point.
00:22:49 <heidie> That's a bummer.
00:23:05 <kwurst> But, lack of feedback has been an issue for multiple groups.
00:23:12 <kwurst> I'm not sure why.
00:23:30 <heidie> So what is the lesson learned? This is a great opportunity for them to learn about how things should have gone and how they can make sure that something like this doesn't happen when they're "real" developers.
00:23:56 <kwurst> Lots of people ask relatively newbie on the OpenMRS list and get answers, but my students have been somewhat ignored.
00:24:14 <kwurst> ^newbie *questions*
00:24:45 <lorip> have you tried pinging the person we met at SIGCSE or Michael Downey, their community person?
00:25:16 <heidie> I met Michael Downey at LibrePlanet.
00:25:24 <heidie> Didn't do much more than introduce myself though.
00:25:33 <heidie> I would definitely try him.
00:25:39 <kwurst> Michael Downey was the one who communicated to them about the problems with their edits, but they didn't feel he was helpful.
00:25:56 <kwurst> I didn't observe much of their interaction, because it happened in email.
00:26:25 <kwurst> And, I've never gotten around to introducing myself to the list...
00:26:31 <heidie> :-)
00:26:56 <kwurst> Other groups are getting stuff done, but slowly.
00:27:17 <kwurst> First pull request went in today. We'll see how long it takes until they get a response.
00:27:29 <lorip> do you think they are learning something (even if it wasn't what you anticipated)?
00:28:13 <kwurst> Yes, but I think they are a bit put off. They really believe that they tried to follow the instructions they were given, and they the rules were changed on them.
00:28:26 <kwurst> And, I'm really only hearing one side of the story.
00:28:49 <lorip> Yes, but that still stinks from their perspective.
00:29:11 <kwurst> Only one group has written code yet, and they are stuck trying to test it right now.
00:29:26 <kwurst> The other two groups are writing in-code documentation.
00:30:08 <kwurst> Mostly putting annotations in code where OpenMRS has decided to use @should and @test to replace comments.
00:30:21 <lorip> What's your take on having groups code as opposed to other activities (like wiki gardening or documentation)?
00:30:44 <kwurst> That was going to be my next question to you...
00:31:10 <kwurst> So, I've got  4 groups of 2-4 students.
00:31:19 <kwurst> Each group chose a ticket to work on.
00:31:52 <kwurst> I thought this would be a good idea, so that they had some local support in learning their way around the project.
00:32:09 <kwurst> And, they would have to do some local team/project management.
00:32:28 <lorip> I guess is depends upon the class - in some classes I think the wide array of activities would be fine, in others I would think coding should be the focus.
00:33:05 <kwurst> I think the working as a team is working OK - they are even using their own issue trackers in their OpenMRS fork to keep track of tasks.
00:33:33 <kwurst> But, now I'm worrying about some of them slacking.
00:33:38 <kwurst> And,
00:34:24 <kwurst> I'm concerned that they won't all get commits on their GitHub account, because the person who got assigned the ticket will be the one who issues the pull request.
00:34:52 <kwurst> If OpenMRS wants them to squash their commits into a single commit for the ticket, it'll be under one name.\
00:35:06 <lorip> ahh - that is an interesting issue
00:35:41 <kwurst> Opinions? Has anyone else been have them work in groups, or do they all choose their own tickets?
00:35:58 <lorip> heidie?  this would be up your alley
00:36:19 * heidie reads back
00:36:32 <kwurst> This is when I wish we had more people here to recount experiences...
00:37:20 <lorip> I agree - I know that Ben is having a crazy semester - I don't know when Becka is on break between terms.
00:37:53 <heidie> I have them work in groups.
00:38:00 <kwurst> I think Ben was doing groups as well, from what I remember of our conversations at SIGCSE.
00:38:02 <heidie> On code.
00:38:20 <lorip> JoAnne has two students in her independent study - I know they worked independently on tickets.
00:38:30 <heidie> And even if the commit is under a single name, the other members can be put into the commit comment.
00:38:56 <kwurst> Ok. That's what I'll have them do.
00:39:19 <kwurst> Will that show up as activity on their GitHub account, though?
00:39:38 <heidie> If they develop using github as a local repo
00:39:49 <kwurst> Just thinking of the resume fodder for them...
00:40:08 <heidie> The other thing I've done is to have a team take on a couple of tickets.
00:40:31 <kwurst> I think this will get somewhat better next year when this course is not the only place where they'll have to learn everything.
00:40:51 <heidie> Yes, I think so.
00:41:06 <kwurst> By the time they get here, they'll be in a better position to code on their own - they will have more of the tools under their belts by this point.
00:41:26 <heidie> Yes.
00:41:48 <kwurst> I've already introduced Git and Junit freshman year, and we'll keep using them in subsequent courses...
00:42:53 <kwurst> I'm excited that (most of) my freshmen no longer bat an eye about submitting their programs through Git and GitLab...
00:43:19 <lorip> that's great!
00:43:39 <lorip> I'm going to have to sign off in a few - anything else to report (or ask heidie)?
00:44:07 <kwurst> One last question: Are others having their students attend any of the OpenMRS meetings?
00:44:08 <heidie> You've done a great job with git.
00:44:52 <kwurst> I attended my first last week. We had canceled our department meeting, and so I was finally free at the time of the developer forum.
00:45:18 <lorip> We didn't.  I attended several over the summer and I found them overwhelming.  I don't think I'd recommend them from what I saw.
00:45:52 <lorip> One thing that was really interesting was there should have bee google summer of code students there, but I never saw any interaction with them.
00:46:06 <lorip> I was hoping to, to see how the community dealt with students.
00:46:38 <kwurst> I found it interesting, and I didn't get all of what was happening, but felt like it would be useful for the students to hear...
00:46:55 <kwurst> I just lurked, and figured the students could too...
00:47:15 <kwurst> At this point, I'm not sure they students are even reading the mailing list though...
00:48:18 <kwurst> And, I ignore a lot of what goes by on the list too.
00:48:49 <kwurst> When I start my sabbatical, I'll have to de-lurk.
00:49:05 <kwurst> Ok, that's all I have for now.
00:49:24 <kwurst> One comment about POSSE though...
00:49:47 <lorip> Thanks for the update - very interesting.
00:50:26 <kwurst> I feel like the group aspect has fallen apart a bit. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault - we've all gotten busy. But now that we have I group, I kind of want to discuss experiences with them.
00:51:01 <kwurst> I think it's a promising part of posse, but underutilized at this point.
00:51:22 <heidie> YEs, I agree.
00:51:29 <lorip> I agree - thoughts on how to keep the momentum going?
00:51:37 <heidie> We need to figure out how to support this aspect better.
00:51:43 <kwurst> Well something to think about.
00:51:50 <kwurst> I've got to go pick up my sone.
00:51:58 <kwurst> ^son
00:52:28 <lorip> good night!
00:52:35 <lorip> #endmeeting