[WFS-India] online git workshop dry run

[Sumana Harihareswara]

On 06/09/2013 08:45 AM, Kaustav Das Modak wrote:
> On Sunday 09 June 2013 11:59 AM, Satabdi Das wrote:
>> As suggested by Sumana earlier, we are trying out a dry run of the
>> online git workshop today 2:30pm-4:30pm iST (UTC+5:30).
>>
>> Joyoti, a friend of mine, volunteered to act as a participant. She is
>> interested to learn git and is on M$.
>>
>> Please join on #wfs-india if you are interested.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Satabdi
>>
> 
> The demo run began at 2:40pm IST and ended at 4:43m IST. Satabdi, 
> Tarashish and me conducted the demo run. Thanks Joyoti, Sweta and Nikita 
> for volunteering for this demo run. All volunteer participants today 
> were on MS Windows.
> 
> We could cover only till "git log" and skip to "git clone". See 
> https://wfs-india.etherpad.mozilla.org/8 for the steps.
> 
> 
> Here is my report:
> 
> 0. Mentors:
>     Step 1, 2, 3 -> Kaustav
>     Step 4 -> Satabdi
>     Step 5, 6, 8 (partially) -> Kaustav
> 
> 1. Timings:
>     Step 1: estimated 15 mins | took 19 minutes
>     Step 2+3: estimated 25 mins | took 23 minutes
>     Step 4: estimated 10 mins | took 38 minutes
>     Step 5: estimated 10 mins | took 19 minutes
>     Step 6: estimated 5 mins | took 5 minutes
>     Step 8 (git clone only): estimated ~ 10 mins | took 8 mins
> 
> 2. The biggest time-crunch we faced was in helping participants to 
> install and configure git. We will need a documentation which will help 
> participants, particularly those on MS Windows to effectively install 
> and configure git before the attend the workshop. Msysgit is a good 
> client with a mini-bash shell for Windows.
> 
> 3. Further time lag was a result of participants arriving late, and 
> mentors having to recap what had already been discussed, including 
> installing git. This will certainly not be the case of the actual workshop.
> 
> 4. Participants were not "muted". They did not use the classbot, but 
> seemed more comfortable in using the #wfs-india-questions room to ask 
> their questions. Tarashish actively helped participants with their setup 
> related issues on #wfs-india-questions. Not muting the channel resulted 
> in a more-interactive session, but we could not progress much with the 
> syllabi.
> 
> 5. Mentors will need to study basics of msysgit to aid participants on 
> MS Windows.
> 
> 6. Step 4 took almost 4 times the time allotted, but I think it can be 
> fine tuned heavily if the mentor writes out each step of the commands, 
> including text editor options, and describes what each command does 
> immediately after asking participants to type it in. However, time 
> allotment for Step 4 needs to be 20 minutes at least, so that first time 
> users get to wrap their head around the commandline and using a text 
> editor from the commandline. The default editor in msysgit is vi, which 
> needs a good deal of help for the uninitiated.
> 
> Thanks.
> 

I thank the mentors and planners of this workshop strongly for doing the
dry run, learning lessons from it, and iterating!  Much appreciated!

-- 
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation