Brainstorms: NOW and NEXT

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FourthWorld
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Brainstorms: NOW and NEXT

Post by FourthWorld » Wed Mar 02, 2016 8:09 pm

When exploring possible projects we might undertake for EDU outreach, a model I've found useful in other contexts is to provide a place for open Brainstorming, and then those proposed projects that have a team leader and a workplan get elevated to a Project, something actively in development.

I just got off the phone with Bill Waldman, and we had an exciting discussion touching on many areas. It quickly became evident that we were dealing with a wide range of initiatives, some of which are more easily accomplished than others.

So I'd like to use this thread as a place for brainstorming new ideas, and extend the model in a way that encourages us to review proposals and sort them into two categories: NOW and NEXT.

NOW are things that can be accomplished with reasonable (or ideally minimal) effort now with tools and resources we have in hand.

NEXT are things that will require more significant effort, by the community or perhaps even the core dev team at LiveCode Ltd where they may involve things like engine or IDE enhancements.

Many of the things we may be able to do ourselves could require significant effort, so while most of what we might need won't need anything from the core dev team at all, we will undoubtedly have some projects a bit bigger in scope than others. Rather than see the absence of those as impediments to our goals, I would invite folks to consider them as simply longer-term objectives, things we might do NEXT, and all the while keep a keen eye for things that can be done NOW. It's great to be working toward long term goals, but nothing needs to hold us back from accomplishing simpler and valuable tasks today.

To kick this off, here are some examples of each that come from my conversations with Bill and others and some of the threads in this forum:

NOW: We can write a brief guide for educators explaining the WHY and HOW of using LiveCode in the classroom (see thread devoted to that)

NOW: Gather up existing example stacks we have in the community and create a repository for them so educators can find them all in one place conveniently. I can imagine Jim Hurley's Turtle Graphics and Rainbow Simulator as great inclusions, along with Hermann's fine stacks in the Raspberry Pi forum. There are many others as well. I have too much server space on my hands, and thanks to the Let's Encrypt project these things can be hosted securely and safely. I'm happy to donate server space for this initiative, but we'll need help curating it. Who wants to be on that team?

NOW: Conference Guides - It would be nice to have a set of 8.5"x11" PDFs available that any enthusiast could download and photocopy for their conferences, Maker Faires, or other meetups where they might present LiveCode. We can draft these in Markdown and keep both the Markdown and PDF files available on Github. I would imagine we might be several variants for different types of events, such as EDU conferences, Maker faires, open source meetups, etc. I can draft one for open source groups, Bill and I can make one for Maker Faires (it'd be nice to get Mark Wieder's help with that one). What others can we make, and who can help make them?

NEXT: The stack repository mentioned above could use a plugin that allows access to the stacks right in the IDE. This is different from RevOnline as it's curated specifically for EDU, and may also include new templates and tools to support the role of LC for teaching CS. What templates and/or tools are most needed? Who can help make them?

NEXT: Digital Badges (see separate thread started by Mark Rauterkus on that titled "Pluggers: The need for digital badges")

NEXT: Curated tutorial sets in which our community goes through existing learning materials to create suggested outlines of learning tasks. These would be established with two goals in mind: providing an engaging and meaningful learning experience, and one that as much as practical also demonstrates support of existing EDU curricula standards.

These are just a few examples, and any of those may prompt all sorts of discussion. No doubt some will merit their own threads, as the Badges one has. If the conversation gets too large here to keep track of, that's a great problem to have, we can sort it out as we go.
Richard Gaskin
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Re: Brainstorms: NOW and NEXT

Post by Rauterkus » Wed Mar 02, 2016 10:38 pm

Bravo! Agree. Thanks for the PROJECT status for the Digital Badges effort. Seeking to craft a soft plan for four badges for LiveCode Newbies in the next 2 weeks. Then, perhaps a foggy blueprint for a dozen other LiveCode digital badges yet to come. They would help the grant application.

In the weeks to come, I'll play a role in helping to review and edit the "Curated tutorial sets" for urban high school students (and perhaps HS kids on LiveCode 8.0 on a Raspberry Pi.)

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