Re: Moving forward with web education work

On 27 Jan 2012, at 15:48, Jeremie Patonnier wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> In order to help improve this initiative I will share some thought with you.
> 
> Most of the people in here are ok to participate but it is done mostly on their free time (at least, this is my case). Unfortunately, free time is an expensive ressources. As a consequence, even if managing things harder will improve things, I don't thing it will change things dramatically.

I really do appreciate how expensive free time is. I am currently spending most of my free time writing a CSS3 book, as well as putting some tie aside to write materials for this project. I really don't have any ;-)

> 
> For people who it is not a full time job to get involved in this project, I wonder if it could be beneficiant to help them pointing out how this project could benefit to them directly. I really think we all agreed that this
> project is good for the Web in the long term and good for education, and good to have better web sites all around, and bla, bla, bla. Ok, this is nice, but this is bullshit (sorry to say that that hard, but it's true). The reality is that when people take free time to get involved in a project they have to find why there are getting involved for themselves. If they found a personal benefit in acting for a project, they will become more active and more efficient. Some do it for recognition, some do it for being able to use the material, some do it because it's a way to meet smart people from Opera (^_^), etc.

ha!

I think you are spot on here Jeremie - I will think about this some more, and write up some resources for people to look at when considering why the project would be good for them to be involved in, and what they would get out of it.

> 
> I really think that if the project helps people to reach their own goal it will help the project in a more global way.
> 
> So I ask you the question : what motivates you in that project?

I am here because I really care about the evolution of the web, and believe education is one of the biggest parts of this. If we can make web education better, we will improve the web in so many ways - overall quality, accessibility, usability, team work, adoption of new techniques, etc.

I am very lucky that I am able to spend some of my Opera time working on this, although it often spills into my free time because 8 hours a day to do everything is never enough!

From an Opera point of view, it is great PR for Opera to be involved, plus improving the web like I describe above helps Opera to uphold some of their central values.

> 
> On my own, I'm here because, I need some material to perform my job as a trainer. At the same time, I think there is not good training material enough available in French. Unfortunately, this is related to my job and I have very few opportunity to participate on my job time, this is why I'm so slow acting on the group... but I will.
> 
> So it's your turn now. I'm sure if you answer this question fairly, it will help Chris to motivate all of us without bullying us to hard ;)
> 
> My 2cts
> Cheers
> -- 
> Jeremie
> .............................
> Web : http://jeremie.patonnier.net
> Twitter : @JeremiePat
> 
> 2012/1/27 Chris Mills <cmills@opera.com>
> Wow, I am quite surprised by the deafening silence after this mail - only one person replied.
> 
> I think I will take the silence as an agreement that I need to micro manage this a bit more, and start handing out more specific tasks to people.
> 
> I will start contacting you individually and asking you how much time you currently have, and how much you would be prepared to do. in the near future. Again, I appreciate that most people here are doing this in their own time, so I will be gentle with you ;-)
> 
> Best regards, and please get in touch if you have any questions or worries.
> 
> thanks,
> 
> Chris
> 
> On 13 Jan 2012, at 14:21, Chris Mills wrote:
> 
> > Hello all!
> >
> > I hope the new year is treating you well.
> >
> > Today I wanted to discuss something important with you - moving forward with this whole project, and the best way to do so.
> >
> > I think it is becoming clear that the way I have tried to run this so far has not been very successful - people are finding it hard to engage and contribute. Some people have told me this explicitly. So, how best to proceed?
> >
> > Broadly what we want out of this is:
> >
> > 1. Useful discussions pertaining to web education
> > 2. Sharing and development of ideas/methodologies that will be useful to educators and students
> > 3. Creation and sharing of learning resources, including tutorials, references and curricula.
> > 4. Outreach to as many relevant educators and students as possible, so they can all benefit
> > 5. [Add your own, if you think I've missed anything]
> >
> > At the moment the tools we have available are mailing lists and a Wiki, pretty much, plus the usual communication tools we use every day. What I would most like to do in the short term is:
> >
> > 1. Get people writing/updating/editing/proof reading learning material and curricula
> > 2. Get people working on outreach initiatives to spread the world about this material
> > 3. Get the non-native-English communities to start working on translations and outreach to their particular communities.
> >
> > What do people need to be able to do this more successfully? Do we need different tools? Do I need to start micromanaging a bit more, and handing out more specific tasks and deadlines to people, eg "proof read article x in the next couple of weeks"?
> >
> > Let me know what you think everyone.
> >
> > thanks! ;-)
> >
> > Chris Mills
> > Open standards evangelist and dev.opera.com editor, Opera Software
> > Co-chair, web education community group, W3C
> >
> > * Try Opera: http://www.opera.com
> > * Learn about the latest open standards technologies and techniques: http://dev.opera.com
> > * Contribute to web education: http://www.w3.org/community/webed/
> >
> 
>