[Fiware-ge-owners] Improving teaching and coaching materials

[Jason Fox]

This is a circular requesting your help improving the teaching and coaching materials available to users of the FIWARE ecosystem.

As those of you who have been attending the recent TSC meetings are no doubt aware, some companies have been asking for more in-depth tutorials regarding several of the FIWARE Generic Enablers. Furthermore, FIWARE wishes to organize a series of webinars to help the companies on the accelerator program to fulfill their commitments. The idea here is to narrowcast a video coaching tutorial at an expert level. In order to do this we will need your help.

Learning materials - the three levels
Effectively, you can consider there are three levels of learning materials: introduction, teaching and coaching

Level 1 - Assume only knowledge of related concepts = Introduction

Example: We are going to play a new game, its called football, you need 11 players etc.
Level 2 - Assume knowledge of the introductory materials only = Teaching

Example: This is how to kick the ball, you use the instep, swing your leg and kick through etc. This is how to take a penalty. This is how to make a throw-in.
Level 3 - Assume full knowledge of the use of the system, we need to improve their abilities = coaching.

Example: Tactics, Feints, Psycology, advanced training drills
Because it is the easiest to describe, there is always a tendency to create too much level 1 introductory material and not enough of the difficult stuff. Indeed only a small number of experts in a subject are able to properly describe the issues a developer should really be considering

Don't think "Introduction to JavaScript" - think "JavaScript the good parts by JS expert Doug Crockford"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQVTIJBZook

Don't think "Introduction to Football" - think Zinedine Zidane or Jürgen Klopp coaching the team before the Champions League final
Accelerator Program - Coaching Webinars
To try to fit the coaching to the perceived needs of the companies on the accelerator program, the proposal is to run a couple of live webinars of an expert describing a live issue or how-to-do-it situation. This shouldn't be "death by powerpoint" more a case of looking over someone's shoulder as they discuss the code. At most I'd think a single architecture diagram should be sufficient as you can assume that the viewer understands the basics of the component and where it fits in the system.

The pitch to the Accelerator Program participants is something along the lines of:

If you could get the 20 mins time of an expert in [Component X] which component(s) would you choose an what would you like to know about?

The live webinar  (probably gotomeeting) should be recorded and made available for future use. Assuming this idea is a success, in the coming months we would like to add a series of video tutorials using the same concept but adding advanced talks from other enablers.

Since the whole concept is by definition narrowcasting, it will be important to record the sessions to ensure that the developers can view at their own preferred time. Indeed from the statistics I have on my previous work in this area, expert level talks get better viewing figures over time than introductory ones.

Examples

We are still talking to the Accelerator Program development teams to see if we can tailor something to their needs, but this is the sort of thing we'd be looking at for a twenty minute session:

a) How to connect a chain of context data to a processing component

e.g. a live coding example connecting various different database to Knowage and obtaining auseful reports

Orion => Cygnus => MySQl => Knowage.
Orion => Cygnus => Comet => Knowage
Orion => Cygnus => PostGres => Knowage
Orion => Cygnus => MongoDB => Knowage etc.
How do the configurations change? What params are necessary. Why use [Database X] over [Database Y]?

b) How to insert authorization into a processing component

e.g. a live coding example connecting Wirecloud to Keyrock and allowing different levels of access. What about authorizing using FIWARE account? How to set up the system authorize using Google Account Facebook etc.

How do the configurations change? What params are necessary. Why use [Authentication X] over [Authentication Y]

c) What are the considerations needed when creating a custom IoT Agent?

Using one of the pre-existing IoT Agents as the sample codebase, talk us through the code and how it is connected up with the nodejs library. How can a developer test interactions with an IoT device. What needs to wired up before testing a read device? How to debug?

Note that all of these examples I've come up with are from someone who has only been using the system for a couple of months. I'm sure you could find something interesting or better of an equivalent complexity.

Tutorials
In a second task I'm looking to coordinate the disemination of tutorial materials on how to interactively learn to use the existing components. The effort is a work in progress, but some the examples can be found on the pinned repositories of the FIWARE github https://github.com/Fiware . The idea here is to lower the learning curve for new users by adding information in more digesible small steps.

Many of you will have already talked to me and you should be able to see what needs to be provided. I'm now looking to broaden out the existing list of tutorials with you help - by linking to examples you have already created or converting them to a single standard format editing for tone and style or using the ideas you have to create new material.

I would therefore like you to send me links to any existing teaching material you have and set up a quick chat with each of you next week to discuss how we move this forward. We can also discuss the subject matter for an expert webinar at the same time.

What do we need you to do?
Webinar Availability

I have created a Doodle on Webinar Availability:

The FIWARE foundation is committed to scheduling a couple of Webinars in June for the participants in the accelerator program to help with their issues. These would be aimed as an "Ask the expert" session. As the owner of a FIWARE component, which dates could you or another knowledgable representative be available to present an in-depth 20 minute discussion on your component if called on to present?

https://doodle.com/poll/es9h42uingpk3bhn

Please participate to see if we can find a viable date.

Meanwhile I'll be polling the accelerator developer's to find out their needs and then approach the relevant owners to see if we can set up a session.

Tutorials Chat

I have also created a second Doodle to be able to chat individually with each owner:

The learning materials for the FIWARE platform are currently being reviewed and expanded. We need to co-ordinate all our efforts to ensure that our users are able to find material which is current, relevant and easy to use. Which dates would you or another knowledgable representative be available to have a short chat with me so I can understand the current state of the learning materials for your enabler and we can discuss next steps?

https://doodle.com/poll/az39syz3pcezdg8a

Please participate to so I can chat to you directly







Jason Fox
Technical Evangelist
jason.fox at fiware.org <mailto:jason.fox at fiware.org>
www.linkedin.com/in/jason-fox-8a79563 <http://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-fox-8a79563>



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