Re: KDE Program for a FLOSS-oriented CS curriculum

On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 1:31 AM, Harold Schreckengost <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think it goes beyond just not knowing entirely how to teach the material.
> Programs want their students to be prepared for what the world will expect
> of them, and if we can't provide material and resources to help them prepare
> their students for the real world, we will see very little traction, even
> among supporters.
>
> I feel like the best place to start with an initiative like this, outside of
> just talking about how great it would be, would be to talk to relevant
> educators and get their input.
>
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 6:56 PM, Aleix Pol <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 4:10 AM, Sandro Andrade <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi there,
>> >
>> > I've been thinking about the process by which newcomers start doing
>> > their contributions in KDE. In spite of some minor exceptions, I guess
>> > undergraduate students are still the majority of such potential
>> > contributors. However, different universities around the world vary
>> > from zero to very intense incentives not only to the adoption but also
>> > to focus their academic activities towards FLOSS applications.
>> >
>> > Certainly many possible causes for such zero adoption of FLOSS in
>> > universities are out of our immediate control, but I think we have
>> > chances for addressing another ones. What I've seen, at least in
>> > Brazil, is that most CS professors are either not interested in FLOSS
>> > or perhaps interested but completely unaware about how things work and
>> > how they would correlate FLOSS with the subjects taught in their
>> > courses.
>> >
>> > Cutting right to the chase, I was wondering if the availability of a
>> > high quality and comprehensive "KDE Program for a FLOSS-oriented CS
>> > curriculum" would help in any way the number of CS students doing
>> > their work using KDE software. In practical terms, we initially would
>> > have to agree on a common CS curricula (hopefully that is expected to
>> > be easily identified) and then document, for each curriculum
>> > component, the KDE technologies that would be either inspiring sources
>> > for analysis or potential cases to apply, as contributions, concepts
>> > related to that curriculum component.
>> >
>> > Some examples:
>> >
>> > - For a "Data Structure" and "Graph Theory" courses: we  would
>> > document possible contributions in Rocs or the main implementation
>> > aspects of Qt container classes.
>> > - For a "Design Patterns" and "Software Architecture" courses: we
>> > would describe how patterns have been used across KDE software and the
>> > tactics adopted in outstanding architectures of applications like
>> > KDevelop, Qt Creator, Plasma, KF5, and many others.
>> > - For a "Software Quality" and "Project Management" courses: we would
>> > explain the quality assurance process adopted in Qt and KDE
>> > communities, along with the tools, standards, and procedures that
>> > support the process.
>> > - For a "Computer Graphics and Image Processing" course: we would
>> > point out contributions possibilities in kdenlive, krita, and so on.
>> > - For a "Compilers and Programming Paradigms" course: we could explore
>> > the grantlee parser automata and/or the QML interpreter.
>> >
>> > The ultimate goal would be having a detailed set of guidelines about
>> > how to adopt KDE as a central case study in CS courses. Obviously,
>> > that would require some time investment and the help of those of you
>> > who knows a lot about KDE solutions.
>> >
>> > By now, I would like to hear from you about two initial questions:
>> >
>> > 1) Do you experience this same scenario in your countries/universities
>> > and consider this problem 'pervasive' enough to demand a global
>> > endeavour from our community ?
>> >
>> > 2) Do you think such a 'KDE Program' is worth and would help in
>> > fostering the adoption of KDE in universities and in alleviating some
>> > initial contribution barriers ?
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> > --
>> > Sandro
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>>
>> Hi!
>> I think it's a good initiative, this could go somewhere, if it's done with
>> love.
>>
>> Personally, I think that narrowing down to Computer Science isn't
>> fundamental. What is really important is to have a common format so
>> that we can work on different things in parallel. THE reason why many
>> schools haven't adopted our software isn't that it isn't good enough
>> or even that the teachers aren't familiar with it. THE reason is that
>> they don't know what to do with it, having to come up with what to
>> teach is enough reason to throw them back, even if they like the
>> software or the project.
>>
>> Now my question is: how can we make it easy to come up with this kind
>> of content?
>>
>> Aleix
>>
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>
>
>
>
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I might be wrong, but I think that one of the reasons why Sandro
raised the issue, is because he's an educator himself.

Aleix

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