More Community Classes, Please

by Joe Brockmeier - May. 07, 2010Comments (3)

Ubuntu has its Open Week, Fedora has Classroom. Why don't more open source projects have similar efforts?

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to work with Fedora to conduct a session on working with journalists. It's pretty simple stuff to conduct an IRC class: Get your main lesson down ahead of time, paste into IRC, point users to slides or collateral online (if any) and answer questions.

So why is it so few communities do this? If it's fear of IRC, the Ubuntu project is doing a good job overcoming this with Lernid. Lernid is an application that connects users to a default channel in IRC (like #ubuntu-classroom or #fedora-classroom on Freenode) for a session, and displays the class page in a pane next to the chat window. It also sports a terminal so users can try out commands or whatnot in the terminal if the session requires a command line.

One of the things many project struggle with is finding ways to not only attract new users, but retain them. Education should be a big part of this. Running and promoting classes is also a great way for anyone to contribute, so the next time someone says "I'd like to contribute, but I'm not a developer" suggest setting up a community class.

Not sure how to run a class? The Fedora wiki has a few suggestions. Classes are a good way to provide a question and answer session on everything from how to file bug reports, to explaining how to package software or do testing.

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by Nate Homier on May. 08, 2010

Thanks for this post. I am a Ubuntu user and I had no idea about Lernid. I am very excited to hear about Lernid and plan on giving this a try out. Thanks again. You learn something new every day! :)

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by El Spamolito on May. 10, 2010

i am also excited about this, thanks for informing us on that.

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by Jack G on May. 10, 2010

Training and classroom sessions are fundamental to the success of any software - FOSS or not. It is critical to have an easy way for people to get their questions asked and answered, and to get trained. As a user I do not necessarily want to have to discover everything by myself. So many times I just want to sit back and consume content. IRC classes are well and good but what is needed are more classes, webinars, etc.

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