Re: [opensuse-project] Possible strategy discussion topic: Education And Training

** Reply Requested by 6/26/2010 (Saturday) ** Jim, It's really nice And comfortable to see your efforts again. I have no doubts all your points are very impressive And come with a large experience with the training at Novell. Bryen, take a look at my points about keep a good eye open on Novell training ecosystem, not only their sales department neither their training needs to be successful in selling their products.- And I know you are one of the most Well know guy in this earth that really knows And understand Novell training methods, at least the past methods ;-). They have good visions, points, methods, And history about training ecosystem

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"Bryen M. Yunashko" 26 Junho, 2010 >>> On Sat, 2010-06-26 at 04:00 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote I've been kicking this around for a little bit now in my own head, And I'd like to propose that the project develop a strategy around user education And training.

For those who don't know, in my "day job", I work for Novell's Technical Training department as the testing program manager. In particular, I have responsibility for the business end of the practicum exam delivery (And if you want to talk about that with me, feel free to contact me off- list, I'm always happy to talk to people about their exam experiences, even if I can't get into specific details for their exam).

In my role, I also am involved in technical certification, And work closely with people who develop training (I used to be a trainer myself for eDirectory, And developed the training materials to meet objectives we had for that product) as Well as being involved to some extent in developing the next generation of training delivery . Definitely we can build or delivery or at least create an idea about working on this innovations you are tagging as "next generation of training delivery" (And I like it ;-)) with all innovative solutions that openSUSE project handles like openSUSE Studio. The deliverables training could be workloads. Also I believe OBS could help us - I've already assuming that I'll work with you on this way walk to the "next generation of training delivery" ;-) - .... Well... OBS, Studio, Edu Li-f-e And all innovations openSUSE project handles will be on the table plus some others experienced peers on this list can.

I was intrigued by an article in this month's Linux Format about Ubuntu's "Lernid" training system. It sounds like that project has a plan of sorts for training users on using their system, And this seems to me to be a way in which we could grow the community from which we are looking to draw contributors.

I didn't heard about that Ubuntu initiatives around Brazil yet... Maybe because I'm so focused on SUSE Linux - by the way, I'll try to figure out more informations about this one here. - Do you know if they already have the Portuguese versions for the offers they are working?

In the forums, we've also had a couple of people express that some training on openSUSE would be very helpful And useful for them (either personally or to help people they knew learn about Linux And start using it).

The way I see it, we could break down training into a few classifications:

If you don't mid I like to add some points here:

1. End-user training 2. Contributor training (for example, how to write effective bugs, code style conventions, things like that) 3. Community training (where to ask what, what to expect, that sort of thing).

1. Professional or something related training 1.a End-user training 1.b Datacenter training 1.c Verticals 2. Vertical market training 2.a Embedded training 2.b Retail training 2.c Educational training 2.d Financial 2.e Desktop Publish Training 2.f ...

3. Contributor training (for example, how to write effective bugs, code style conventions, things like that)

Good, we can start to debate, if had ever had, And if so, start to talk about this subject again, because the time is always changing, And the ecosystem always changing together, then, starts to talk about some kind of certifications for openSUSE professionals, enthusiasts, lizards, members, ambassadors.... I mean, we can adapt some Well done methods that Novell have in our ecosystem, And You are the best one to explain to the others about RACE - CNI, CLDA, CLP, Datacenter specialization, And many others from the past. If you have time to explain a little bit about Novell RACE for us I think we can start to talk about something similar for openSUSE project, specially because openSUSE community, And I'm not talking specific communities like devs, end users, ambassadors, members, lizards.... But for the entirely openSUSE community Novell RACE fits very Well - What do you think? 3. Community training (where to ask what, what to expect, that sort of

thing).

We can create a list with some strategic questions and publish on some blogs around the globe. Will be something like this: "openSUSE new training and certifications directions team are calling for community feedback" with some questions that we need to know the answer before "imagine or guess" any answer that they may have. And take some actions from that.

In items 2 & 3, a lot of that content is in the wiki already - I see the largest opportunity as being #1. There may be a loose collection of things that fit in there as Well (such as the howtos for configuring certain video cards), But from a training perspective, some structure And flow between the topics (along with analysis of how the topics can/should flow from one to another) is something that's I think is missing (I may be wrong And just haven't looked in the right places).

I not 100% sure But I almost agree with you.

What I'd like is for the project team to consider that end-user education (in particular) is something that could help us attract more users And help them achieve a more comprehensive view of how to use openSUSE more effectively. Things like skills migration from Windows to openSUSE would be something I see as key; one forum user put it as "people learn by making connections to that which they already know"; I see that in my official job role as Well - the students who are most successful are the ones who can associate what they're learning with something they already know - even if it's not a direct 1:1 mapping.

From Windows to openSUSE, from mac to openSUSE, openSUSE for the 3th ages, openSUSE for designers, openSUSE improve your windows skills, openSUSE for government, openSUSE for kids, all of them with little But necessary first training steps - i think.

Thoughts?

Yes... Are you ready? Let's keep in touch Best regards CarlosRibeiro

Jim

-- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

Jim, Education in the openSUSE Project is actually a passion of mine And I join with you in any efforts that can grow the community base through education. As some of you know, I worked to establish the Helping Hands project here in openSUSE a couple of years ago, And though it didn't really get much traction, I still keep it open in my mind as something we need to get back to someday. Others are also out there interested in reviving Helping Hands or some other form of education And training. However, I must point out that what you are proposing isn't a strategy per se, But rather an activity to support a strategy. A strategy highlights your strengths and/or strengths you want to develop towards. For example, any one of the following would be considered a strategy: * Be the project with the most number of packages/packagers * Be the Learning Project where people come to openSUSE in order to learn about Linux * Be the project that develops the most new tools * Be the project that <insert whatever here> And in order to achieve that strategy, we would thus implement an activity of educating people so they have the skills to make <insert your strategic proposal here> happen. Likewise, in your job, Novell's strategy isn't to be an educator, But to sell a line of products that meet specific enterprise needs. And in order to be sure to sell those products, Novell implements a Training department (activity) that educates its customers on how to use those products. So, I do not oppose your idea here. I join in solidarity with you in finding ways to educate users, developers, etc. But the education would be, as I said, an activity to support an ultimate goal or strategy that positions openSUSE in the open market. I would also like to emphasize to everyone here that whatever strategy we end up with, that strategy merely establishes the Project's priorities. It does not prevent anyone from doing something they'd like to do which isn't defined within the strategy. Of course, the caveat is that you may or may not get as much support (resources) as you'd like to get. Then again, Maybe you would. That's a risk we all take whenever we start up a new project or initiative until we get real buy-in from stakeholders. In other words, if you have an idea and you feel you can start pushing it... Go for it! :-) In other words, if you've got an idea for training and education, let's move forward on it. Don't wait for a Strategy Proposal to say its okay for you to do it. Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Board Member -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org