** 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
>> "Bryen M. Yunashko"
<suserocks(a)bryen.com> 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
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