Re: [O] org-mode in teaching

[John Kitchin]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Doug Lewan <address@hidden> wrote:

Veeeery cool.

Could we get some background information?

Sure. I put a screen cast up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRUCiF2MwP4 in case you want to see what it looks like.

 

How much time did it take to get all the elements coordinated and running properly?

I spent a lot of July and August writing the techela code, and about a month after class started polishing it. I set up jmax so it would automatically pull new additions from github when you launch emacs, so students were always up to date. the actual code is currently here: https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax/tree/master/techela, but I will probably move it into its own repo at some point.

 

Was any piece particularly easy? Natural? Difficult?

The git integration was most difficult. Getting the right recipe to save student work and merge when needed was tricky. There is still room for improvement on this. Getting the secure communication was not obvious either. In Emacs, I temporarily set GIT_SSH which uses a custom script to do git over ssh with a config file that points to the student pub key.

org-links were very natural. I made an assignment link so when students click on it, it would create a local repo for the assignment and open it. when they finished, they could turn it in from a menu, which pushed the work back to my git server. I also used a special link to record multiple-choice question answers, which made grading easy later.

 

Were the grade reports assignment-specific or cumulative? Did the grading work for the entire course?
(Exams come to mind, unless they were done in emacs too.)

The grading worked for every assignment. Even quizzes and exams were done in class, in Emacs, we were paper free the whole semester. Each assignment had the grade stored in it, and the grade report would have an entry for each assignment in the semester.

 

Again, veeeery cool. Thanks for letting everyone know.

 

--
,Doug
Douglas Lewan
Shubert Ticketing
(201) 489-8600 ext 224 or ext 4335

"This is a slow pup," he said continuing his ascent.


> -----Original Message-----
> On
> Behalf Of John Kitchin
> Subject: [O] org-mode in teaching

>
> Hi all,
>
> I wrote a blog post
> (http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2014/12/18/org-mode-+-Python-+-
> git-in-a-graduate-engineering-course/)
> on how I used org-mode in teaching this past fall. Short summary: All
> the notes, assignments, quizzes, exams, etc... were in org-mode,
> students did all their work in org-mode, and we did all our grading in
> org-mode. It was pretty awesome!
>
> Thanks everyone for an awesome community, and fantastic package in
> org-mode. Best wishes in the new year!
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> John Kitchin
> @johnkitchin
> http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu
>