[Technical] Using IRC for student development collaboration

[Con Zymaris]

On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 10:18:30AM +1000, Clark, Ian C wrote:
>  
> The infrastructure's certainly always been there. Soon after the start
> of Vicone back in 97, the Department established a directory server that
> PC or Mac Netmeeting clients could use to do chat, electronic
> whiteboard, application sharing and videoconferencing, even though most
> schools only had 64kb ISDN WAN connections!
> 
> These days, there's also a Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 (if
> you're a state school, you can purchase it for $7 from Ipex) setup at
> Spring Street that TSPs have been involved with testing, and it works
> really well. Last term, a colleague was able with a webcam to give me a
> really good tour of his computer office in the Mornington Peninsula.
> Prior to that, he had set up an open source Jabber server at the same
> school.
> 
> So why isn't use of real time communications more widespread in Vic
> schools? I thought Stephen summed up the hazards fairly well from a
> teacher point of view. A completely open implementation means it's
> really hard for staff to keep kids "on task".  Students might rate the
> technology's social value much higher than its educational value, and in
> turn, teachers might find they have to limit its use to get the best out
> of it.
> 
> So, staff might decide to make it available only to those students doing
> conferencing with another school for a special event, or to teachers in
> rooms that don't have an internal phone, for instance.


Wow. Sounds complex and therefore daunting and therefore most likely to 
lead to failure and misery:  Fear is the path of the dark side. Fear leads 
to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering... ;-)

Here's my concept. 

Install a drop-in IRC server on a single PC, which is switched on and off
when lessons start and finish. Only you and your students have access to
it - everyone signs in with their real names and you log all activity to
reduce uncorroborated shenanigans.

You monitor activity as it happens, but let the students share code and 
ideas as much as possible.

Simple. Easy.

I don't see the pain you guys do, but then, I don't teach. Tell me it's 
not that hard.


Cheers,

Con Zymaris

- CEO, Cybersource Pty. Ltd.
- Director, Open Source Industry Australia, Limited.
- Convenor, Open Source Victoria (A Government-funded industry cluster.)
-- 
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