7/10/2017
We reviewed pre/post-assessments from the FLOSS Desktops camp, discussed how we could have made the camp better and how we could have better assessed the skills and knowledge the kids picked up over the week.
Overall, the kids seemed to claim more confidence in their knowledge about the inner workings of the computer. There were very few "I don't knows" responses on the post-assessment compared to the pre-assessment they took on Monday. We found, however, that the format we chose for compiling their responses to certain questions made comparing and assessing difficult.
We also talked about finding a balance between hardware and software. Having been the creation of OSI, the curriculum focuses heavily on open-source software and less on the hardware, the physical thing sitting in front of them that they most likely were more interested in. Their age levels all varied but they also came from families who had computers (most were gamers), and I think they were hoping to learn more about the necessities for building a computer themselves. We decided that a more even split would have been more fitting.
And as for software, 11/12 of the students decided that the first thing they should try installing was Steam so they could play games, which is the opposite of FLOSS. We should have left that and its various technical difficulties for the final day as a treat for them, and pushed them to look for more productive software to install and play around with or taught them how to use the command terminal.
We reviewed pre/post-assessments from the FLOSS Desktops camp, discussed how we could have made the camp better and how we could have better assessed the skills and knowledge the kids picked up over the week.
Overall, the kids seemed to claim more confidence in their knowledge about the inner workings of the computer. There were very few "I don't knows" responses on the post-assessment compared to the pre-assessment they took on Monday. We found, however, that the format we chose for compiling their responses to certain questions made comparing and assessing difficult.
We also talked about finding a balance between hardware and software. Having been the creation of OSI, the curriculum focuses heavily on open-source software and less on the hardware, the physical thing sitting in front of them that they most likely were more interested in. Their age levels all varied but they also came from families who had computers (most were gamers), and I think they were hoping to learn more about the necessities for building a computer themselves. We decided that a more even split would have been more fitting.
And as for software, 11/12 of the students decided that the first thing they should try installing was Steam so they could play games, which is the opposite of FLOSS. We should have left that and its various technical difficulties for the final day as a treat for them, and pushed them to look for more productive software to install and play around with or taught them how to use the command terminal.
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