tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68141214032963402212024-02-06T20:51:27.094-08:00OPW Summer 2014 - Teaching Robotics with TurtlebotMarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6814121403296340221.post-84789474857108496792014-07-30T12:03:00.001-07:002014-07-30T12:17:39.610-07:00Usability Testing<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello!</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This week we are running a usability test for the site. If you'd like to help, here's the test:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-75a53af2-88a6-6cd5-9347-e256cbe672bd" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Thank you for volunteering to help out with this project!</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As a bit of background, the site's purpose is to serve as a platform for robotics educators to share and collaborate on courses. Over the next 30 minutes or so, you will be testing the usability of the site by acting as a user: an educator contributing to the site. You will be given some content to add to the site and a list of questions to answer as you go along or after you are done with your task.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Focus Questions and things to Look For:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. how accessible is this site and the content in it?</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. how easy is it to upload content?</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. how easy is it to navigate and find content on the site?</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4. does this seem easy to collaborate on?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5. is the content is understandable and accurate?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6. does the “how to contribute” require too much prior knowledge? if so, where did you feel lost or where do you think others would feel lost? </span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">7. additional comments?</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tasks </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://tfoote.github.io/design/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">https://tfoote.github.io/design/</span></a></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Go to the website and find out How to Contribute</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Find the course called “Typos.” Find one typo, fix it, and submit your contribution.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3. Answer the questions! (email to mliebmanpelaez@gmail.com)</span></span></span></span></div>
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Thanks!Marshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6814121403296340221.post-245073592524268652014-07-08T11:59:00.001-07:002014-07-08T12:00:43.018-07:00Call for Feedback from ROS Edcuation Community<div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hello all,</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It's been almost two months, but finally I am writing again to share with you our ROS/robotics education project. </span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For those of you who don't remember, my
name is Mariana and I am working with Tully Foote and OSRF to help
facilitate teaching robotics courses using the TurtleBot. We are using a
</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://tfoote.github.io/design/" target="_blank">Git web repository</a></span>
to create an online database for robotics courses. The idea is to have
a website where educators can collaboratively design these courses. In
turn, users can search for course material based on keywords relevant
to the robotics material they are looking to teach or learn. (I have
included a more detailed description of the site further on in the
email.)</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I am writing to you just as we are finishing up our first prototype of the site (<a href="https://tfoote.github.io/design/" target="_blank">https://tfoote.github.io/<wbr></wbr>design/</a>).
Before we continue with this project, we feel it is important to first
gather feedback from you and others in the world of robotics education.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The main questions we want to ask are:</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Is this something you would be interested in?</span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- What features/services would you like to see in something like this?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-
How do you think you or others would use this site? Would you want to
use the site during a learning activity or just pull material from it? <br />
</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-
Is this something you'd be interested in as a resource for your
students? If so, how would you want your students to interact with a
site like this? (A tool to enable more interactive learning?
Supplementary or extra material to give to students?)</span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Do you have any experience with something similar to this that might be useful for us to know about?</span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Any other comments/suggestions?</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In
addition we are also trying to figure out a good way to give users an
incentive to collaborate on these courses. So far, we have thought of
introducing an edge of competition, (perhaps using sponsors for prizes),
publicity, making it a game, and giving contributors recognition. What
would motivate you to contribute to something like this? If you have
any input, please let us know!</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I realize that for those in the USA, it's a
holiday today (happy 4th of July!). But if at some point in the next
week or so you find time to give us some feedback, that would be greatly
appreciated! We can only really move forward with this project if we
know what the community is looking for :) <br />
<br />If you aren't already a part of the ROS Education special interest group, here's the link: <a href="http://wiki.ros.org/groovy/Planning/education" target="_blank">http://wiki.ros.org/groovy/<wbr></wbr>Planning/education</a> - if you scroll down, you'll find the link to the google group (<a href="https://groups.google.com/group/ros-sig-education" target="_blank">https://groups.google.com/<wbr></wbr>group/ros-sig-education</a>).
Also, if you know someone not in this thread who would be interested in
this project, please feel free to forward this email to them!<br />
</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Best,</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mariana Liebman-Pelaez</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">****MORE DETAILED DESCRIPTION DESCRIPTION OF SITE HERE****</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So
far in our project we've set up the Git online web repository and
uploaded some example content (TurtleBot intro tutorials and other
example material). The content of the repository is organized in a
hierarchy that resembles a course syllabus. Namely, there are courses
which consist of units which in turn can have topics (lessons,
tutorials, or challenges). </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Each
of these elements contains a header which has the title, the type
(course, unit, lesson, tutorial, or challenge), and abstract, tags (used
for searching), skills, prerequisites, and for units and courses,
sub-content. These headers are useful when searching for content as
well as for referencing and organizing material. That way, all topics
belong to a unit and all units belong to a course. In addition, in
order to minimize redundancy, topics and units can be cross-referenced
across units and courses respectively. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here's a more detailed description of what we envisioned all these elements to be:</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Course</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:
This is basically a syllabus and contains the units that will be
covered in the course. Metadata in the header for the course includes:
title, abstract, tags , prerequisites (by course or by topic), skills,
requirements, and version/compatibility tags. Courses can also contain
material (for example, an introduction to the material covered in the
course... etc).<br />
</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Unit: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">These
are the various topics covered in the course. We thought of the units
as individual folders that contain all the material; any lesson,
tutorial or challenge will belong to at least one unit. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Units can also contain material (for example, an introduction to the material covered in the unit... etc).</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lesson:</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Lessons will be where the educators present all the information and
building blocks they are giving to the students - in slides, videos,
notes, diagrams… etc. A topic can have multiple lessons, maybe to give
students stopping points to apply the information they are receiving.
(*note* - as of now, any external documents such as powerpoints will
need to be attached as a link).<br />
</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tutorial</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:
This is where students can be walked-through an application of what
they are learning. If it’s a new programming concept for instance, it
can be a series of questions that gets the student to walk through an
example of the material. (The idea here is really similar to what we
think of online tutorials - these are step by step instructions and
examples).</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Challenge</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:
This is the fun part. Here is where educators can post material that
get the student to apply and expand on the concepts covered. Here is
where you would find homework problems, problem sets, projects, open
ended questions… etc. We were thinking of labelling challenges as
either “recommended” or “extended.”</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
idea is that with this hierarchy, it will be relatively easy to upload
material and search through it. All elements (courses, units, lessons,
tutorials, and challenges) will be indexed and will reference the
material they belong with. In addition, units and the elements they
contain can also be cross-referenced if material is applicable to more
than one course and/or unit. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here are some features that we currently have for the site:</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ability to embed youtube videos and code blocks</span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the future, we are thinking to embed a simulator using gazebo to make the site more interactive for students. (thoughts???)<br />
</span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anything else???</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Contributing:</b></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Right
now, the way to contribute to the site is by following the standard
protocol of using git. One would clone the repository, add or modify
any material in its appropriate folder (following a template), and push
it back. The language used is markdown.</span></span></span></div>
Marshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6814121403296340221.post-68694153196629178742014-07-07T03:58:00.001-07:002014-07-07T03:59:09.379-07:00Call for Feedback<span style="color: #666666;">Last Friday, we finally finished our prototype for the site. In order to move forward with the project, we felt it necessary to call for feedback from the ROS education community and others involved in robotics education. I wrote an email on Friday, similar to the one I had originally sent out to the ROS education community, only this tim<span style="font-family: inherit;">e updating them about the state of the project.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I summarized the work we had done up until this point, provided them with a link to the site as it is right now, and prompted them with the following questions:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Is this something you would be interested in?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- What features/services would you like to see in something like this?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-
How do you think you or others would use this site? Would you want to
use the site during a learning activity or just pull material from it? <br />
</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-
Is this something you'd be interested in as a resource for your
students? If so, how would you want your students to interact with a
site like this? (A tool to enable more interactive learning?
Supplementary or extra material to give to students?)</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Do you have any experience with something similar to this that might be useful for us to know about?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Any other comments/suggestions?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;">At the bottom of the email, I provided a more in-depth description of the work we had done and the questions we still had lingering. For interest in participating in the conversation regarding this project, check out the ROS Education google group at this site: http://wiki.ros.org/groovy/Planning/education</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;">Till next time! </span></span></span></span></div>
Marshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6814121403296340221.post-29500744171487245742014-06-08T18:33:00.001-07:002014-06-08T18:33:32.660-07:00Project Updates<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
the past couple weeks, we have continued moving forward with our site.
The <a href="https://tfoote.github.io/design/site_map/">Git web repository</a> is up and running and I am currently filling it
in with material from the ROS wiki TurtleBot tutorials in order to test
out the system. In addition, we have received some feedback that we are
incorporating into our work. </span></span></span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span>
<div style="line-height: 22px;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 22px;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
Last week, I met with Chris Rogers, professor in the Tufts University
Mechanical Engineering department and Co-Director of the Center for
Engineering Education and Outreach. I came into the meeting wanting to
know if, as a robotics educator and someone with years of experience
creating online education resources, this is something he'd be
interested in. Chris' initial reaction was that yes, an online resource
such as this one would be great, especially since right now a lot of
educators turn to google for online resources and there isn't really a
consolidated source for material. However, Chris had several comments
on our approach that we are taking into consideration as we continue to
move forward with this. These are:</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Getting users (educators) to upload material to the site. It takes a lot of time and energy to upload educational material, more so when it needs to be formatted to mesh with the rest of the site. We need to think of <b>incentives</b> and motivation for users to collaborate on these courses. Possible solutions to this problem are introducing some form of game or competition, acknowledgement, publicity, funding, and getting people to vote for material they find useful/helpful. Any suggestions are welcome!</span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <b>Usability</b> - educators are generally looking for something that is easy to incorporate in the classroom. Because of this, we might want to consider the "out of the box experience." In other words, will teachers go to the site and see a long and cryptic set of instructions? Or will they see something that is ready to use both for themselves and their students?</span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <b>Presentation</b> - we want to think about how the material in the site will be used by students. Whether the audience is a group of graduate students or high school students, will this just be a bunch of tutorials that students can sit through? Or will the content on this site prompt classes to be more hands on, interactive, and creative?</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></span>
<div style="line-height: 22px;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 22px;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
As for the site, I am still uploading content and we are continuously
checking for bugs and areas of improvement. Our next goal is to produce
a polished prototype by by <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_887464091" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">June 20</span></span>
to send out to the robotics education community. This will involve
uploading all the content from the TurtleBot online tutorials, making a
course on "How to Make a Course," trying to find solutions to the issues
brought up by Chris, and trying to make the site as bug-free and usable
as possible.</span></span></span></div>
Marshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6814121403296340221.post-79988350640913043672014-05-21T05:16:00.000-07:002014-05-21T05:18:47.042-07:00More Detailed Description of Course Elements<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the previous two posts I talked about organizing the content of our site like this: courses are comprised of units which in turn contain lessons, tutorials, and challenges. Here are descriptions for each of these elements.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-11e00fe2-1eaa-15f7-c62f-661f70f7526d" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Course</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: This is basically a syllabus and contains the units that will be covered in the course. Metadata in the header for the course includes: title, abstract, tags , prerequisites (by course or by topic), skills, requirements, and version/compatibility tags.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Unit: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">These are the various topics covered in the course. We can think of the units as individual folders that contain all the material; any lesson, tutorial or challenge will belong to at least one unit. </span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lesson:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Lessons will be where the educators present all the information and building blocks they are giving to the students - in slides, videos, notes, diagrams… etc. A topic can have multiple lessons, maybe to give students stopping points to apply the information they are receiving. </span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tutorial</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: This is where students can be walked-through an application of what they are learning. If it’s a new programming concept for instance, it can be a series of questions that get the student to walk through an example of the material. (The idea here is really similar to what we think of online tutorials - these are step by step instructions and examples).</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Challenge</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: This is the fun part. Here is where educators can post material that get the student to apply and expand on the concepts covered. Here is where you would find homework problems, problem sets, projects, open ended questions… etc. The challenges will be labelled as either “recommended” or “extended.”</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The idea is that with this hierarchy, it will be relatively easy to upload material and search through it. All elements (courses, units, lessons, tutorials, and challenges) will be indexed and will reference the material they belong with. In addition, units and the elements they contain can also be cross-referenced if material is applicable to more than one course and/or unit. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We hope that this will produce a series of very detailed and extensive courses that educators can pull from for their own classrooms!</span></span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We welcome any and all feedback! </span></span></span></span></div>
Marshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6814121403296340221.post-18809164357768451132014-05-20T17:18:00.000-07:002014-06-08T18:34:08.151-07:00Project Timeline<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">our preliminary schedule for the summer organized by week. It contains what we have worked on so far as well as major deadlines that we have set for ourselves. This schedule isn't set in stone - as the summer progresses we will surely modify it. It is more meant to give us a sense of what we want to accomplish and how we are going to do it!</span></span><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-804ccb0b-1c09-f0c2-0007-bbdbf1a110fd" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">By week:</span></span></u></b></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4/24</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Initial meeting</span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">establish high level project goal: make it easier to teach robotics with turtlebot</span></span></span></b></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4/28</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span></span></span></b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Preliminary
research - start looking through online courses and tutorials (ROS and
TurtleBot) → start thinking of ways to index courses (metadata)</span></span></span></b></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Set up blog</span></span></span></b></span></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Start
thinking about how to engage the ros-sig-education. (What to send out?
What to ask community for? How would ongoing collaboration work?</span></span></span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">)</span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5/5</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">C</span></span></span><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ontact education SIG collaborators - explain project and invite input</span></span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><b> </b></span></span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Email
with Bill Smart - see if we can collaborate with his proposal: we set
up infrastructure, he and other educators fill in the course conten</span></span></span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">t </span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First draft project timeline by Friday</span></span></span></b></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">look into Git web repo as possible platform for website and produce example website (Tully)</span></span></span></b></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Start writing down taxonomy/indexing for courses by end of week</span></span></span></b></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5/12</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Start looking for other robotics (or just online) course resources</span></span></span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ex: Khan Academy</span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">More feedback </span></span><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b></span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">first draft of initial indices for categorizing courses and/or course material - May 16</span></span></span></b></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5/19</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">By</span></span></span><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Wednesday, populate </span></span></span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tully's Git web repository with intro to ROS course material</span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5/26</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Send out site to collaborators and test it out/gather feedback</span></span><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6/2</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6/9</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6/16</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6/23</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6/30</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">7/7</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">7/14</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Come up with some cool/relevant challenges to include in the site?</span></span></span><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></b></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">7/21</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">7/28</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">8/4</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">8/11</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">8/18</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></span></span></b></span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Blog video should be up and done!</span></span></span></b></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Website should be up and running!</span></span></span></b></span></li>
</ul>
Marshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6814121403296340221.post-28851637302649421142014-05-20T16:46:00.002-07:002014-05-21T05:19:30.286-07:00Project Beginnings<span style="color: #444444;">Hello! It's about four weeks into this project and so far we've gotten a lot done! After the first initial meeting, we established the overarching goal for this project: to make it easier to teach ROS using TurtleBot. Since then we have worked on narrowing down the focus of the project, reaching out
to the online robotics education community, developing a schedule for
the project, and developed a format for organizing and collaborating on course
material. </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">Before delving further into what we've been working on for the past few weeks, I will start by describing <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">what we plan to accomplish this summer. <span id="docs-internal-guid-804ccb0b-1be0-87b4-a7c5-a70273bb94cc" style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The goal for this project is to produce a website with some example robotics courses and a way for educators to submit additional courses/course material relatively easily. In addition, there should be a means to index and search for courses and course material based on subject, skills taught, pre-requisites, and any other "tags" associated with the content. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-804ccb0b-1be0-87b4-a7c5-a70273bb94cc" style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We will do this by creating a Git online repository with the infrastructure required for educators to collaboratively build online courses and their relevant material. The courses will be composed of units, which in turn contain lessons, tutorials, and challenges. Each element (courses, units, lessons, tutorials, and challenges) will have a header containing a reference ID and meta-data that both gives users a sense of the content and acts as a means of searching for course material in the repository. Units and the content in the units can be cross-referenced between units as well as courses so that course material can be recycled if appropriate. Course material can include anything from material outlines to power point presentation files to example code. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-804ccb0b-1be0-87b4-a7c5-a70273bb94cc" style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The idea is to collaboratively create online robotics courses that educators can both edit and pull from in order to use with their own students. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-804ccb0b-1be0-87b4-a7c5-a70273bb94cc" style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In order to get the first version of the site up an running, there was a lot of planning that needed to get done. For the first couple weeks, I did a lot of background research learning about ROS, TurtleBot, and going through many existing online <a href="http://wiki.ros.org/Courses">courses</a>. While looking though existing online course materia</span></span>l, I took note of the differences in content, course structure, target audience, and any other relevant information. The idea was to get a sense of what's already out there and in particular, how to categorize these courses. This was how we settled on the different elements comprising the courses as well as how they will be tagged or referenced. Once we had envisioned a skeleton course structure for this site, Tully created an Git online repository with blank examples of all the course elements. My next step is to populate these elements with material pulled form the courses I initially researched. Our main concern is to ensure that the course material indexing and navigation works well and is easy to use.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">My mentor and I have also been thinking about how to engage the existing community of ROS educators (a significant portion of this project will involve outreach to the ROS education community). We started by looking at the ros.org <a href="http://wiki.ros.org/groovy/Planning/education">Special Interest Group (SIG) for education</a> and sent an email out to the list inviting input. We received a very promising reply from Bill Smart, Mechanical Engineering Professor at Oregon State and coordinator for the education SIG. In his email Smart said that after a few years of loosing momentum on the online collaborative robotics education front, he is picking up steam again and is interested in coordinating with us on this project. Since our focus is in principle geared towards using TurtleBot, our initial efforts will build an online database focusing on learning robotics with TurtleBot. Smart is looking to start off consolidating course material for a broader spectrum of robot platforms. However, due to the versatile and collaborative nature of the site, our project will hopefully serve as a means to produce courses for many other platforms and areas in robotics. </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">With Bill Smart and the ROS education community in touch, and a prototype website, our next steps will be to test this out and hopefully start collaborating on courses!</span>Marshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6814121403296340221.post-61357026286386796272014-05-05T13:21:00.002-07:002014-05-21T05:26:51.984-07:00Getting Started<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM5Ghm0_Hxt064VKb9IOjLmEionlr7BQToCkfnJK_GrrKmzN9rEdVkBXJGtt1H4g7aF1svxhY7SfaLCQ7E09RZL8gYb4PWkjFnS8ZA7WB58N_ppEOSoiE3VNuCK_840nhlb2bKK4P5Vt4/s1600/turtlebot_2_lg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM5Ghm0_Hxt064VKb9IOjLmEionlr7BQToCkfnJK_GrrKmzN9rEdVkBXJGtt1H4g7aF1svxhY7SfaLCQ7E09RZL8gYb4PWkjFnS8ZA7WB58N_ppEOSoiE3VNuCK_840nhlb2bKK4P5Vt4/s1600/turtlebot_2_lg.png" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
Hello! My name is Mariana Liebman-Pelaez and I am using this blog to share my work for the <a href="http://www.osrfoundation.org/">Open Source Robotics Foundation</a> (OSRF). The project Tully Foote (my mentor) and I are working on is a little open ended but has a very clear goal: to make it easier to teach robotics using <a href="http://www.willowgarage.com/">Willow Garage</a>'s TurtleBot. Since its release, the TurtleBot has exceeded many expectations by becoming a widely used platform for teaching and personalizing robots. While there are many great examples out there of courses and projects that use the TurtleBot, we are looking to provide a space so that users and educators can share their experience using TurtleBot to collaboratively design robotics courses. In addition, the OSRF is looking to produce a MOOC using CloudSim and the simulator Gazebo for students to learn robotics without the need of a physical TurtleBot. The idea is to use the outcomes of the collaborative robotics course designs for this MOOC.<br />
<br />
As a little background, I recently graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. During my time at school, I worked with the Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO), teaching science and engineering to elementary school students. We spend a lot of time discussing and working on curricula in order to
improve understanding and bring in more creativity to science and
engineering education. I enjoy tinkering, running, crafty projects, gardening, travelling and cooking!Marshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11448579063577236372noreply@blogger.com0