Here is the suggestion I made in TPU.org forums today. For now, I'm not looking for students but I'm looking for people who might be interresting in tutoring. I also accept suggestions.

I just had this idea after answering to Allaron in the Programming forum.

I personnally could take under my wing 2 or 3 programming newbies and offer to anwer all their question via email or perhaps IRC. Instead of asking around for answers and often getting bad or fool answers, they could just ask their 'stupid' questions to me. I could answer their question or tell them where to find the answer if I feel they need to search...

I would just like to know if anybody else I would be willing to volunteer for that. I could do that but I won't if I'm the only volunteer.

Suggestions or better ideas are welcomed.

Quote:
On 2002-11-15 06:38, Neu[Mann] wrote:
their question via email or perhaps IRC.

I think this 'newbies' should still become all there questions in the ypn irc chan.
But i still dosen't understand what you would do. [addsig]

IRC is not a bad place to get questions answered. I prefer it over forums. But just figure out a newbie that has tons of simple and, let's say it, stupid questions and ask them on #ypn? At first, people will be kind and answers his questions but after a while, the focus may move to another subject and the newbie will get ignored.

If his question are simple or nobody wants to answer them, he'll be told to google for the answer. That is not a bad thing IMHO but it can get REALLY frustrating for the newcomer. How many times I asked questions about Linux and got the single answer 'man [xxx]'. Linux manual pages are a great source of infos but they are not oriented toward newcomers.

My idea is to use dedicated volunteers to answers questions to 2 or 3 newbies. Here is an example:

Mr. X is a good C programmer. He likes to help people.

Mr. Y doesn't have a clue about programming. He would like to learn, maybe to discover that he in fact hates it.

Me, the admin (for now), email both Mr. X and Mr. Y to and say that X could answer ANY questions Mr. Y has. Mr X. is dedicated to answer all questions from Y: "what is a compiler?", "what is an interpreter?", "is java compiled or interpreted?", "wtf is 'functionnal programmng'?" or more technical questions.

You know what asking that kind of question on IRC will do. Having a 1-to-1 link between the tutor and his student may lead to friendlier questions and answers as the tutor gets to know his student better.

I'd like a more 'personalized' kind of help that what forums and IRC provide.

For the sake of efficiency, a tutor could be matched with 2 or 3 student. Any more may get annoying. And also, email might not be the only way to ask questions. Private chat on IRC and any instant messaging client are also good. Students and tutor would have to agree on the best way to get in touch with each other.

[ This Message was edited by: Neu[Mann] on 2002-11-15 23:39 ]

it sounds like a great idea to me, and also the decision to use mails instead of IRC is a great thing imho. You don't need to spend as much time to reply to mails (or to see you have one) than to answer a question in IRC (I mostly don't even see that I'm called, because my desktop is full o' windows). Mails are easily notable, because most peope running linux have gkrellm or something simmilar running, which monitors mails and nitices you if you have a mail.
The 1-to-1 relationship could turn out as a disadvantage tho. Even if you think you know must stuff, many people lack in the ability to answer questions which go into detail. OK, with a newbie as a "student" this might not happen very fast, but it _could_ happen. Then IRC will turn out to be a better place.
I think you shouldn't limit it to 1 medium, either Mail or IRC. I think you should maybe try to use both in a certain combination. I can't say anything about this combination, since I've never tried to teach people in a form like that.

But, in general the idea sounds awsome! I hope you'll find some people who will help you with that great idea
[addsig]

Quote:
The 1-to-1 relationship could turn out as a disadvantage tho. Even if you think you know must stuff, many people lack in the ability to answer questions which go into detail. OK, with a newbie as a "student" this might not happen very fast, but it _could_ happen.

True. But when I said the tutor should answer questions, I never said he had to know everything. Nobody will deny that it'll be good for young programmers to learn how to search for info. Tutors, probably having vast ressources available to them, could help their students to find answers and direct them on IRC, forums or Google.

In fact, lazy tutors could answer questions with URL. I don't mind. I want this to be a NO RULE help. If a tutor wants to help a student to do his homework, then that's allright. I just don't want that the student gets ignored or flamed because of a question.

The only rule: Don't ignore.

I'll try to write a detailled plan for this project this weekend.

Quote:
I think you shouldn't limit it to 1 medium, either Mail or IRC. I think you should maybe try to use both in a certain combination. I can't say anything about this combination, since I've never tried to teach people in a form like that.


It's up to the tutor and the student to decide the medium, or on a combinaison of medium. IRC and IM are good for realtime help, with setting up something in Linux, while simples questions are better answered with email.

Psion & Gian on TPU also suggested that he could be a great to enhance FAQs. If a tutor answers a question that he think could benifit everyone, he could put it in an online FAQ.


Quote:
But, in general the idea sounds awsome! I hope you'll find some people who will help you with that great idea


Don't YOU want to help?

I'm looking for both students and tutors (I got 2 tutors including me).

I'm with you. This is a great idea. I would also like to volunteer to be a tutor, if my knowledge suffices. ,)

This is finally a very good idea to make something special out of our online communities. [addsig]

You mean somethink like 'I help you and you help me'? That's great but still the some like the ypn. [addsig]

No. You are not getting my idea Henning.

It's Mr X. (the pro) helps Mr. Y (the newbie) by privately answering all his questions.

IRC is still great for many things but not for helping newbies.

Yeah, the email has one special advantage, and that is the time issue. The Tutor does not have to be online/avaible whenever the newbie has a question and he also has time to answer in detail.

I like the idea and will strongly support it. But I probably won't be able to have more than two or three students because of my lacking free time.

However. It's a great idea. [addsig]

Mox: Good. Very good. This means we have 4 available tutors (including me) first the 'experiment' phase of the project.

Please, Mox, when you have time, send me an email with your skillz or what you would like to help people with at fgonthier at hermes.usherb.ca

You can already start chasing and try to get newbies interrested. I'd like to have feedback from them too. This project is project is worthless if nobody is interrested to use the tutors service.

Seems like a nice suggestion. I think I just might be interested, to, although I don't know what use an inconsistent tutor (who may not be online for weeks at a time) couild be for you

I'd love to get a tutor too, but since I know that I don't have too much time, I'd rather say that I won't do it. I would love to help other programmers out, but at the moment it _really_ doesn(t fit into my schedule, sorry
I'll contact you about this when I have some time again tho

And, about this "using mail" story: I think that mails aren't a too good medium. Why? Simple: If a student is stuck with something he needs now, the tutor is offline, and the student sends him a mail. The tutor checks his mails 3 hours later. I think the student found a answer already. OK, it migt not always me like this, but I think this is a problem when you have 1 teahcer and 1 student. 1 Student should maybe have 2 or 3 teachers, preferably from different time zones.
Only a idea tho
[addsig]

Kagez: This is a good idea and that's precisely why I would like that mentors and mentees decides on their media together. For answering on-the-fly, quick questions, IM clients and IRC are sure better.

im sorryi havent read all posts, but i want to tell something. perhaps someone in one of the above posts said that. if one wants to learn programing. he needs to find stuff on his own. i can tell with hand near my hearth. everythign is online accessable via http protocol.

the best you can do is not answer dumb programing questions, but teaching newbies to search on net and help them to search correctly.

ok. i read a bit more.

The 1-to-1 relationship could turn out as a disadvantage tho Then IRC will turn out to be a better place.

well... the best thing that would it just fine here, would be e-mail gruops


You mean somethink like 'I help you and you help me'? That's great but still the some like the ypn.

i had something like idea of ExperienceExchange. it left only idea... well its about ppl registing and getting answer to their question for answerng for someone's else's question.

and there was some idea of ypn-mod that holds info about all members, and if someone asks something some kind of `ai` checks who is most likely to answer ans asks him. and sends the answer to one you wants to know. ah and forgot to mention it finds an answer if something like that was asked...

i think there is a lot to do about this with a biger results than gathering kamikadzes to answer questions. well that helps a lot, but newbies do ask some realy dumb questions somethimes, and teaching them to find answers saves lots of time for teacher and for student.

its 00:04, so please dont kill me tomorrow for what i said.


[ This Message was edited by: nonama on 2002-11-17 07:07 ]

The only dumb questions comes from people that think they know more than they say. The kind of people that have no clue what they are talking about:

"How much Mhz is your hard drive using?"

(Sorry this is a bad example I know)

Real newbies ask questions that might sound stupid:

"What is a compiler?"

But trying to find that kind of information on the Internet or anywhere else can be frustrating to them and lead to misinformations. Not to mention that many people aren't especially good at looking for informations.

best lesson will be how to use a search engine, plus it will free up lots of time for tutors

heh...so if you don't want to waste your time helping others, then leave it.

But I think, that most newbies won't start to write 100 mails per day to their tutors.

They just have a person with more experience sitting there, that can help them if they can't handle a problem or can't find certain information.

Back then I would have liked to have such a person [addsig]

well, google is my friend
[addsig]

Im serious about teaching them how to use a search engine, i would sugest google too, as its just the best, still have the tutoring, as many questions are better answered one on one so tyo speak, but when they know how to find info they will greatly speed up learning.

that's true.... it also took me some time until I figured out how to use google. At a first glance using a search engine may be the easiest thing in the world, but if you really know how to use one, you'll get far better/more results about what you're searching for.
[addsig]

Teaching to use a search engine is what? Teaching how to enter search text in field. Mastering a search requires vocabulary and instinct which can't be taught by anybody. Both comes with experience. It's only recently with the discovery of Google Groups, that I can say I've mastered using search engines.

People seems to forget about the extreme cluelessness of the people really new to programming. They can't use search engines to search about things what they don't know exists. This is why having a mentor ready to answer questions is a good thing. I wouldn't want to teach people to program from A to Z. First of all, I'm not a teacher and hence not paid for this. Second, people _wanting_ (I don't speak about students being forced into CS classes) to be taught from A to Z usually have no clue want they are going into.

On the other hand, if a mentor want to teach programming to somebody totally ignorant of what it's all about, it's his business.

If they ever manage to find a good tutorial on the web, it's likely that this tutorial won't answer all their questions. Even the most basic tutorial is not basic enough to learn programming starting from scratch.

you can teach them to use a search engine, most ppl arnt as dumb as you might think, they just dont know the right way to put something in a search engine, sure experience will teach them best, but i think that should be your first lesson, and the tutor will always be there to answer questions about stuff found on net, or just questions they couldnt find etc, then search google, tell them what you searched for, and they will know for future.
(-:

if further rather offencing posts will be made, I will disallow any anonymous postings on this msg board. Thank you for you cooperation
[addsig]

Are you saying that anonymous post was "offensive"? If you think so, it must be because of a misunderstanding of English. I think anyone else who speaks English natively will agree on this.

And, in the realm of constructive ideas, how about someone creates a short document explaining how to use a search engine? I'm not sure what it is that people need to learn, but since y'all are mentioning how hard it is, you must have some ideas of what to say.

Yeah, I wonder about that seemingly "secret lore of webengine usage" since that whole thread started... [addsig]

ok, then go tell a newbie programmer who just started to program a few days ago to search for "this and that" on google and to use that information and make a program. I guess you will fail.
And,
Smerdyakov:
I know that my english sux, and your's is perfect, and you don't need to tell me all the time. Maybe you could post something relevant to the topic
[addsig]

I only say it to let you know that no Anonymous user has posted offensive messages here, so you have no reason to disable anonymous access.

I remebered in my early days, it opened a whole new world when I figured out how to search for stuff, and which search engine to use, stuff like that, while you might have always known everything like Smerdyakov, but for the rest of us, we will remember before we figured out how to use a search engine.
(-:

hmmm ... disabling anonymous access might have some advantages. The most aggravating thing is when a user (KaGeZ, perhaps?) goes nonymous to post a messae for which he(or she?) does not want to be criticized.

Teaching people to use search engines is a very wonderful thing, but searching for info often requires the knowledge of a few key websites e.g. researchindex.org for research materials. Sometimes it

Don't really think it's necessary to mention this, but if there is one user in YPN who's willing to put his name under posts which certain people might not like than it's KaGez. [addsig]

well, I stand to whatever I say until I'm proven wrong
[addsig]