org-mode in teaching

org-mode in teaching

[John Kitchin]

Hi all,

I wrote a blog post
(http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2014/12/18/org-mode-+-Python-+-git-in-a-graduate-engineering-course/)
on how I used org-mode in teaching this past fall. Short summary: All
the notes, assignments, quizzes, exams, etc... were in org-mode,
students did all their work in org-mode, and we did all our grading in
org-mode. It was pretty awesome!

Thanks everyone for an awesome community, and fantastic package in
org-mode. Best wishes in the new year!

-- 
-----------------------------------
John Kitchin
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

Re: org-mode in teaching

[Doug Lewan]

Veeeery cool. 

Could we get some background information? 
How much time did it take to get all the elements coordinated and running properly? 
Was any piece particularly easy? Natural? Difficult? 
Were the grade reports assignment-specific or cumulative? Did the grading work for the entire course? 
(Exams come to mind, unless they were done in emacs too.)

Again, veeeery cool. Thanks for letting everyone know.

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

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


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

Re: org-mode in teaching

[John Kitchin]

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On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Doug Lewan <dougl@shubertticketing.com>
wrote:

> Veeeery cool.
>
> Could we get some background information?
>

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


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

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



> Was any piece particularly easy? Natural? Difficult?
>

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

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



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

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


>
> Again, veeeery cool. Thanks for letting everyone know.
>




>
> --
> ,Doug
> Douglas Lewan
> Shubert Ticketing
> (201) 489-8600 ext 224 or ext 4335
>
> "This is a slow pup," he said continuing his ascent.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > On
> > Behalf Of John Kitchin
> > Subject: [O] org-mode in teaching
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I wrote a blog post
> > (http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2014/12/18/org-mode-+-Python-+-
> > git-in-a-graduate-engineering-course/)
> > on how I used org-mode in teaching this past fall. Short summary: All
> > the notes, assignments, quizzes, exams, etc... were in org-mode,
> > students did all their work in org-mode, and we did all our grading in
> > org-mode. It was pretty awesome!
> >
> > Thanks everyone for an awesome community, and fantastic package in
> > org-mode. Best wishes in the new year!
> >
> > --
> > -----------------------------------
> > John Kitchin
> > @johnkitchin
> > http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu
> >
>
>

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Re: org-mode in teaching

[John Kitchin]

I put a screencast at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRUCiF2MwP4&feature=youtu.be&a

if you would like to see some of what this was like.

John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

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

-- 
-----------------------------------
John Kitchin
Professor
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

Re: org-mode in teaching

[Marvin M. Doyley]

Very cool indeed.
I would love to try this for a small course that I will be teaching in the spring semester.
Is your code available?
Cheers,
M
Sent from my iPad

Re: org-mode in teaching

[John Kitchin]

All of the code is here:
https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax/tree/master/techela

and there is some documentation in the README.

I am not sure how much work it would take to try it yourself though. You
need to setup a gitolite server (that is described in the README), and
more importantly figure out how to get this in your student's hands. For
windows users, they can just clone jmax, and it should run out of the
box (it has an emacs in it).

"Marvin M. Doyley" <mdoyley@me.com> writes:

> Very cool indeed.
> I would love to try this for a small course that I will be teaching in the spring semester.
> Is your code available?
> Cheers,
> M
> Sent from my iPad
>

-- 
-----------------------------------
John Kitchin
Professor
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

Re: org-mode in teaching

[Evan Misshula]

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I am going to try this semester also.  Thanks for paving the way.

:-)

On Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 5:48 PM, John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>
wrote:

> All of the code is here:
> https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax/tree/master/techela
>
> and there is some documentation in the README.
>
> I am not sure how much work it would take to try it yourself though. You
> need to setup a gitolite server (that is described in the README), and
> more importantly figure out how to get this in your student's hands. For
> windows users, they can just clone jmax, and it should run out of the
> box (it has an emacs in it).
>
> "Marvin M. Doyley" <mdoyley@me.com> writes:
>
> > Very cool indeed.
> > I would love to try this for a small course that I will be teaching in
> the spring semester.
> > Is your code available?
> > Cheers,
> > M
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> John Kitchin
> Professor
> Doherty Hall A207F
> Department of Chemical Engineering
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
> 412-268-7803
> http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu
>
>


-- 
Evan Misshula
Doctoral Student (Criminal Justice)
City University of New York

"The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers" ~ John Hamming

"Instruction does much, but encouragement does everything." Johann Von
Goethe

EvanMisshula.github.io


<http://EvanMisshula.github.io>

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Re: org-mode in teaching

[briangpowell .]

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* Wow!  Thanks for posting this topic and your techela.

* Suggest an "Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp" and OrgMode be
everyone's first, and maybe last, required course in grade school--other
than Reading, Writing and Arithmetic of course!

* Suggest all students download this free book and conquer it:

http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/robert-chassell/an-introduction-to-programming-in-emacs-lisp/ebook/product-17413062.html

** A masterpiece by Robert J. Chassell.

* Also suggest his free online copy of "Software Freedom: An Introduction",
for more philosophy on the Free Software movement, to benefit students and
teachers.

** Most especially chapter 13, which covers why non-free software limits
learning--and a whole lot more:

http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/*checkout*/softfree/softfree/software-freedom.html?revision=1.23#Limits-to-Learning



On Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 5:48 PM, John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>
wrote:

> All of the code is here:
> https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax/tree/master/techela
>
> and there is some documentation in the README.
>
> I am not sure how much work it would take to try it yourself though. You
> need to setup a gitolite server (that is described in the README), and
> more importantly figure out how to get this in your student's hands. For
> windows users, they can just clone jmax, and it should run out of the
> box (it has an emacs in it).
>
> "Marvin M. Doyley" <mdoyley@me.com> writes:
>
> > Very cool indeed.
> > I would love to try this for a small course that I will be teaching in
> the spring semester.
> > Is your code available?
> > Cheers,
> > M
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> John Kitchin
> Professor
> Doherty Hall A207F
> Department of Chemical Engineering
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
> 412-268-7803
> http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu
>
>

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Re: org-mode in teaching

[Marvin M. Doyley]

Thanks John,
I am sure this will be better than blackboard. I will give it a try :)
Cheers 
M

Sent from my iPhone
** May contain typos**


> On Dec 20, 2014, at 5:48 PM, John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
> 
> All of the code is here:
> https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax/tree/master/techela
> 
> and there is some documentation in the README.
> 
> I am not sure how much work it would take to try it yourself though. You
> need to setup a gitolite server (that is described in the README), and
> more importantly figure out how to get this in your student's hands. For
> windows users, they can just clone jmax, and it should run out of the
> box (it has an emacs in it).
> 
> "Marvin M. Doyley" <mdoyley@me.com> writes:
> 
>> Very cool indeed.
>> I would love to try this for a small course that I will be teaching in the spring semester.
>> Is your code available?
>> Cheers,
>> M
>> Sent from my iPad
> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------
> John Kitchin
> Professor
> Doherty Hall A207F
> Department of Chemical Engineering
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
> 412-268-7803
> http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu