Considerations for a Successful Remote Workshop

All together, we instructors have taught this workshop more than seven times. We’ve got lots experience seeing what works (and what doesn’t) with different groups of students under our belts. However, we’ve never taught the workshop remotely.

The intensive in-person format of the workshop has been foundational to how we teach it: emphasizing one-on-one troubleshooting with roving instructors during lessons and peer-peer collaboration on a capstone project. The current situation with COVID-19 necessitates a virtual format. So, we identified a list of concerns we will need to address as instructors and put our heads together to think them through.

We hope that this planning, along with real-time course corrections after we get underway, will allow us to adapt to the virtual format in a manner that preserves the fundamental characteristics of the workshop and makes sure that students get the most learning and fun out of it as possible.

🔗 Technological capabilities from the participants

We do not want availability of at-home technology resources to be a barrier to workshop participation for any students.

To this end, we aim to rely on in-browser options for as much workshop software as possible. This will enable no-hassle access for students with a PC running any platform (or even students with a tablet and a keyboard). We will rely primarily on repl.it, a website which provides Python and PyGame interfaces, for writing and running code. (However, we will also encourage installing the free-to-use Thonny software if possible to allow students a full native experience testing and playing their games.)

To preserve the interactive nature of the workshop, we plan to rely heavily on video and audio conferencing. Students will need a webcam, a microphone, and headphones (or speakers). A smart phone or tablet could suffice for all three.

Beforehand, we will provide families a step-by-step checklist to guage if they have technology resources at home necessary for successful participation. If participants identify any unmet technology needs we will coordinate with participants to address them and, to the best of our ability, facilitate university resources to address them. One possibility includes providing university-loaned equiptment for the duration of the workshop.

🔗 Reliable internet access

Availability of fast, reliable internet at home poses another potential barrier to participants.

We will make as much of the real-time course accessible va low bandwidth means. The video conferencing software we plan to use provides an audio-only connection option (which could even take place over a phone line). In addition to a video stream, we will broadcast instructor live coding via the equivalent of google docs to allow low-bandwidth participants to follow along. Online course materials, which require even less bandwidth to view, will supplement real-time instruction. We will of course do our best to work one-on-one to catch up any students who experience temporary disruptions in their internet service.

Again, we do not want to technology be a barrier for any participants. We will coordinate with participants beforehand to identify internet access issues that could interfere with successful workshop participation and, to the best of our ability, facilitate university resources to address them. Possibilties include coordinating with local internet providers or seeking a wireless hotspot for student use.

🔗 Software license

The software the camp relies upon (Thonny, PyGame, and Python) are all open source and freely available. The repl.it service provides free-tier capabilities sufficient for the workshop.

We will work with the university to ensure we have the necessary licenses for students to use Zoom video conferencing software.

🔗 Pedagogy of online courses

We still plan for the course to revolve around real-time instruction where students write code reproducing instructors’. Video (or audio and document) broadcasting should effectively support this mode of instruction.

However, this formula also requires providing real-time one-on-one attention for students who encounter obstacles or have questions. We are considering mechanisms such as the hand-raising and breakout room features in Zoom and/or a separate instant messaging service to provide this type of instruction. The repl.it Multiplayer feature will provide means for students and instructors to collaborate debugging a piece of code.

Group work to put together a Real Game has traditionally served as the capstone for the course. However, the virtual nature of the workshop will make peer-peer collaboration more complicated. To enable successful collaboration, we will provide project-level starter code that allows students to write compartmentalized pieces of their program that slot together (e.g., collaborating on separate levels of a game). The repl.it Mulitplayer feature should also be useful for peer-peer collaboration.

After teams have completed development on their games, we usually finish out the week with a symposium where students dress up and demo their work to families and friends. However, this may not be practicable in an online format. An alternate possibility for professional communication skillbuilding would be for students to write a brief blog post explaining how their game works under the hood and how to play it. Repl.it will allow anyone with a web browser and internet access to play a live copy of students’ games.

🔗 Length of the program

The week-long format of the class provides enough time to PyGame from the ground up, accomodating students without a background in programming, and then turn students loose on a meaningfully-complex self-directed coding project. We plan to keep it.

In conversation with other instructors who have been working remotely with high school students, long teaching sessions and full-length days are difficult to make effective use of given students’ at-home learning situations. We will shorten the instructional days to consist of a two-hour session in the morning and a two-hour session in the afternoon. This will require streamlining our curriculum, and we may reorganize peripheral components of the curriculum as optional self-paced learning activities. In addition, we will adopt a later start time than usual (10am) to accomodate students’ at-home sleep schedules.

🔗 Class management

We anticipate the hands-on, real-time nature of the course will be insturmental in keeping students engaged. We will monitor student engagement and check in with students who are falling behind to make sure the course is meeting their needs. Additional exercises and challenges included in the online course materials will help keep students who pick up lesson material quickly (or are already familiar with it) engaged.

We also hope to embed optional social activities with instructors around lunchtime or dinnertime, or perhaps even during class sessions, to encourage engagement. Possibilites include JackBox games or online multiplayer games like StarDew Valley.

🔗 Price of camp

Because room, board, and recreation activities are no longer included, workshop tuition will be greatly reduced.

However, now more than ever it will be essential to make scholarships available to students who need it to cover remaining costs. We will work to coordinate these.

🔗 Demand for this type of online version

MOOC-style courses and self-directed learning opportunities are widespread — and often free-to-use — across the internet. We believe that the real-time, face-to-face (both with instructors and peers) format of our workshop sets it apart by allowing material to be covered at a faster rate, by adapting to students’ individual interests and stumbling blocks, by facilitating self-directed work through the group project, and — through the classroom structure — by encouraging continued engagement with the material. This format faster to learn, customized support for students’ interests and obstacles, and more likely to enage with it long enough to have a meaningful outcome

We hope participants will continue to find unique benefit in our course’s format, even as we adapt it for virtual learning. In fact, we hope to the course can grow beyond its current enrollment to provide an alternate STEM-learning opportunity for other students whose summer plans have been disrupted by COVID-19.

🔗 Safe guidelines for virtual courses, etc.

All Zoom sessions will be password-protected.

All means for participant-participant interactions will be monitored by instructors.

We will also ensure that at least two instructors be present in any a video conferencing or chat room when interacting with students.

No personal identifying information of participants will appear on the course website.