I taught my very first Software Carpentry (SWC) Workshop officially on July 10, 2014. The workshop was hosted by Federation of Eartch Science Information Partners (ESIP) and held at Copper Mountain resort, Frisco, CO, US. There were some nerve wracking moments but it was an absolutely wonderful experience. Although it was a little bit late, it’s better late than never, I have to share my virgin SWC teaching experience.
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A different crowd! As I mentioned earlier, ESIP SWC was the first SWC that I instructed officially. That’s said, I instructed partial lessosn unofficially for SWC held at University of Iowa and Iowa State University (Thanks to Dr. Adina Howe for the opportunities). I was more familiar with the audience of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. The SWC held by ESIP as part of their summer meeting program had a group of well-established scientists who deal with various computing programs in their daily lives. I was indeed worried that I would not be able to meet the expectation of our audience. The initial survey (the credits go to my co-instructor, Dr. Josh Herr!) helpped a lot for us to pick the topics and choose the speed to showcase.
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A different environment! This particular workshop was held in conjunction with many other conference programs. Some of our attendees have to go to other programs during our two day bootcamp. For this reason, we had to readjust our schedule on the fly by the requests of our audience. It did cause some confusions.
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A not so problematic Windows OS! My previous brief SWC teaching experience was associated with incompatibility of Windows OS. It was to my surprise that Windows users were able to run Gitbash, Python and iPython notebook with relatively less issues. I have also copied a SWC linux virtual machine image as an alternative for Windows users. Our audience actually thought although it is easier to learn on the virtual machine, it is harder for them to use what they learned in the daily research.
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Things Learned!
- Teaching is the best way to learn! I know that this is an old idea but I have learned so much about git during the two days of bootcamp that is nothing my daily use of git could be matched. While Josh and I were trying to set up the course website and upload the course materials by using GitHub, I have learned how to sync remote repositories, got familiar with updating/merging specific branches, and learned about how to resolve pull request conflicts. All of the above would take me much longer to come across and pick-up during my daily usage of git and GitHub.
- The audience are eager to learn and go beyond! Our audience are extremely enthusiastic! As I mentioned earlier, we adjusted our schedules on the fly based on their request. We eventually ended up with shell and R on the first day, python and git on the second day. Many were really eager to try things out and working multiple ways to solve the exercise questions. Some were even able to demonstrate what they learned a few days later! The positive learning energy were truely impressive.
- Things never work as expected on stage… I always feel that my intelligence dropped at least 20% when I stood in front of a group of people. It is even more true when I was trying to demonstrate something. As people always say, practice makes perfect. It is absolutely true, even for something one does daily. I had to do a quick last minute R demonstration (without practice…) on importing files, reshape the data frame, then plot it. All of the procedures are something I do regularly. However, I could only get through importing files without running into issues. The rests were a constant struggle in front of the entire audience. Hence, note to self: practice, practice, and more practice.
In conclusion, I think it was a successful bootcamp. There are many things I could have done better and will improve for my next SWC experience. It was wonderful to network with other great scientists and see how SWC experience was associated with our daily research. Of course, it was a great to teach with and learn from Josh Herr and Ted Hart! Thanks ESIP for the wonderful opportunity!