Software Carpentry Workshop in Oxford, Day 1

Today I’ve been instructing on a Software Carpentry workshop at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford; it’s the first time I’ve been lead instructor on a bootcamp. Today Kwasi Kwakwa and myself covered the shell and basic python; more python, then git and SQL tomorrow. So what went well? I was very pleased to find we had no installation issues, even though everyone had brought their own laptop and so we had a mixture of Macs, Windows and the odd Linux machine! I had four USB sticks with the Anaconda etc installers and we didn’t use a single one so the standard installation instructions must be working.

As is customary, just before they left we asked everyone to write on their post-it notes one good point and one thing that could be improved. Pleasing to see a good collection of positive comments:

Really enjoyed working through the ipython notebooks and being able to see and change the code and add notes in a visually pleasing way.

Well paced and explained from the bottom up, enjoyed it

But of course, it is the comments about things people didn’t like that are the key to making it better.

If I didn’t have some background in the subject I think it would have been too much for me

Can’t see the green brackets on the screen [in ipython]

I was completely lost in python. If you don’t have any previous background it is too much.

It will always be a challenge to cater for a wide range of backgrounds and experiences in these two day intensive courses. That is not to say that we should give up. I hope it will get better as the number of bootcamps increases. That way it will be easier to run bootcamps for the varying levels of experience.

Finally, don’t do what we did and use green and yellow post-it notes. I couldn’t tell them apart standing at the front. Still everyone drew a sad face or a cross on the yellow one which was fun. Also swap instructors more often than you might think: over an hour is too long. Oh, and bring a whiteboard pen!