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Planning

🎉 Thank you for being here. 🎉

The work of building PPBL 2023 will be successful if we can all find ways to be ourselves while doing it.

How to build a Plutus PBL Module:

  • Create a "what's in a module" checklist

Step 1: Review the Student Learning Targets​

  • Each module has a pre-established list of Student Learning Targets
  • These SLTs are your constraints. Try to work within them!
  • We all want to say more than "only" what is described in these SLTs. Of course we'll all test these constraints.
  • Just remember: Our priority is to get students to say "I can!"

Step 2: Take Notes​

Decide on a place to take notes as you start to plan. It can be nice to have a private space to test your ideas. If you have not tried Obsidian, take a look. A great benefit of Obsidian is that it uses Markdown files. Compared to drafting notes in google docs, a big advantage of Obsidian is that it is much easier to copy and paste into official documentation or into the PPBL Front End project.

Suggestions for gathering initial planning notes:​

  • Collect Links: Use your note space to copy and annotate links you will share in the Module.
  • Draft Documentation: Use your note space to start drafting step-by-step guides
  • Spin a narrative: Look for ways to connect one lesson to the next. These connections are called "lesson hooks" - and they should feel just like cliff-hangers in a TV show. At the end of a lesson, what can you say to inspire students to keep learning? As you build a module, you'll notice little narrative twists that can really make these lessons come to life. While you are completing a tutorial or building a new Plutus Puzzle, keep this concept in mind, and be ready to take notes when you have ideas.

Step 3: Plan by Doing​

Complete tutorials​

If specific tools are named in the SLTs, explore those tools. For example, in Module 101, a great place to start planning was to complete the Aiken and plu-ts tutorials.

Test ideas​

For many of our SLTs, tutorials don't yet exist. So try things - pay attention to what goes wrong or where you get confused: it's safe to assume that students will get stuck in the same ways. Take notes.

Build demos​

It's really easy to give a quick lecture / video when you have something to demonstrate! In each lesson, we want to show students what success will look like, then give them some tips about how to get there, and create space for people to say, "I get it. Yes, I CAN!"

Write Documentation​

Start to draft step-by-step guides for what students will do. Aim for clarity, and don't try to explain every perfect detail. Leave space for students to have questions, and make reference to Live Coding. Our documentation should give everyone a place to start.

Plan on using Live Coding time​

After documentation + pre-recorded lesson content get people started, we will go deeper every week at Live Coding. If many students have the same questions, we can always go back and update the documentation. We can also include time-stamped links to Live Coding videos in Lessons after initial publication.

Step 4: Ask for help​

As your Module takes shape, you'll be able to be more specific about the help you need. Don't hesitate to ask for it. Bring your questions and help requests to the PPBL planning meeting on Tuesdays at 1930 utc, or use the PPBL 2023 Planning category on Gimbalabs Discord.

Step 5: Record Videos​

At some point you will record videos. You can do this before or after building content in the PPBL front end.

Making Videos​

  • If you want, use these slide templates (google drive) - please request edit access if needed.
  • You can use Zoom to create a screen-recording.
  • Camtasia is also an option that makes it very easy to create screen recordings with voice and video.
  • Editing content - is anyone interested in leveling up video creation skills? Anyone want to lead this work?

Adding Videos to Template​

  • Upload to YouTube. You can use Gimbalabs or your own account. James can add you to Gimbalabs organization on YouTube so you're able to add videos.
  • In the front end, we use react-lite-youtube-embed. This allows to simply take the video ID from a YouTube url, and react-lite-youtube-embed takes care of the rest. For example, a youtube video url might look like this: https://youtu.be/9hwa4wEl41k, where 9hwa4wEl41k is the video ID.

Step 6: When you're ready - build!​

When you have enough content drafted, move on to Building.