WxT CodeFest Collaboration Activity best practices - nschonni/wet-boew GitHub Wiki

français

The following are the recommended best practices for leading a collaborative activity at WxT CodeFest. These best practices were suggested by the leads of the various collaborative activities. Please feel free to add more best practices.

Table of Contents

Best practices

  • Set up a chat room for your activity to enable open questions and dialog with remote participants. Someone should be dedicated to monitoring the chat room at all times during the activity. Please see the chat room recommendations.
  • Make sure to a hash tag for your activity and someone tweeting regular updates during your activity. Recommended format for the hash tag is #WxTxxxxxxx.
  • Videographers should be arranged for presentations so it can be streamed live and shared afterwards.
  • For high bandwidth tools (e.g., streamed video or audio), use a wired connection or your own wireless connection (e.g., tethering) to minimize load on the room's wi-fi.
  • Any pamphlets or handouts you provide at the event should also be available online for remote participants.
  • Prepare to give a 2 to 3 minute wrap on your activity on the end of the day.

Recommended tools

The following are the tools that the collaborative activity leads recommend after testing and experimentation during CodeFest dry runs.

Chat rooms

  • Twiddla
    • Description: A browser based paint chat tool with voice support (requires Java) and a focus towards hosting web meetings. Provides registration-free chat rooms that allow its participants to draw together over documents, Web pages, or images in real-time while they chat.
    • Important DO NOT click on links in the chat window unless you want it to change the page for everyone. Open those links in a new tab or window instead.
    • Audio: Supported but quality is very poor (use Skype instead for best results)
    • Supported devices: Desktops, laptops and tablets (can be difficult to use on smartphones due to the small screens, should keep work to upper left quadrant if smartphones are involved)
    • Average bandwidth usage: Send: 2 kb/s, Receive: 4 kb/s
  • Chatr
    • Description: Simple text chat client.
    • Supported devices: Desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones
    • Average bandwidth usage: Send: < 1 kb/s, Receive: < 1 kb/s
  • PiratePad
    • Description: Etherpad variant allowing authors to simultaneously edit a text document, and see all of the participants' edits in real-time, with the ability to display each author's text in their own color. There is also a chat box in the sidebar to allow meta communication.
    • Supported devices: Desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones
    • Average bandwidth usage: Send: 4 kb/s, Receive: 4 kb/s
  • Skype Warning: Heavy bandwidth usage. Use sparingly and use a wired connection or your own wireless connection where possible (to avoid slowing down the wi-fi connection).
    • Description: Communicate by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet. Offers the best audio quality based on testing during the dry run.
    • Average bandwidth usage: Send: 24 kb/s, Receive: 295 kb/s
  • Open Etherpad
    • Description: Etherpad variant allowing authors to simultaneously edit a text document, and see all of the participants' edits in real-time, with the ability to display each author's text in their own color. There is also a chat box in the sidebar to allow meta communication.

Wikis

  • GitHub wiki
    • Description: Basic cloud-based wiki built into the GitHub website. Supports numerous wiki syntaxes including MediaWiki, Textile, and Markdown.
    • Supported devices: Desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones
⚠️ **GitHub.com Fallback** ⚠️