[edutex] Shift in focus of this list

[Hefferon, James S.]

Hello,

At the TUG 2016 conference there was a lot of discussion around increasing participation in TeX and friends, and of working to increase membership in TUG.  One of the discussions was to look for ways to encourage younger folks such as undergrads, and maybe even exceptional high school students, to become acquainted with the TeX family.  Because it involved education, we thought to somewhat repurpose this mailing list, which has been quiet for a good while now.  I hope that folks who are now subscribed will stay for the discussions.

Here is one idea to get students involved.  Instructors, such as college professors teaching a course in Proofs or Real Analysis, might like to require students to hand in assignments that are formatted by a TeX-family system.  But they don't want to spend the class time teaching the programs.  

If we offer a course with some certification that would encourage instructors to assign it as part of the class requirements.

One scenario, here for a web-based course, is:
  1) student registers, entering their own email address and (optionally) and instructor's email
  2) student takes a brief course, with perhaps 3-4 hours of videos and practice material
  3) student is asked to do some exercise (example: "Make a document containing a list with three items", where to pass you need that the document compiles, and that the body contains the words "\begin{itemize}" etc.)
  4) certification is mailed to the addresses entered at registration
  5) student is encouraged to learn more, for instance with a reference to lshort2e and stack exchange, and to learn abut tug, for instance with a .pdf of a TUGboat issue.

(In item (2) there needs to be videos, of course, and Cheryl and Sue have graciously agreed to contribute their experience offering courses.  There also needs to be some way for people to send in .tex files and see the output.  A number of possibilities exist for this but one is to use the source of ShareLaTeX: https://www.sharelatex.com/blog/2014/02/21/sharelatex-is-now-open-source.html.)

This is all brainstorming.  I'd appreciate any reactions, or other ideas.
 
Jim Hefferon