Kits: Creating Repeatable Learning Experiences Using Real HFOSS Projects

Engaging students in free and open source software (FOSS) is educationally rewarding but challenging. We aim to ease student engagement and faculty use by developing HFOSS (Humanitarian FOSS) Kits. An HFOSS Kit is a snapshot of an HFOSS project at a particular point in time, packaged with student learning activities, instructor guide, and containerized development environment (if necessary). HFOSS Kits in the classroom have several advantages. While active projects change and evolve, an HFOSS Kit enables a stable, reusable educational experience. Student learning activities and instructor guides are written against the stable project snapshot, thus the high cost of developing and revising activities and guides can be amortized by reuse across multiple semesters. Students are engaged in a more authentic learning experience as they develop their FOSS skills and concepts using actual projects, rather than typical, single-semester examples. The containerized development environment facilitates immediate context-sensitive feedback as students complete assignments. The instructor or automations built into the kit can simulate community interaction. Finally, a focus on HFOSS projects has the potential to broaden the appeal of learning FOSS skills. In our demonstration, we will expand upon the Kit details and reasons for using one. We will demonstrate GitKit - a kit for teaching Git and GitHub/Lab workflow, what it provides, and how it can be used in the classroom. We will also explain the Kits' technical architecture, tools developed to capture the snapshot of project artifacts and support Kit building, and future development plans. Keywords: Tools; Authentic Learning; Open Source