The second week of the Catalyst Open Source Academy is in full swing.
Twenty-three Year 11, 12 and 13 students from around New Zealand have taken the opportunity to learn more about open source software development during their 2011/12 summer holidays. In the first week, 9-13 January 2012, the students learned to install Linux Ubuntu on their training laptops, familiarised themselves with the terms Freedom and Community and what these mean for open source projects, found out how the web works and what basic programming principles are.
The students went on to install their own server which was accomplished on Where's My Server who sponsored 25 virtual machines for the students, which they can also use for a limited time after the Academy finishes. We would like to thank Where's My Server for their generosity.
In terms of programming languages, the students were introduced to Python and PHP. They also learned about JavaScript, CSS and HTML.
As many web applications these days are connected to a database, the Academy students worked with PostgreSQL and created their own database application. But what would a web application be without graphics and animation? To round up the training programme of the first week, the students were introduced to GIMP, Inkscape and Blender.
The introductions to programming, design work and fundamental open source principles were given by Catalyst developers and other open source enthusiasts:
- Ian Beardslee
- Adam Bramley
- Kah Chan (Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Design)
- Dr Brenda Chawner (IST Programmes Director, School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington)
- Don Christie
- Josh Corich
- Rick Findlater
- Sean Hamlin
- Jonathan Harker
- Mark Kirkwood
- Francois Marier
- Grant McLean
- Joh Pirie-Clarke
- Simon Story
- Brenda Wallace
- Mark Webster
- Jen Zajac
The second week of the Open Source Academy introduced the students to unit testing, test-driven development, the importance of quality assurance, source code management and also how to work in a community of project developers. The introductions and training sessions finished with an afternoon of Java on 16 January 2012. The presenters and tutors were Catalyst developers:
- Chris Cormack
- Sam Crawley
- Evan Giles
- Grant Patterson
- Javier Romero
- Murray Scott
Today, 17 January 2012, the students dove into open source projects themselves. They are mentored by Catalyst developers as well as Andrew McMillan until the end of the week and can apply knowledge they have gained during the first week to make a contribution to one of the following open source community projects:
- aCal (Andrew McMillan)
- Drupal (Adam Bramley and Sean Hamlin)
- Kiritaki Koha (Grant Patterson and Javier Romero)
- Koha (Chris Cormack and Chris Hall)
- Map of CPAN (Grant McLean)
Follow @catalystacademy and #flossac on Twitter for updates.