page for instructors using BCE in workshops or courses

[aculich]

We may want to consider creating a page for instructors with some tips/practices to consider if using BCE for workshops or courses, such as lessons we learned from last year's D-Lab intensives that we discussed on the bce@lists mailing list.

• 1. some instructors had older versions of BCE than what was being installed during intensives
  • Are you planning to use BCE-2015-summer.ova? The install page lists both summer and spring currently.
  • For instructors:
    • make sure all instructors using BCE have installed the agreed-upon release (presumably the 2015 summer release)
    • instructors should test all their demos/example code this week before the intensives, especially if they were using an old version of BCE in the past-- not all scripts are 100% compatible between releases, but there are usually very simple upgrade paths, but that can be stressful to debug during the intensives!
  • For students:
    • instructors should have USB3.0 sticks with the 2015 summer release available to students during the intensives (Jack usually has several of these ready to go, but make sure they have the new release)
    • encourage students to try the self-paced install instructions ahead of time and schedule a fixit/install session ahead of time for those who run into trouble.
• 2. python2 versus python3
  • scripts that used to work in old version of BCE might break with latest BCE release because of the new default of python3 upstream in the Ubuntu distribution that BCE is based on
  • it is usually trivial to upgrade the scripts to python3-- ahead of time, but stressful if you discover the problem during the intensives!
  • it's recommended to upgrade the scripts to python3 if possible, but it is still possible to run with python2 if absolutely necessary
• 3. be prepared for students who cannot install BCE
  • Most common reasons are:
    • not enough free disk space
    • hardware is too old and does not support virtualization (this is becoming less of a problem)
    • hardware is too new-- tablets, chromebooks, ipads (rather than laptops) are increasingly common as the only device a student has
  • Alternatives for those who cannot install on their own laptop:
    • students may checkout loaner laptops from the library that are capable of running BCE
    • run BCE in the cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS) -- please contact me to coordinate support if this is an option you'd like to provide.