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Using GitHub on school computers? #26

Open umasshokie opened 9 years ago

umasshokie commented 9 years ago

Hi! For my introductory computing course I don't want to introduce the GitHub command line, but instead just have them use the GUI tool. However, a snag I ran into is that there is no automated way to have the tool installed on school computers, and thus it just isn't going to be there for the students in lab or in class. Apparently a request has already been made for the functionality, but what I need to know is how do people get around this issue? Or do you always just use the command line tool?

A colleague suggested that we could just use the web interface, but I can't find a way for students to submit code changes via the web interface. Am I just missing it? Could a student fully interact with GitHub through only a browser? The only thing I've found is for editing a file in the browser, but that isn't really the process I want to encourage.

Thanks for any helps or suggestions!

iangcarroll commented 9 years ago

A lot of the functionality from the desktop clients can be done via the web interface, although I'd prefer the desktop interface.

You can create files: create_files

and edit them: edit_files

all on whatever branch you'd like: pick_branch

umasshokie commented 9 years ago

The problem though is that I don't want students coding in the browser. That ruins the entire flow they are learning.

The solution I've come up with is to have the install file for GitHub app put on all lab machines, and the first time a student uses that machine they have to install it for themselves. Since they tend to like to sit in the same spot, I think this will only be occasionally annoying. It's not ideal, but at least it should work.

maxgaudin commented 9 years ago

@umasshokie in regards to the flow you should look into Cloud9...it's a free browser-based development environment. We use it for all of our development with students and it works very well for the most part. You can login with your Github account so all of your repositories are pulled in automagically.

Unfortunately there's no GUI to click and commit to Github...you just have to teach them to git add, git commit, etc.

kelleydv commented 9 years ago

I'm teaching an intro course to high schoolers and have been blown away by their ability to learn to use git from the command line. They also execute python programs from the command line. We use sublimetext for editing. I've been pleased with their learning. Don't underestimate them!

umasshokie commented 9 years ago

haha thanks for the thought. I definitely try not to do that! Using GitHub at all in our introductory course is entirely new this semester though, so if it goes well then I might consider the command line next year (we are significantly changing the course then anyway, and it might fit in better if we plan for it from the start).