# October workshop helper HackMD

Dear Helper,

you have made it here, awesome! 2 things we would like you to do here:

1. fill out the table in **Helperlist** below with your information
2. If you have any doubts, questions, ideas or simply want to tell us something, **Helper questions** is the right place, use it! :)

## Helperlist

Please add yourself to the list below and add information on which call you are planning on attending: Friday, Oct 16, 09:00 - 10:00 CEST or Monday, Oct 19, 15:00 - 16:00 CEST (if you cannot attend any, please indicate with 'not available') and which of the workshop dates (20.,21,22,27,28,29.10 09:00 - 12:00 CEST) you cannot attend as helper. The first line serves as a guide of options

| Name | will attend helper introduction call on | cannot attend workshop on following dates |
| -------- | -------- | -------- |
| Awesome helper | 16.10 / 19.10 / not available | 20.10 / 21.10 /22.10 / 27.10/ 28.10 /29.10 |
| Jens Wehner | 16.10 | 21.10/28.10 |
| Susan Branchett | 19.10 | n.a. |
| Ingrid Strandberg | 19.10 | 27.10 |
| Maurits Kok | 19.10 | n.a. |
| Amir Fard | 19.10 | 21.10|
| Jakob Jørgensen | 16.10 | n.a. |
| Evelien van Dijk | 16.10 | 27.10/28.10/29.10 |
| Hasti Narimanzadeh | 19.10 | 22.10/27.10 |
| Niket Agrawal | 19.10 | n.a. |
| Matthew Morris | 19.10 | 27.10/28.10/29.10 |
|Mateusz Kuzak | 16.10 | 20-22, need to leave earlier on 29 |
| Barbara Vreede | 16.10 | will be there 21.10 and 28.10 |
| Masha Rudneva | 16.10 | 22/10, 27/10 - 29/10 |
| Johan Hidding | 19.10 | n.a. |
| Matthias Schwarz | 16.10 | 27/10 - 29/10 |
| Raúl A Ortiz-Merino | 19.10 | 27/10 |
| Simoneta Caño de las Heras| 19.10 | 27/10 |
| Kees den Heijer | 19.10 | 20.10/21.10/28.10/29.10|
| Santosh Ilamparuthi| 19.10 | 21.10/22.10/28.10/29.10
| Samantha Wittke | both | 21.10 / (28.10) |
## Helper questions

- You can ask a question here like this. You can decide yourself if you want to add your name here.
- [name=Samantha] We will answer as soon as possible, but probably not immediately. So make sure to revisit this page later.

-> questions section moved to bottom of page for easier following :)

## Helper introduction agenda

Helper introduction Friday, Oct 16, 09:00 - 10:00 CEST and Monday, Oct 19, 15:00 - 16:00 CEST (both same topics, afterwards installation help sessions)

1. Short introduction round with HackMD icebreaker ('How/why did you become a helper?' or something?)
2. Learners survey
3. Short overview on what will happen in workshop
- teams
- main session vs breakoutrooms
- hackMD and expert helpers
4. How to helper: https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/helping-and-teaching/
- Code of conduct
- positive learning environment
- things to avoid
5. Helpers in breakoutrooms: https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/breakout-rooms-helping/#helpers-in-breakout-rooms
- Helper as moderator and time keeper
- breakoutroom strategies
- common problems
6. Open questions
7. Transition to installation help

__________
## Helper email draft

Hello helpers!
Dear {},

We're contacting you because you registered for the event Online CodeRefinery workshop Oct 20-22 and 27-29, 9:00 - 12:00 (Central European Time).

Thank you for being a CodeRefinery helper. In these times online courses are more popular than ever, and it is possible for more people to participate in our workshops. You all are what makes these huge courses possible. So thank you at this place already for being a helper! :)

As a helper, you are the first line of answering questions our learners have, and thus directly allow us to reach many more people than you normally could. You don't have to know everything, just have be able to provide advice and encouragement on basic issues, and know when to call someone else (which you can always do via hackmd, our collaborative document during the course).

There are some things we would like you to do in advance:

- If you are on a team, try to make sure that the other teammates have software installed and configured in advance (and you, too). This is very important! In general, if you can, make sure that people can start off as smoothly as possible.

- Visit our helper hackmd* ( https://hackmd.io/8bLEW1nySgqRglZvbwU_zw ) and
- put your name in the helper list (if you don't want your info to be public, reply to this email instead)
- let us know which helper introduction call you plan to visit (see below)
- if you cannot visit any also note it there
- if you cannot make it to all 6 half day workshop sessions, let us know here as well (this is totally fine, we just need to know)

- Come to one of the pre-workshop helper conference calls. They are:
Friday, Oct 16, 09:00 - 10:00 CEST
Monday, Oct 19, 15:00 - 16:00 CEST
- Right after these times are general "installation help" for all learners. If you want you could stay around for a bit and provide advice or learn from instructors and other helpers how to help with installation issues, that would start things off well.

- If you can no longer be a helper, or there are other problems, reply to this message and let us know.

We've prepared some tips for helpers, which we'll go over in the helper call, but you can go ahead and read:
https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/helper-intro/

If at any point you have questions, concerns, ideas or something else you would like us to know you can post in on our helper-hackmd : https://hackmd.io/8bLEW1nySgqRglZvbwU_zw

* the HackMD is a collaborative document (written in markdown), for now the important part to know is that you can add questions there by finding the pen symbol in the top toolbar and fill in your information under the different headers, questions and such you can write under the ##Helper questions header.

Best regards
Your CodeRefinery team

You registered as a "{}" (if on a team, the team is "{}").
You can view your registration details on this page:
{link}

## Icebreaker

Why did you become a helper?

- This is a very difficult question... I dunno, I like to help...? Gives meaning to life? :) ([name=enrico], btw I have to leave at xx:30)
- I am TA in a data science course that starts the 4th of November and this is code refinery workshop is part of the preparation for the students. [name=Evelien]
- I am teaching a part and it is a good learning experience. [name=Jens]
- I am in charge of a small team tasked with developing a new software library and as a team we could benefit from learning to use collaborative dev tools, so I reached out to CodeRefinery. [name=Jakob]
- I want to learn how the Code Refinery worskhops are run. We are going to run Code Refinery Workshops at the Netherlands eScience Center. [name=Mateusz]
- There will be a winter school for which I will be an assistant and we encouraged our participants to join this workshop as we will use a lot of tools that will be discussed here. [name=Matthias]
- I enjoy supporting people in learning new (and important!) software skills. [name=Barbara]
- Same reason as Richard :) I want to teach these things to my collegues, and it is more efficient to teach together. [name=Jarno]
- Teaching at a personal level is the nicest thing ever. [name=Johan]
- I have some knowledge in Git and python and I drew the shortest straw among my colleagues. [name=Simoneta]
- I have experience with Git, and I enjoy sharing knowledge. [name=Matthew]
- I'm interested in the Code Refinery material and how the workshops run [name=Kees]
- Some of my colleagues are going to attend the workshop, and since I did it once I though it'd be nice to be a helper. It would also refresh my memory of things that I don't work with regularly[name=Ingrid]
- teaching is the best way of learning [name=Susan]
- I'm a Carpentries instructor and getting involved in coderefinery seems a good way to step up my game. Is a great way to acquire teaching skills [name=Raúl]
- As an RSE I am involved in supporting researchers, being a helper is good training for this. [name=Maurits]

- Interested in helping people to improve their software development skills and implement FAIR software through a collaborative workshop like this, while also learning myself. I enjoy teaching and believe it is the best way to learn. [name=Niket]

## Links

https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/helper-intro/
https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/helping-and-teaching/
https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/breakout-rooms-helping/#breakout-helpers

## Helper questions

You can ask helping related questions and concerns here or in the workshops hackMD. You can also share some questions you got, that would be good to be covered during the lesson in the future. Or if some more information/background is needed on some topics.

- One attendee integrated Atom as git editor but is not saving the message, not sure what to do there, any ideas? [name=Raúl] BR8
- This can be asked on main hackmd also,
- `git config --global core.editor "atom --wait"` according to https://stackoverflow.com/a/31389989
- Just asked there too, thanks
- One participant does not receive an invitation, can anyone help out? [name=Kees] BR14
-> [name=Samantha] done

## Feedback collection

Please give us also helper related feedback.

We are interested in eg
did you feel well prepared for the workshop (if not let us know what we should cover more in the preparation meeting)?,
how did it go in your breakoutroom (was it very active/quiet/friendly/one person asking a lot/everyone discussing/etc)?,
most common questions,
anything you did not like?,
anything you did like a lot?,
tipps for future helpers?,
anecdotes from the breakoutrooms?

This section will be open the whole workshop duration. So feel free to add and edit whenever you have time :)

___________
please write your question above this line