Supporting management of teaching material with org-mode
Table of Contents
This file is README.org
and is best viewed in org-mode in Emacs… go git clone ;-)
1 Goal
This repository contains an example of how to manage some source files of teaching material, using org-mode in Emacs.
It uses org-reveal in addition to the standard LaTeX exporter.
2 Home of the project
The project sources are available in https://gitlab.com/olberger/org-teaching
See the generated documents at the Gitlab pages (generated from CI) :
A more or less up to date snapshot may be found at http://www-public.tem-tsp.eu/~bergero/org-teaching/
3 Testing it
See the contents of the files under Emacs, equipped with org-mode.
Checkout the docker/ tools which should allow reproducible exports (including org-reveal).
Pay attention to the git submodules contents to retrieve elisp/org-reveal and reveal.js.
Then, RTFM in the following documents:
See the generated files (note that these links may be best viewed in Emacs from a local clone of the Git repo, as Gitlab may not provide the best experience):
- slides in: ./slides.html (an additional variant is a regular HTML export in ./lesson.html; another is "printed slides" in PDF)
- the handbook for the students: ./handbook.pdf
- the handbook for the teachers: ./teacher-handbook.pdf
All these are generated from the corresponding .org
files, which all
include the common lesson content from ./lesson.html
4 Features
The following features are provided:
4.1 Single source
A single org-mode source file contains the core of the lesson including listings and/or executable bits managed with org-babel or other classical org-mode features.
This single file is meant for editing, and the rest of the files provide the framework for generating the different outputs described below.
4.2 Teaching to the audience with a slides deck
We deliver the course by presenting a slides deck for each lesson, using reveal.js. Reveal.js displays slides as Web pages (using the Web browser in fullscreen mode) with a 2-dimensional structure of slides allowing the presentation of a main track of slides (horizontal ones), and additional slides (vertical ones), if need is, to dive into more details on a specific section of the lesson (typically for Q/A). Reveal.js also offers support for a "presentation mode" allowing the use of multiple displays so that the presenter can read additional notes. I've chose to "tune down" reveal.js to avoid fancy 3D animations, and stick to a more sober display, but YMMV.
4.3 Providing a reference handbook to students
The content of the presentation is also rendered as a handbook which is provided to the students. It contains the same things as the slides deck, where presenter notes are embedded in the document.
This handbook is rendered with LaTeX as an "article" A4 PDF.
4.4 Providing additional material to teachers
An additional document is produced which contains the same stuff as the students handbook, but also embeds additional sections meant to be read only by the teachers.
5 History
I've been teaching a course on Web architecture and applications (CSC4101) at Telecom SudParis and wanted to manage the sources for the different teaching materials using org-mode.
Org-mode allows me to save the sources of documents in a revision control system (typically Git), as it's based on plain text.
It also allow the generation of different documents for different uses or audiances from a single source.
As I was teaching Web stuff, I also wanted to drink my own champagne using as much Web as I could (i.e. HTML).
6 Copyright & license
This content is provided under the clauses of the MIT License, unless otherwise specified.
Copyright (c) 2016-2018 Olivier Berger and Institut Mines Telecom
[See also the LICENSE file].
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.