Assuming you've read the article on How To Join A Live Dojo Lesson and you have participated in at least three live dojo sessions, you might be ready to step into a moderator capacity and become a Dojo Skyperator. Do you have a desire to lead? Can you moderate a conference call? Are you good at re-phrasing questions about Drupal? Take the following test and see...
- Have you downloaded the latest version of Skype for your platform? Yes or No
- A qualified Dojo moderator will be equipped with the sharpest weapons. You need to be sure you have checked for the newest version within the last seven days. Skype sometimes rolls out bugfixes in their point-releases that you need before you host a Skypecast. This is especially true if you run Linux. (You can also update Skype for Linux using apt-get)
- Your newly created Skypecast has all the correct info, Yes?
- When you create a Skypecast for the dojo lesson, be sure you enter the correct info into the fields, or people won't be able to find it.
- - You already know that when you name the new Skypecast with a subject, it has to be worded exactly. Using "Drupal Dojo lesson 00 Example Lesson Title Goes Here" as the subject ensures that everyone can find the Skypecast with a minimum of effort. Of course, the lesson number and subject will change each week, but since it's posted on the drupaldojo.com/lessons page, you won't have any trouble getting this part of the process correct.
- - The 'short description' field is not necessary for our weekly lessons.
- - Choose 'English' as the primary language.
- - The 'type' field should be set to 'public'. We now set this to 'private' in order to avoid all the Skype spammers. The only downside is that our webavant.com/dojo1 page won't display the Skypecast in the bottom right corner. The webavant.com direct VNC page, however, will still work just fine.
- - The 'keywords' and the 'picture' fields are yours to decorate as you see fit. (We recommend the use of at least these three tags: "drupal, drupal dojo, lesson 00")
- - 'Related web address' should always be http://drupaldojo.com/lessons/
- Did you schedule the Skypecast for the proper timezone? Yes or No
- Ok, that was a trick question. If you answered No, you should realize that no matter what timezone you're in, when you create a Skypecast for the dojo lesson, it should start 30 minutes before the lesson is scheduled to begin. You already know that the lesson countdown is on our drupaldojo.com/lessons page, and the countdown timer will hit 00:00:00 at the same moment worldwide. See, we told you it was a trick question. Just make sure you've scheduled your Skypecast to begin 30 minutes prior to the start of the lesson in your own timezone. The rest of the world will be along in half an hour to join you.
- By the way, it goes without saying that you need to schedule the Skypecast for a duration of four hours. The typical dojo lesson is held in two 1-hour blocks. Since you scheduled the Skypecast to start 30 minutes early, and the lesson typically takes 2 hours, a four-hour window gives padding time to those long-winded sensei who teach and teach and teach... No, the Skypecast won't kick everybody out when the duration expires, but it does lock out new attendees after the session time ends.
- You dialed into Skype so you could become the moderator, right?
- One of the hardest things to comprehend is how Skype figures out who's moderating the call. Have no fear, little sifu, for we shall reveal the secret to you now. It's you. Skype knows it's you because you logged into your Skype account. Once you're logged in and you've joined the Skypecast-in-progress, you become the moderator. Err, the Skyperator.
- Is your mute button working? Yes or No
- One of the more important tasks a Skyperator performs is muting all parties except the sensei who's teaching the lesson. There's an art to using the mute button effectively, so pay attention to the people who've just joined the room. Mute them as they come in, and you will avoid such unpleasantries as crosstalk, echo, background chatter, and crying babies, and random humming. As you are now the Skyperator for 75 people who are trying to learn, should you hear any of the above noises, look to the mute button. Someone's causing that annoying racket!
- Are you watching the IRC channel for questions Yes or No
- Most of the time, the participants, or dojii, don't have any questions to ask the sensei because the teaching is just that good. On the off-chance that someone brings forth a question, it will be prefaced with the phrase "QUESTION: Why is the sky blue today?". If you're good with IRC, you might want to make the QUESTION: string ping you. Sometimes it's hard to follow the lesson in the VNC window, watch the Skypecast's mute buttons, and still read all the chat in IRC. Having a ping setup for QUESTIONS: is the only way to go. The sensei won't respond to IRC chatter because they've turned off their ping feature in order to teach. It's up to you to interrupt the Skypecast with questions posed by IRC.
- When you get a question for the teacher, pick an appropriate time to interrupt the sensei's flow, then say it out loud for the class. This does three things for the class. First, it alerts the teacher that they have questions. Second, it gets the question audibly recorded into the screencast for later download. Third, it summarizes the question for the entire class. Sometimes, people reading along in IRC don't really understand what the question meant, so when they hear the teacher's answer, they still have no idea what's being discussed.
- - If you don't know what the question meant, but you think you might understand it with some clarification, go ahead and ask the dojii to re-state their question more clearly. On the other hand, if you clearly don't get it, it's OK to just break in on Skype and tell the teacher to look at IRC. Yes, you can host a skypecast without knowing everything there is to know about Drupal.
- Are you available until the end of the lesson? Yes or Yes
- You can't leave. Not even to use the bathroom or take your dog outside. The only way the dojo format works is if all the participants can follow along with ease. You are the facilitator of a clearly defined training time, and the assurance of a great screencast recording. If you don't do your job from start to finish, people will become lost, audio gremlins will eat the internet's tubes, and the sensei will end up teaching themselves for 10 minutes because the VNC video feed froze and you were the only person who could have told them about it.
- Do you have music chosen for pre-show, intermission, and the outro bumper?
- There's no right or wrong answer to this one, because we haven't yet written the book on how to play iTunes through Skype. We will, however, because now that we have figured out how to do it, it's going to make our weekly recorded lessons just that much cooler.
How did you score?
The great news is, you can't fail this test. In fact, if you got even one question right, you might be ready to host your first lesson! To volunteer for an upcoming training, send an email to josh_k and let him know about your newly acquired mad skillz.
You'll be glad you did.