Half a year ago, a group of 8 students led by me began designing and creating an open site site for publishing real estate listings. Another 1 student received the task to write a clone of the finished site. I'll tell you how it ended.


Descriptions of the beginning and middle of the events described here and here .

Goals

What goals did I set:
1. Teaching students
Everyone had to grow above themselves. The peculiarity of the situation is that I got 9 of the best from the stream - undergraduates, who have a direct road to graduate school with due diligence.
A special role was assigned to me by the head of the number of students - the coordinator. It was one of the most capable and organized, which had to be “responsible for everything”, as in real projects.
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2. Running in technology
I wanted to get an answer to the questions:
- can this be done or not?
- If so, what does this give participants? Is the game worth the candle?
- If not, whose fault is it? My? Coordinator (read team leader) or performers?
- Do we need a version control system, a bugtracker, a discussion channel? forum?
- what is the optimal group size? who and how it should be selected / allowed?
3. Getting a working prototype
It was important to get at least one system, entirely written by students, for further development and launch.
I wanted to learn how to learn php + mysql + web technologies in general + any framework = trained students + project.

Total

The problems that I mentioned in the previous topic, namely the inability to organize work in a team, the extremely low level of knowledge of web technologies, OOP and readiness to learn, demonstrated by the majority of participants, have only worsened over time. As a result, the project was implemented in the state “the site is made, but nothing works”.

Reference: Volgometer

Results (by objectives)

1. Training
Everyone grew up. Especially, I suppose, this applies to those who encoded, who installed and who led. A person who has mastered the beginnings of ajax is also worthy of respect. Of course, there were those who rode “on a quiet wave”, but it was everyone’s choice. This goal, I believe, is achieved.

2. Technology
Break in technology was only partially.
- You can do this, but only with small groups, with high qualifications, a clear desire to work on the part of students, prepared TK in advance, and a detailed distribution of duties. All this we lacked.
- my fault in the failure of the project as a working site is also there, and it is considerable. I see it first of all in the absence of a systematic lecture presentation of all the material that they might need. Secondly, this is a reassessment of student strength. Most of the time they were in the “organizational tupnyak”, simply not understanding from what end to gnaw a task. Coordinator, by the way, was chosen correctly, he is 50% and provided at least the appearance of such a result.
- necessarily need a means of team development sites. Frankly, I am not ready to make such a choice now, but it is necessary for organizing teamwork. As a means of communication is quite enough project forum.
- optimal group size: 1-2 or 4-5 people for large tasks. 8 is a lot.

3. Project
A working prototype did not arise.
There was something that did not even want to touch. No standards for coding, design, security, and team development were observed in the last week before delivery.

My findings and questions

I appeal to the habrasoobschestvu (since from September 1, I will conduct the same thing to 65 students of different levels):

1. Theory.
We need to prepare for systematic lecturing on the web in general, php, mysql, the basics of security and so on. I have all this material in my head, but there is simply no time for its systematization. I would be extremely grateful for the material for lectures (you know, manuals as lectures work extremely poorly).

2. Tasks.
You need to have a set of tasks from the most simple to such group projects. By the way, the task of cloning the site oscilloscop.ru , received by one student, he performed almost perfectly. Everyone would like that. I suppose it could be tasks for developing a simple element based on a ready-made framework, regressive design, cloning sites. I would be extremely grateful for the ideas.

3. Framework.
It is necessary to choose, and extremely responsibly, the basic framework for this work. Documented, simple, well-written, not necessarily fancy. Unfortunately, the range of such developments is not well known to me. I will be glad to any tips and links.

4. Means of organizing collective labor.
You need to select and implement a project teamwork tool with version tracking, bug reporting, and more. The simpler the better. I would be grateful for the advice.

Thank you for your attention and comments.

ps Honestly, there is really nothing to boast about, and I did not want to write this post. Helped the argument: "said A - say B." In addition, after 1.5 months, the same issues will have to be resolved at a completely different level.

pps All students received positive marks. The best are the coordinator, the most capable programmer and the person who made a clone of the site oscilloscop.ru alone.