Address accessibility/universal design in the lesson

[libcce]

Watch Carli Spina talk on Universal Design for Learning and determine if there are common issues/improvements to address in the lesson.

Universal Design for Learning
In this Carpentries in Libraries community call, Carli Spina talks about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). She provides an overview of UDL and examples of how it can be applied to Carpentries lessons.
Slides: https://github.com/LibraryCarpentry/governance/blob/master/community-calls/2019-03-07-Spina-UDL.pdf
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56rhFeU5-Ig&feature=youtu.be

[kmiller621]

After viewing Carli's talk and taking some UX design classes with her and other instructors, I have some suggestions for improvements for this lesson:

1. Keep the goals and objectives front and center

In Episode 1, there is not a clear objective for why librarians of all skillsets should learn regex. The objective is not clear and nor is it entirely accurate:

Use regular expressions in searches

"Searches" from a librarian standpoint means a whole lot of things. Suggest something like:

Learn how to use common regular expression characters to find text or value matches

Also: There is a small paragraph right before the group exercise in Episode 1 "This logic is useful when you have..." that contextualizes why librarians would learn regex. This should be moved up to near the start of the teaching portion.

2. Visualizations to help comprehension

In Episode 1, the idea of pattern matching is introduced. That is a visual term, so I think there needs to be a visualization of what regex is right at the start of the teaching portion. Here is an example that can be used with attribution.

Alternatively, we could include the regexper visual of the very first exercise.

3. Accessible to everyone

The prerequisites for this class state that a computer is not needed, but all the exercises in Episode 2 require a computer. Are these Episode 2 exercises meant to be done by the instructor with everyone watching? It is unclear from the instructions.

4. How to apply this beyond the lesson

There are some great use-cases at the bottom of this ACRL Tech Connect post. These use cases or others collected by those who have taught/taken this course would be a great addition to the teaching portion and provide context.

[libcce]

This is amazing @kmiller621 🚀 All of your advice is 👍For 2 I’d say the latter option of using a visual with regexpr is best. For 3 I believe the original intent of the lesson was to do Regex exercises with pencil and paper but then it does have the later exercises using something like regexpr so you do need a computer. That language needs to be updated. For 4 it would be great to add this link as a resource. Please do put in these changes as pull requests. Great suggestions!!!

[sharilaster]

I've merged #165. Are there other planned pull requests for this issue?

[Libraryan-prog]

Hi everyone,
Under lesson part 2, https://librarycarpentry.org/lc-data-intro/02-match-extract-strings/index.htmlI think Regex101.com could do with more explanation on what it is and what it does for the novice learner. Here's the description from the Twitter profile, "Free PCRE-based regular expression debugger with real time explanation, error detection and highlighting." I'd like the lesson step to read "For this exercise, open a browser and go to https://regex101.com. Regex101.com is a free regular expression debugger with real time explanation, error detection, and highlighting."

[sharilaster]

Thanks, @Libraryan-prog! I've opened #174 with this suggestion for the maintainer team to review.

[jeboden]

"1. Keep the goals and objectives front and center" Thank you, @kmiller621 I was wondering if this lesson could include more practical examples that would be easily grasped by librarians. The Google Sheets exercise is good. There could be an example using MarcEdit for example. Or also Notepad++