RE: Why would students use gemini?

2023-09-05

This is an update to my original post asking for help in a course I'm teaching on web technologies, collaboration and the internet to undergrad Computer Science students.

Why would students use gemini?

Thanks to everyone that emailed or posted a response.

I'm collecting the responses here:

Response posts

Apologies for my short summaries. Visit the links for the full (and more nuanced and considered) posts.

If I've missed a post and you notice, please let me know.

sol writes on silicate sediments about their experience as a recent college grad that they were attracted to gemini as a 'chill place with low stakes.' They can post, create a simple home space that links to material they read, and they engage with people of a different demographic than they're used to. They also write about 'nostalgia' as a thing Gen-Z is attracted to, list some suggested capsules, and covering web / technology history might be a good lead in, as well as 'going against the grain and {embracing old stuff}'

on eph's gemlog (another recently graduated student) they write about teaching gemini as a 'toy protocol to understand the basics of networking and as a model for very simple and fast software'

on Dwemerartefakte their post suggests showing Lagrange on mobile, stress the non-commercial aspect of Gemini, use web proxies, show ansi/ascii art, run off a SBC

jecxjo writes about the lack of monetization and 'flashiness' of Gemini contributing to not making Gemini particularly compelling for students. He states that Gemini and the smolnet likely won't become 'popular' media.

Comments received via email

Thanks to everyone that emailed me with suggestions. Condensed summaries are below:

• Received a suggestion from Martin about showing off different gemini clients and configurations and having students pick their favorite way of viewing and interacting

• Tracker wrote about the advantage of Gemini lies in its simplicity of writing a server or client and suggested having students build those. Tracker also wrote about the security model as a teaching tool and suggested a collaborative wiki could be built by students on Gemini, which is a neat idea.

• Sandra also thinks building a gemini client could be a fun project and learning Gemini as a 'toy' version of the web

Next steps

Thanks so much to everyone that wrote or posted a response. This is super helpful. I'm still working on my lesson plans now but I do think a multi-week thing where I introduce Gemini, look at example capsules, 'social sites' like Bubble or how Antenna works, pick a client and customize it, and the spec will be in the first session. The next session perhaps we will try to implement building a client together. I appreciate the framing suggestions as well. I hope to be able to post more in a month or two with some follow-up on how it goes.

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