GOSG has Changed Time and Place!

Girl's Open-Source Coding Group has moved to the University of Oregon!  We are now in collaboration with the UO Women in Computer Science, working on our girl-driven projects.

Beginning last week, we started meeting at 6:00pm, giving us more time to get into a groove before the younger ones have to head home to bed. Join us at this new time and help get our product launched.

Plugging Away!

Kangaroo Mail has a logo, thanks to our friend and open-source coder Kaylee Thomas. Kaylee provided an outline of a kangaroo mother sharing email with an excited daughter. We took her logo, colored it up and added it to our KangarooMail program. Thank you Kaylee!

If you want to contribute to the Girls' Open-Source Group, please come see us on Wednesdays at 6:30pm at Thinkersmith. We're eagerly working away!

Still going...with STYLE!

We're on a steady tromp now with our design mission.  We've been diligently working on our style sheets and images for the index page.  Wanna see what we have so far? Come on in to Open Source Group this week.  We hope to have enough to upload to the live site soon!

Logging IN

What does it take to build a login screen?  A couple of us learned last night!  After drawing out what we wanted the login page to look like, we decided to start adapting the style sheet.  There are a few elements that still need to be put together (a background image, the digital logo, and the table border) but we have a firm heading and are excited to move forward.

Next week, we hope to code up the entire login page and get started on adding Kangaroo Mail functionality.  Who's in??

Reaching Out

We've been so lucky to have new members of the community coming to share in our Girls' Open Source Group.  Last Wednesday was a lot of fun as we saw the introduction of some enthusiastic participants.  We'd love to keep that magic going this week.

While we were happy to help get new people rolling, we also faced a few challenges:

1) The web chat was one-to-one and did not allow the whole group to see what was going on.
2) There was no means for remote participants to easily work on code with attendees.
3) With only one "veteran," it took a while to get help when someone got stuck.
 We've taken action where possible to make next Wednesday's experience even more beneficial.  Firstly, there is now a page that encourages girls to get prepared for GOSG.  This can be used either the day before group or as a guide to activities for the first day you attend.

Next, we've integrated a new chat system where discussions are not only instant and inclusive, but the chat log hangs around after logout so that people can refer back to conversations they may have missed.

We've installed TeamViewer as a way of allowing participants to remotely share a desktop and work together on code.  This program allows for separate chats and video sessions so groups can break out to work on specific projects together.

We are also looking into a ticketing system for questions, but the purpose of Wednesday GOSG groups is not to have a "group leader" type scenario, but to have students feel safe in seeking out solutions on their own.  We want to encourage people not to shut down when they get stuck, but to see it as a learning opportunity and use the resources available to them (books, web search, exploration) to solve the hurdles that they encounter. 

We hope to have more "experts" in the coming weeks, but please don't let that stop the new comers!  We're happy to have you all.

Getting Boxed-In

We're currently working on making the login box for Kangaroo Mail. After this step is done, anybody with a gmail account will be able to display certain emails on the mail.kangaroomail.org page by tagging them with "KANGAROOMAIL." 

This is just the first step in making a functional parent/child email program, but it's an encouraging one!

Now We're Hopping!

Well, that didn't take long!  After spending a good portion of yesterday's meeting getting Subclipse integrated, we finally pulled the code down from the repository and were on our way toward making changes.  We were able to get the code to pull all of our email with the label KANGAROOMAIL.  Now, we just have a few more items to implement (based on the GUI drawings from one of our GOSG girls) and we'll be there. 

This has been a relatively simple project in terms of implementation so far, but PHP does not seem to hold the interest of the young ones.  Based on the reactions we're getting this go 'round, we may want to alternate between projects that require "code" and projects that can be done in a more graphical way, like Scratch or Flash.