The Third Bit » Announcements

Slide Drive

Greg Wilson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:44:20 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that Jeremy Banks has been accepted by Google Summer of Code 2012 to work on Slide Drive, a web-native presentation tool. You can follow Jeremy’s progress on his blog.

Sloan Foundation Grant for Software Carpentry

Greg Wilson — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:18:21 +0000

I’m very pleased to announce that the Sloan Foundation has generously agreed to fund six months of work by Software Carpentry and the Mozilla Foundation. You can read more on the Software Carpentry blog; it’s going to be a lot of work, but I’m looking forward to it.

How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students

Greg Wilson — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:49:52 +0000

I will be running a P2PU course starting in January on teaching free-range learners how to program and build stuff on the web. The blurb is below; anyone who wants to can sign up to follow along or take part (we expect it will require 3-4 hours/week from mid-January to some time in April). I’m not an expert on these subjects by any means, but I’ve learned a few things from running Software Carpentry that I think are worth sharing, and hope that this course will give me a chance to learn more. (Note that I’m primarily interested in how to teach adults outside traditional classroom settings, so that will be the course’s initial focus, but its long-term direction will depend on the interests of participants.)

How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students

What do we know about how novices learn webcraft and programming, why do we believe it, and how can we apply that knowledge to free-range learners?

Right now, people all over the world are learning how to write programs and create web sites, but or every one who is doing it in a classroom there are a dozen free-range learners. This group will focus on how we, as mentors, can best help them. Topics will include:

What does research tell us about how people learn?
Why are the demographics of programming so unbalanced?
What best practices in instructional design are relevant to free-range learners?
What skills do people need in order to bake their own web?
How are grassroots groups trying to teach these things now?
What’s working and what isn’t?

Research Without Walls

Greg Wilson — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:01:17 +0000

I just signed the “Research Without Walls” pledge: effective today,I will assist in the peer review process (as a reviewer, board/committee member, chair, editor, etc.) only for conferences, journals, and other publication venues that make all accepted publications available to the public for free via the web. If you believe that sharing ideas is the heart and soul of science, please sign up as well.

D Is For Digital

Greg Wilson — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:36:09 +0000

Brian Kernighan, whose books on C, Unix, and programming design shaped the thinking of an entire generation of software developers, has a new book out called D Is For Digital: What a well-informed person should know about computers and communications. I’ve spent 20 years trying to write like him; very excited to get my copy. Equally excited that he has gone with a print-on-demand publisher rather than one of the big players: it’s a sign of the times…

Ladies Learning Code #2: HTML and CSS on Sept 24

Greg Wilson — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:44:48 +0000

Announcing Workshop #2: HTML & CSS for Absolute Beginners – Brought to you by Ladies Learning Code and the Yorkville Media Centre

On September 24th, join us for our second Ladies Learning Code workshop as we tackle HTML & CSS with help from the Yorkville Media Centre. Mark and Liane will be leading us, and in total, you’ll enjoy the company of 20 developers dedicated to helping you learn some awesome new skills.

Team!

Greg Wilson — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:58:31 +0000

It’s just a week ’til the first Ladies Learning Code workshop in Toronto, and the list of instructors is pretty impressive. Thanks in advance to:

Pearl Chen
Crystal Preston-Watson
Mike Conley
Gavin Lobo
Jay Goldman
Phyliss Lee
Christina Truong
Laurie MacDougall Sookraj
Svetiana Kolupaeva
Monika Piotrowicz
Melissa Luu
Emir Hasanbegovic
John Lim

and of course to Heather Payne, Amrita Mathur, and everyone else who pulled it together. W00t!

On the same day (August 6), a much smaller group will be having a learn-in at Mozilla’s Toronto offices, where Zuzel Vera will get us up to speed with Lernanta development. If you’re interested in Python web programming, Django, and online education, there’s still space to join us, and you can sign up online.

Ladies Learning Code: JavaScript (Toronto, August 6)

Greg Wilson — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:03:18 +0000

The title says it all: the first Ladies Learning Code workshop on Saturday, August 6, at the Centre for Social Innovation in downtown Toronto will be an introduction to JavaScript. Women and friends alike are welcome, and if you’d like to help teach, they’d like to hear from you.

Learning Lernanta: August 6

Greg Wilson — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:13:14 +0000

Following up on Wednesday’s post, it looks like Saturday, August 6, is a better day for a Lernanta code-in than July 23. Four people have said they’re interested in learning about GitHub, Django, jQuery, and Lernanta itself—if you’re in Toronto, and would like to join us, please give me a shout or sign up at Meetup.com.

And if you’re an intermediate-to-expert Javascript programmer, and would be willing to do some teaching that day to another group of people for a very good cause, please email me as well.

Learning Lernanta

Greg Wilson — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:17:33 +0000

Lernanta is the web application that powers p2pu.org, the peer-to-peer university project backed by Mozilla. On Saturday, July 23, Zuzel Vera Pacheco (its lead developer) and I will be running a one-day code-in for people who’d like to get up to speed with it, and with all the nifty things it’s built on top of: Django, jQuery, GitHub, and more. (Note: I sort of know a bit about Django, but I’m a jQuery and GitHub newbie, so I’ll be asking questions, not answering them…) The venue is still to be determined, but will be somewhere in downtown Toronto. Attendance is free, but some prior experience with Python web programming is a must. If you’re interested, please email me.