How good are we as a community at learning from each other?

[samthetechie]

How easy is it for one member to explain or show something to another
member e.g. teaching or coaching some practical or technical skill?

*Workshops*
Does everyone know about the workshops section of the wiki?
http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Workshops#Workshops_Requested
http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Workshops#Workshops_offered

*Death by Lecturing*
I believe it is fair to claim that knowledge retention of experimental
learning and teaching others is far higher that reading or lectures.
Do workshops feel like lectures? Maybe workshops are not the only
method?

*Another way?*
Here are some things that I have heard about or seen working at other
hackspaces:
-lightning show and tell sessions e.g. on Tuesday nights?
-round tables (e.g. https://community.c-base.org/event/android-stammtisch)
-demo videos (e.g. how to use the makerbot safely)

*Stand back I am going to try science!*
-what about the good old experiment? Think school chemistry
experiments.

*Blogging*
How do we communicate what we have done to the outside world?
Does everyone actually know about the London Hackspace blog? It seems
awfully quiet over there.
http://blog.london.hackspace.org.uk/

[phil jones]

Thanks for reminding us of the workshops pages. I've taken the liberty
of adding an extra column to the table, into which those offering
courses can paste Doodle (or equivalent) links . Hoping that this may
just inject a bit more energy into the process of making these
workshops happen. Ie. when offering a course add some potential dates.

Personally I think that the "problems" with lectures are over-hyped.
Sure, they're not perfect, but they've demonstrably been "good enough"
for generations of students. I'll bet that if we have problems with
workshops it's people finding the time to fit them into their
schedules, having free space / equipment etc. not that we're giving
them but attendees are falling asleep because the format is too
boring.

I would, though, like to suggest we also have "study groups". A study
group may be different from a workshop in that no one claims the
expert / leader status. Perhaps this would encourage people who just
want to find others to start learning with, but are afraid to offer an
official "course".

phil

[phil jones]

Also, I can't help noticing that things like the UAV workshop and the
Bitcoin session are not on that workshops page. Any reason why not?
Can we remind people who offer workshops / schedule them into the
calendar, to add them to that page so we have a single place to find
out what's available?

phil

[SheraDreaming]

Sam, I don't have much to contribute to this but I just wanted to let
you know my total approval at this train of thought and excitement at
what may come out of it.

Lectures are ok sure, but interactivity is the gold standard...and
anything that lets us learn off-site is hugely useful as well, in my
opinion. There's not a lot of that right now.

S.

[h4rrydog]

Totally agree, Sam! Thx for starting this discussion thread. 

Perhaps, along the train of thought of all the other folks here, having a few more "study" groups, open spaces/unconferences, or even topical hackathons on a regular basis might be cool. Even if it's just scheduled hacking times where we all agree and sign up to show up, have pizza / drinks and do some making of stuff together... perhaps reduces the friction associated with trying something new / seemingly hard / [insert excuse here]. :) 

Sometimes it takes a quorum of like-minded people to get enough momentum to do something. And if not, at least it will be fun to hang out together.

[samthetechie]

Nice. That is a really good idea. Doodle is perfect for that because
once an event like that has some modicum of critical mass it is
perhaps worth putting it on the main calendar. :D

> > -round tables (e.g.https://community.c-base.org/event/android-stammtisch)

[samthetechie]

Thanks for the encouragement! More to follow. Don't forget show and
tell is tonight!

[samthetechie]

I have a study group with two other guys learning python at the
moment. We are using MIT's OCW: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm as a
resource. It is fantastic and I would highly recommend it. I may
suggest to the group that we use the wiki to co-ordinate our efforts
or make it easier for others to do what we are doing.

Sam