Mentoring new programmers

[Angus Gratton]

Hi,

We've been contacted by Jason via email and twitter. He's starting out
with web development and iOS development and is wondering about the
possibility of finding someone to mentor him in either/both fields.

Is anyone keen to do some occasional mentoring, or have advice on
where he might turn? I can put you in touch.

I was thinking this kind of need could be well met if we were to start
holding regular learner's meetups, as has been discussed in the past.


Angus

[Lilly Ryan]

I agree, regular meetups need to happen, and would be an excellent way to solve Jason's problem. Do we have enough resources to run these once a week? If not, once a fortnight? I'm thinking we will need at least two OTS representatives (either organisers or coaches) at each meet for this to be effective.

These could be hosted at the ThoughtWorks office on Collins St, I think - I'll start asking questions there today and see what they might be able to do for us, and what facilities are available. What do you all think about this?

Angus

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OpenTechSchool Australia Discussions" group.
To post to this group, send email to discuss....@opentechschool.org.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/a/opentechschool.org/d/optout.

[Angus Gratton]

Thoughtworks sounds great to me, thanks Lilly!

I think I can commit to fortnightly, weekly might be a
stretch. Weekday evenings?

Angus

[Lilly Ryan]

Okay, fortnightly sounds manageable. Weekday evenings would be best if we have a CBD location, and perhaps we could come to some arrangement about providing dinner (pizza or something) to allow the meetings to run later. There's a drinks fridge at the TW office, so I'll see if that will also be available to us, and what the deal is with wifi etc.

[Jason Ona]

Wow! this would be awesome!  Y'all are great.

[Lilly Ryan]

Good news, everyone (she said in a Professor Farnsworth voice),

We have a CBD venue for our fortnightly learners' meets - ThoughtWorks have very kindly allowed us the use of their office on Collins St after hours, as well as the use of their drinks fridge and the means to acquire some pizza. There is also guest wifi.

From a timing perspective, it looks as though Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays from about 6pm onwards would be the best nights for us to do something. (I will double-check this with the office, as they regularly host events in the evenings and we don't want to clash with too many of them.) Capacity shouldn't be an issue unless it turns out to be more than 40 people, but I don't expect we'll get that sort of attendance at least for the first few. I thought it might be worth trying these sessions for two or three months to see whether they're popular or useful, and reassess after six sessions. Any other ideas?

From a logistics perspective, we will need to have at least one ThoughtWorks person there with us for the session to let people in and keep an eye on the office and so on. This can be me, but I will have to arrange a proxy if I'm unable to attend for whatever reason. I'd also like to open the invitation up to the wider ThoughtWorks community to come along as both coaches and learners, as the vast majority of them are experienced developers and/or are constantly learning new things. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Let me know!

Lilly

[Angus Gratton]

Hi Lilly,

Wow! My thoughts on this are that it all sounds absolutely splendid. I
think a six session trial period is a good idea, long enough to get
things rolling and then look back and rejig as necessary.

If size becomes an issue we can probably limit numbers with Meetup as
well, after we work out how much of an attrition factor to account
for.

My personal vote would be for Monday, I'm a host for the Circuit & PCB
Design night at the hackerspace on first and third Thursdays so my
Thursday availability would be fiddly. I understand everyone will be
busy though, and I'd be able to make some of the sessions on any of
the available days.

Thanks for all your efforts with this. Exciting!

I also spoke to another potential sponsor last week, who offered us
potentially space and also potentially sponsorship of food. It sounds
like that's all now covered by ThoughtWorks (yay!) but it's
potentially available if we find a use for it.

(To digress a bit, we could also ask this other sponsor about
sponsoring other things instead. Hardware for an Arduino workshop
crossed my mind but would still need a lot of organising.)

- Angus

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to discuss.austra...@opentechschool.org.

[Lilly Ryan]

That's great! It would be good to see if we can get additional sponsorship. I know that as long as the event remains small (e.g. 10-15 people each time), ThoughtWorks is happy to sponsor the food and drink, but we will probably need to seek extra sponsorship for that if it gets any bigger.

Hardware sponsorship would also be a good idea! Given who we have on board here in Melbourne, it would make sense for us to run a few of those kinds of workshops if we are able to. Feel free to bring something along for the learners' meets, too! If people have asked all their questions, at least they can have a play around. I can bring my RasPi and MakeyMakey as well.

Monday nights work for me as well.

[Steven Farlie]

Apologies for the late reply.

Thank you Lilly for organising the meetup and congratulations on surviving your induction to ThoughtWorks ;)

I can't commit to regular weeknights these days but I will say it's a great idea! Breaking it down to a six-week trial (or potential six-week seasons?) is pure genius. Best of luck.