Workshop #2 Survey Results
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Braulio Carreno
Nov 20, 2012, 2:40:40 PM11/20/12
to railsbr...@googlegroups.com
http://carreno.me/survey_ws2.html
Reformatted text-free answers so it's easy to read them:
What did you like the most in the workshop?
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The people there were amazing -- all of the organizers and TA's
were great. So nice and friendly and helpful. The attendees were
also very nice. Had a good overall vibe/feel to it.
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I liked how you required very little prior knowledge. Made it very
unintimidating to arrive even though I have experience programming.
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My TA!
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I liked the emphasis on rails.
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the great TA/student ratio
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very action oriented, accessible, informal, actually got something
up and running
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I like the hands on experience of building an app.
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the friendliness of course
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- Well-paced - Excellent TA:student ratio - Very generous with food,
etc. - Provided a good number of resources for ongoing learning
after the workshop
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I like how it started from very basic steps
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There were multiple components to the workshop that made it such a
success.
1. All (save for just one TA) were so encouraging, positive and
patient. My group had a range of experience levels, with me somewhere
in the middle, so I saw how well all of the TAs supported those
having trouble while also challenging those who were breezing through
the tutorials.
2. The tutorials were well written and clear (save for a few items).
3. The workshop in general was really well run and the
presenters/presentations were engaging and clear (save for the last
presentation, which seems understandable as the presenter stepped
in for someone who had to leave).
4. I loved the empowerment and encouragement that flowed through
all the coursework, marketing materials, and interactions throughout
the day. Learning to code isn't easy, and it can be particularly
intimidating as a female, but I felt extremely comfortable at the
workshop and am excited to delve into the resources in the Boston
Community.
5. Next steps such as providing a list of groups and online resources
are invaluable!
Awesome job!
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The TA:Student ratio (1:2) was amazing! There was always someone
to help at any step during the workshop, and all of the TAs were
incredibly nice, kind, and generous with their help and support.
Also, the workshop was very well paced. The availability of extra
credit ensured that students of all levels were engaged and constantly
learning without putting pressure on the beginner-level students.
I also appreciated the mix of lectures with workshop segments as
they provided a great balance for learning. The time frame (1.5
days) of the workshop was also good for the purpose, though I am
sure there is interest in a longer workshop. The snacks, meals, and
social opportunities were also well timed. I am extremely impressed
by the quality of the workshop and how welcoming all of the TAs
were.
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The ratio of TAs to students was excellent. I was never worried I
would fall behind the class and get lost. And it was a great idea
to have all the setup stuff done Friday night. The overall atmosphere
was very inviting.
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The large number of TA's were absolutely necessary since I had many
questions along the way but was always able to find someone close
by to provide support.
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the TA-student ratio
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Interactivity, many knowledgeable TAs, preparation of the course
materials (they're open source, awesome!) and friendly atmosphere.
I also very much appreciated the food and beverages provided by
sponsors.
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The TA's and laid back approach really made things fun. By the time
we got into the work it was easier to raise my hand early, because
it was established from very early on that everyone who assisted
actually wanted to work with attendees.
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People were extremely supportive and accessible.
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The explanations by Andrew.
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the format of learning ruby was really great, made it very easy to
catch on
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Project approach, working with others at a table to accomplish each
lesson. I really appreciate the fact that this was offered for free.
The instructors and tutors were nice and patient and helpful.
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The TA's were fabulous and there were enough of them that I never
felt like I had to wait to get a question answered. I also liked
the fact that the materials were super well organized and easy to
follow at your own pace.
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I liked the complete lack of judgement that the TA's exhibited when
I asked a million and one questions. That was nice, it made it
easier to ask questions I thought were stupid but needed to know
the answer to anyway.
Also,
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I liked that we could work at our own pace and had lots of people
available to answer questions. I also think I understand now why
Ruby is a superior programming language to others, and why it's a
good place for me to start (since I am not really interested in
Computer Science at all, just want to be able to know the basics
of a programming language to build some simple web apps).
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the interactive nature of it, and i loved how accessible they made
Ruby.
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the TAs super helpful
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Being able to learn the basics while moving towards a particular
goal was extremely helpful. I've taken classes in the past where
we did exercises that were completely unrelated and disjointed,
which made it difficult to see how the pieces fit together.
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I liked the exercises and how they were structured to make you
recall what you learned. Also, the timing and offer for childcare
were great! All the TAs were great too, really supportive and
encouraging.
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Personal attention from TAs, getting to meet some other awesome
women!
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The sheer quantity of TAs, so that one was pretty much always in
hail, was excellent. Also, the overall quality of the coursework
was very high, and the hands-on activities were excellent and
helpful.
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Having so many TA's really helped- it was super easy to ask questions.
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The many teaching assistants that were available to ask questions
and they could all explain everything in a very clear way.
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The support of the TAs was helpful-- I never was stuck for long.
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The step-by-step nature of the workshop, the availability and
friendliness of all the TAs
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The tutors were really helpful
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Anything we should improve in the future?
=====================================================================
While I was able to understand most of the terminology and concepts,
I know there were others that didn't have much dev experience going
in that struggled with understanding a lot of the concepts I'm
wondering if it's possible to do a big picture overview in the
beginning -- this is a terminal, this is an editor, this is what
you're going to build today, and maybe spend a little bit more time
on some of the important concepts like objects, models, etc.
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The location was awesome, but the room got really hot and loud. It
was kind of hard to concentrate with the noise.
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More breaks/group activities. Maybe a room with a window.
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More breaks. My brain was so full by the end of the day, I've had
to go back and re-visit a few things.
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give us some prep work to do in advance so we can hit the ground
running when we arrive.
it would be great to have once a month office hours on an ongoing
basis for program participants to keep learning and developing
independent projects with light guidance.
overall, I loved the program! thank you so much for putting it
together.
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it felt sometimes like it wsa just following steps instead of
understanding how things work
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Perhaps, have more one on one time with the TAs
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I have 2 suggestions: first would be a brief tutorial on using
windows command prompt.... second would be more explanation on the
prompt commands ie "rails server" starts and a small explanation
of the rake command.... hope this makes sense.
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I think it would be great if there was a way to set up more formal
continued learning after the workshop. TA's could offer some form
of office hours or there could be a way for organizing a study
group?
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I think we should program more applications.
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I think you already have an excellent recipe for success. You had
a great number of TAs who were all genuinely warm and patient and
able to communicate effectively—I think that's key.
I'd also love to stay in contact with certain people from the
workshop both TAs and other students. Perhaps a google groups?
In the future, it would be excellent to offer more workshops geared
towards those that have completed this first workshop.
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I think there is a clear demand, so having more frequent workshops
would help address the waiting list issue.
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May be worthwhile to prepare a "pre-read" document to introduce the
absolute basics beforehand and set expectations around what they
should know coming in. I would have been more inclined to do some
research beforehand and likely would have gotten more out of the
1.5 days if I had this baseline level of understanding.
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talk more about applications and give us tips for how to continue
our work beyond the class
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I believe many of us couldn't complete the whole, so instead of 1,5
days, the workshop can be 2 days. When start learning, if you can
show the screenshot etc of the outcome/end product, it would help
connecting the dots.
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Perhaps the evening of install-fest could leave a little more room
for lecture and optional hands-on work in terms of understanding
how the command line and other items work that we couldn't spend
much time on during Saturday's activities.
Also, perhaps in between lectures, a Twitter stream (or some other
hacked Ruby app) could be left open on the large screen so every
one can see questions and answers in real time as they work. I
imagine a lot of people got stuck in similar areas.
And finally-- this goes beyond the scope of what RailsBridgeBoston
workshops are for- but it would be awesome if an optional demo
session were held for those who might want to show off their work
(problems and solutions alike).
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I found Ruby on Rails quite hard, even though I had some experience
in programing with Java. I guess that it was only my first time on
Ruby, but for some reason I thought it was going to be easier.
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While the orientation did a good job giving participants a feel for
ruby on rails, I felt the approach was very "cook book" and didn't
give me a conceptual understanding to set me on a sustainable ruby
learning path.
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follow up activities for people who want to continue learning (i.e.
homework)
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More, more! It would be nice to see a few basic recipes, even if
we did not implement them as exercises. Recommendations for
authentication, patterns for some common web structures. I wanted
to learn more so that I could do more on my own project. I do realize
that the time was the limiting factor.
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The quality of the lectures were really varied. There were some
outstanding ones (the first one with the dogs sticks out) and then
some that were just completely filled were tech jargon and unclear.
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I'm not sure, I thought it was pretty good. We covered a lot of
stuff, I wasn't bored, the cookies in the lunch bags were awesome.
I kinda feel like there should have been brie.
Just kidding! All correct with me. Thanks for doing this guys!
But seriously, next time, brie.
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There is a difference between people who have programmed before and
people who have not. This workshop attempted to lump them all
together, which I think is ok, but several of the lectures were in
Japanese for those of us who have never programmed anything before.
Michael Durrant's talk on Friday and Liana Leahy's talk on Saturday
were both totally lost on me. I have no idea why the things they
were saying are important because I have never used any other
programming language and am not at the "super user" stage yet. That
time would have been better spent introducing us to the basics of
the tools you need to code, what typical workflows are for making
a web app, etc.
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perhaps an overview of how powerful ruby is - using precedent
examples of websites, apps etc done using RubyOnRails
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one more day would be great!
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While I thought the pacing was fine, I spoke with others who
suffered from "information overload" by the early afternoon on
Saturday. I'm not sure how you can improve on this, but I thought
it was worth mentioning!
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It was really hard, as someone new to web development, to have a
mental framework of what we were doing. Part of it has to do with
not having HTML or overall internet architecture understanding, and
sometimes the exercises made assumptions about what you already
know. Sometime the exercises weren't exactly clear on which
environments you were supposed to be in to do the different parts
of the exercises (ruby server, rails server, terminal). Some of the
lectures also assumed a familiarity with web architecture and web
development.
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I don't know how to start a new project that isn't the same template,
maybe start us off with a more general template for our next project
to do on our own?
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A couple of the lectures assumed a slightly higher knowledge base
than I expected to see in a beginner-only class. Just a little
more attention to basic definitions of terms would be helpful there.
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I think the lessons were structured to get you to get your app up
and running quickly, which is great. But I found myself completing
the lessons without really understanding- the explanations should
come first, then the steps to complete it. I think that would help
make the lessons stick.
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The amount of the content felt way to much and I felt rushed on
Sunday, trying to finish it all. It is good that there are extensions
in the course for the people who go faster but I think that most
of us had problems with finishing the main part of the course. I
think it would be good to make the main course smaller and add more
extensions in case some people go to fast. It feels good if you can
finish something.
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One thing that would be helpful would be if the TAs took more of a
background when helping students--I often was given the solution
rather than being taught how to determine the problem and the
solution myself (to me, the problme was "it broke" but I often
didn't know beyond that what the issue really was.
I'm not sure really how to fix this, either, but when building the
app, I felt there was little to figure out and therefore learn more
deeply--if you followed the tutorial with no typos, it would be
pretty easy to successfully build a Suggestotron with no understanding
of what you'd done.
I'm also not sure how effective all the lectures were--some of them,
including the ones introducing databases, were pretty high-level
for a course where most of the women in the room had zero programming
experience. I have some previous programming experience, but never
made it to databases, so hearing the way Ruby handles databases
compared to other languages was not helpful, since I had no frame
of reference.
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It'd be good to know how to access the libraries and continue
building other apps. I still feel like it's hard to start new
projects.
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Please comment on the mix of different activities, the curriculum,
and anything else about which you'd like to share your thoughts.
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It was great to have so many people to help us through issues,
explain concepts, etc.
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There are a couple of people in my group who I would like to tell
about the devchix Ruby study group that is getting started today,
but didn't get their emails. Not sure if everyone is cool with
sharing contact info, but might be helpful for future learning.
Loved the history of the internet from Rebecca Nesson. I feel like
it was a great into to open source community vibe, which I'm actually
only sort of aware of even though I've used open source tools before.
Thanks for the class!!
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I really liked the workshop but I kind of hit a wall around 2pm.
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The Saturday small group work did not work for me - most of the
people at my table were very friendly and helpful, but one individual
was not and distracted me from being able to work with problematic
comments not related to Ruby on Rails or the workshop. I think this
format generally works well and don't think it needs to be changed,
but having some guidelines set for dealing with conflict might be
helpful.
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I thought the flow was great. Fast paced but just short of overwhelming
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liked the team work, liked the lessons, liked the happy hour.
instructors were friendly and helpful.
didnt attend Friday, but sat was very good.
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no comments I enjoyed myself
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Overall, I think the workshop was a great introduction to Ruby on
Rails that was well-paced and well-structured. At some points, I
felt that I was copying and pasting without internalizing what I
should be learning from the activities -- I wonder if there is a
way to foster more interactive learning on the assignments between
the lectures?
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I like the mix of lectures, "assignments", socials, and food. Well
done guys
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Great work—the timing for tutorials, presentations, and meals
provided the perfect mix. I was never bored or felt abandoned. And
just as my brain was beginning to check out, we were already consuming
celebratory beers.
Thank you so much! I worked mostly with Chris Adams and two other
fellows who were incredible, so special thanks to them as well.
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I think some of the lectures went by quickly - this was likely due
to the need to stay on schedule, but I think it was hard to follow
some of the material as a result. However, I will be looking back
at the slides (which I think are posted on the website) for future
reference.
I appreciated the mix of activities between lectures, small groups,
and meals/snacks. The happy hour at the end was also a really nice
way to wrap up.
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The lectures after lunch on saturday started getting a little over
my head. It's probably because of my lack of prior programming
experience, but I just thought I'd mention it.
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Good mix of lectures / activities.
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I feel like I managed to get through everything but now I'm never
going to touch Ruby again- it would be nice if there were exercises
and tips walking us through them, to guide us beyond the class.
Maybe an interactive component for us to follow up on using Ruby a
week later.
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The workshop was very well organized-- more so than I expected,
particularly for a free offering. I came from NYC to participate
and this certainly was a good thing!
I appreciated the balance between mini-lecture and practice work.
Holding install-fest on a separate day from the hands-on work with
Ruby was a very good idea.
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Thank you very much for such a good workshop. I appreciated your
energy and enthusiasm. After drinks were also very nice and a good
opportunity to network with very interesting people.
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it was really great, would love to TA!
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The curriculum was excellent, the mix was good. I was pleased to
learn how to use GIT and Heroku and to achieve a working web site.
I would have liked to see an example of TDD but realize that there
were not enough hours. Maybe you could do a second one-day seminar
and show more in-depth examples. I would pay for an additional
seminar. It was especially good that the seminar was on a Saturday;
helpful for women with jobs and family.
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This will sound silly, but it would have been great to have a
reception afterwards that was right outside the space or upstairs
so that when/if you finished early, you could just go hang versus
needing to wait to head over to Cambridge Brewing. Or have it so
it was "OK" to go to wherever as soon as you were done. I felt
like I spent an extra hour or so just kinda hanging there.
It would also have been great to do intros at the beginning of the
students too, maybe during pizza at the install night part.
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I think anything else I really want to do is too far beyond the
scope of the class. I have little things I've wanted to build, and
I'm working on them now. Project nights within the group would be
awesome, and I see that something sorta like that is in the works,
so that's cool.
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I liked the time we had to work on our own. That's where the real
learning happened. I'm glad all the lectures were short. I do
recommend more "intro to coding" or tips for learning your first
programming language in the curriculum, which could be optional for
people who have some background in programming in another language.
Also, there was a lot of talk about being able to be hired to work
in Ruby after this workshop. That's not actually true for those
of us without any CS background, so I think you should be clearer
about who your audience is.
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really wonderful! thank you so much for opening the world of Ruby
to me. i'm psyched!
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great job!
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You guys rock! I've tried learning RoR 3 times before, using
different methods (husband-as-teacher, self-study, small class)
without success. I left this course with a project in my head and
passion in my heart. Keep up the good work!
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Mix was great and TAs were great. However, maybe it might make sense
to have something separate for those who are really new to web
development.
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I think you should have people try to install the software on their
own, or at least download the file to install (or some people) so
the wireless isn't so bogged down. Wasn't a big deal since I was
talking to some cool people, just a little frustrating.
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I think two things would improve the overall experience: - A really
excellent classroom dominatrix would be able to deflect walk-ins
and people who didn't bother to show up for the Installfest. I saw
a lot of resources going to those people throughout the morning.
- I think that eliminating male guests would also improve the class.
If you're going to provide an experience that is geared towards
women, you need to provide a women-specific environment. Otherwise,
you will have the Man in the Room problem: men will consume more
of the available resources, because they are more comfortable
demanding them, and women will deprive themselves of the resources,
because they are trained to allow more of the resources to go to
the men AND because they are accustomed to not speaking up in the
presence of men. I caught myself doing this several times during
the class, and I'm aware of the problem; imagine how many women did
not catch themselves doing it.
In addition, I noted that 2 of the 3 men at my table consumed more
TA time and resources than all the rest of us put together, and
their female hosts seemed vastly uninterested in the proceedings.
That just seemed like flat-out theft of freely offered resources.
I recognize that the TAs may not agree with this assessment. There
are, however, studies that show that in mixed environments where
observers note teachers paying *equal* attention to the genders,
the teachers always feel like they're giving extra super attention
to the women. So the impressions of the TAs may or may not be
reliable in this case. The best way around this issue is to eliminate
the mixed classroom entirely and make it single-sex, since even
with training, it is difficult to teach people to allocate attention
fairly.
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The curriculum is very well written, it explains very well and
clear! I like the presentation in between very much. The only
difficulty with that is that if you are behind schedule then they
make less sense. I would also be happy to do a weekend course,
divide the content over 2 days to feel less rushed to get everything
done and have a better preparation to go further with Ruby on rails
by yourself. I'd like to give MANY compliments about the whole
organization. It was beyond my expectations, really great!
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Please see above.
Also, I'd love to see a Beginner's II Workshop, and eventually
Intermediate level programming.
One of the things I struggle with is finding the structured time
to sit down and continue with programming. Having another follow-up
course, especially if it followed soon after the first one, would
help people make the time to keep up with their skills.
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It was great. I just wish I had a better ability to pick up my own
projects afterward. It'd be great if we got more of a framework for
starting and setting up projects that we could take with us afterward
- like on paper or in a short form online.
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Reformatted text-free answers so it's easy to read them:
What did you like the most in the workshop?
=====================================================================
The people there were amazing -- all of the organizers and TA's
were great. So nice and friendly and helpful. The attendees were
also very nice. Had a good overall vibe/feel to it.
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I liked how you required very little prior knowledge. Made it very
unintimidating to arrive even though I have experience programming.
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My TA!
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I liked the emphasis on rails.
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the great TA/student ratio
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very action oriented, accessible, informal, actually got something
up and running
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I like the hands on experience of building an app.
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the friendliness of course
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- Well-paced - Excellent TA:student ratio - Very generous with food,
etc. - Provided a good number of resources for ongoing learning
after the workshop
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I like how it started from very basic steps
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There were multiple components to the workshop that made it such a
success.
1. All (save for just one TA) were so encouraging, positive and
patient. My group had a range of experience levels, with me somewhere
in the middle, so I saw how well all of the TAs supported those
having trouble while also challenging those who were breezing through
the tutorials.
2. The tutorials were well written and clear (save for a few items).
3. The workshop in general was really well run and the
presenters/presentations were engaging and clear (save for the last
presentation, which seems understandable as the presenter stepped
in for someone who had to leave).
4. I loved the empowerment and encouragement that flowed through
all the coursework, marketing materials, and interactions throughout
the day. Learning to code isn't easy, and it can be particularly
intimidating as a female, but I felt extremely comfortable at the
workshop and am excited to delve into the resources in the Boston
Community.
5. Next steps such as providing a list of groups and online resources
are invaluable!
Awesome job!
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The TA:Student ratio (1:2) was amazing! There was always someone
to help at any step during the workshop, and all of the TAs were
incredibly nice, kind, and generous with their help and support.
Also, the workshop was very well paced. The availability of extra
credit ensured that students of all levels were engaged and constantly
learning without putting pressure on the beginner-level students.
I also appreciated the mix of lectures with workshop segments as
they provided a great balance for learning. The time frame (1.5
days) of the workshop was also good for the purpose, though I am
sure there is interest in a longer workshop. The snacks, meals, and
social opportunities were also well timed. I am extremely impressed
by the quality of the workshop and how welcoming all of the TAs
were.
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The ratio of TAs to students was excellent. I was never worried I
would fall behind the class and get lost. And it was a great idea
to have all the setup stuff done Friday night. The overall atmosphere
was very inviting.
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The large number of TA's were absolutely necessary since I had many
questions along the way but was always able to find someone close
by to provide support.
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the TA-student ratio
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Interactivity, many knowledgeable TAs, preparation of the course
materials (they're open source, awesome!) and friendly atmosphere.
I also very much appreciated the food and beverages provided by
sponsors.
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The TA's and laid back approach really made things fun. By the time
we got into the work it was easier to raise my hand early, because
it was established from very early on that everyone who assisted
actually wanted to work with attendees.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
People were extremely supportive and accessible.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The explanations by Andrew.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
the format of learning ruby was really great, made it very easy to
catch on
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Project approach, working with others at a table to accomplish each
lesson. I really appreciate the fact that this was offered for free.
The instructors and tutors were nice and patient and helpful.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The TA's were fabulous and there were enough of them that I never
felt like I had to wait to get a question answered. I also liked
the fact that the materials were super well organized and easy to
follow at your own pace.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I liked the complete lack of judgement that the TA's exhibited when
I asked a million and one questions. That was nice, it made it
easier to ask questions I thought were stupid but needed to know
the answer to anyway.
Also,
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I liked that we could work at our own pace and had lots of people
available to answer questions. I also think I understand now why
Ruby is a superior programming language to others, and why it's a
good place for me to start (since I am not really interested in
Computer Science at all, just want to be able to know the basics
of a programming language to build some simple web apps).
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the interactive nature of it, and i loved how accessible they made
Ruby.
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the TAs super helpful
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Being able to learn the basics while moving towards a particular
goal was extremely helpful. I've taken classes in the past where
we did exercises that were completely unrelated and disjointed,
which made it difficult to see how the pieces fit together.
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I liked the exercises and how they were structured to make you
recall what you learned. Also, the timing and offer for childcare
were great! All the TAs were great too, really supportive and
encouraging.
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Personal attention from TAs, getting to meet some other awesome
women!
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The sheer quantity of TAs, so that one was pretty much always in
hail, was excellent. Also, the overall quality of the coursework
was very high, and the hands-on activities were excellent and
helpful.
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Having so many TA's really helped- it was super easy to ask questions.
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The many teaching assistants that were available to ask questions
and they could all explain everything in a very clear way.
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The support of the TAs was helpful-- I never was stuck for long.
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The step-by-step nature of the workshop, the availability and
friendliness of all the TAs
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The tutors were really helpful
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Anything we should improve in the future?
=====================================================================
While I was able to understand most of the terminology and concepts,
I know there were others that didn't have much dev experience going
in that struggled with understanding a lot of the concepts I'm
wondering if it's possible to do a big picture overview in the
beginning -- this is a terminal, this is an editor, this is what
you're going to build today, and maybe spend a little bit more time
on some of the important concepts like objects, models, etc.
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The location was awesome, but the room got really hot and loud. It
was kind of hard to concentrate with the noise.
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More breaks/group activities. Maybe a room with a window.
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More breaks. My brain was so full by the end of the day, I've had
to go back and re-visit a few things.
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give us some prep work to do in advance so we can hit the ground
running when we arrive.
it would be great to have once a month office hours on an ongoing
basis for program participants to keep learning and developing
independent projects with light guidance.
overall, I loved the program! thank you so much for putting it
together.
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it felt sometimes like it wsa just following steps instead of
understanding how things work
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Perhaps, have more one on one time with the TAs
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I have 2 suggestions: first would be a brief tutorial on using
windows command prompt.... second would be more explanation on the
prompt commands ie "rails server" starts and a small explanation
of the rake command.... hope this makes sense.
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I think it would be great if there was a way to set up more formal
continued learning after the workshop. TA's could offer some form
of office hours or there could be a way for organizing a study
group?
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I think we should program more applications.
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I think you already have an excellent recipe for success. You had
a great number of TAs who were all genuinely warm and patient and
able to communicate effectively—I think that's key.
I'd also love to stay in contact with certain people from the
workshop both TAs and other students. Perhaps a google groups?
In the future, it would be excellent to offer more workshops geared
towards those that have completed this first workshop.
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I think there is a clear demand, so having more frequent workshops
would help address the waiting list issue.
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May be worthwhile to prepare a "pre-read" document to introduce the
absolute basics beforehand and set expectations around what they
should know coming in. I would have been more inclined to do some
research beforehand and likely would have gotten more out of the
1.5 days if I had this baseline level of understanding.
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talk more about applications and give us tips for how to continue
our work beyond the class
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I believe many of us couldn't complete the whole, so instead of 1,5
days, the workshop can be 2 days. When start learning, if you can
show the screenshot etc of the outcome/end product, it would help
connecting the dots.
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Perhaps the evening of install-fest could leave a little more room
for lecture and optional hands-on work in terms of understanding
how the command line and other items work that we couldn't spend
much time on during Saturday's activities.
Also, perhaps in between lectures, a Twitter stream (or some other
hacked Ruby app) could be left open on the large screen so every
one can see questions and answers in real time as they work. I
imagine a lot of people got stuck in similar areas.
And finally-- this goes beyond the scope of what RailsBridgeBoston
workshops are for- but it would be awesome if an optional demo
session were held for those who might want to show off their work
(problems and solutions alike).
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I found Ruby on Rails quite hard, even though I had some experience
in programing with Java. I guess that it was only my first time on
Ruby, but for some reason I thought it was going to be easier.
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While the orientation did a good job giving participants a feel for
ruby on rails, I felt the approach was very "cook book" and didn't
give me a conceptual understanding to set me on a sustainable ruby
learning path.
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follow up activities for people who want to continue learning (i.e.
homework)
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More, more! It would be nice to see a few basic recipes, even if
we did not implement them as exercises. Recommendations for
authentication, patterns for some common web structures. I wanted
to learn more so that I could do more on my own project. I do realize
that the time was the limiting factor.
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The quality of the lectures were really varied. There were some
outstanding ones (the first one with the dogs sticks out) and then
some that were just completely filled were tech jargon and unclear.
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I'm not sure, I thought it was pretty good. We covered a lot of
stuff, I wasn't bored, the cookies in the lunch bags were awesome.
I kinda feel like there should have been brie.
Just kidding! All correct with me. Thanks for doing this guys!
But seriously, next time, brie.
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There is a difference between people who have programmed before and
people who have not. This workshop attempted to lump them all
together, which I think is ok, but several of the lectures were in
Japanese for those of us who have never programmed anything before.
Michael Durrant's talk on Friday and Liana Leahy's talk on Saturday
were both totally lost on me. I have no idea why the things they
were saying are important because I have never used any other
programming language and am not at the "super user" stage yet. That
time would have been better spent introducing us to the basics of
the tools you need to code, what typical workflows are for making
a web app, etc.
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perhaps an overview of how powerful ruby is - using precedent
examples of websites, apps etc done using RubyOnRails
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one more day would be great!
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While I thought the pacing was fine, I spoke with others who
suffered from "information overload" by the early afternoon on
Saturday. I'm not sure how you can improve on this, but I thought
it was worth mentioning!
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It was really hard, as someone new to web development, to have a
mental framework of what we were doing. Part of it has to do with
not having HTML or overall internet architecture understanding, and
sometimes the exercises made assumptions about what you already
know. Sometime the exercises weren't exactly clear on which
environments you were supposed to be in to do the different parts
of the exercises (ruby server, rails server, terminal). Some of the
lectures also assumed a familiarity with web architecture and web
development.
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I don't know how to start a new project that isn't the same template,
maybe start us off with a more general template for our next project
to do on our own?
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A couple of the lectures assumed a slightly higher knowledge base
than I expected to see in a beginner-only class. Just a little
more attention to basic definitions of terms would be helpful there.
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I think the lessons were structured to get you to get your app up
and running quickly, which is great. But I found myself completing
the lessons without really understanding- the explanations should
come first, then the steps to complete it. I think that would help
make the lessons stick.
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The amount of the content felt way to much and I felt rushed on
Sunday, trying to finish it all. It is good that there are extensions
in the course for the people who go faster but I think that most
of us had problems with finishing the main part of the course. I
think it would be good to make the main course smaller and add more
extensions in case some people go to fast. It feels good if you can
finish something.
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One thing that would be helpful would be if the TAs took more of a
background when helping students--I often was given the solution
rather than being taught how to determine the problem and the
solution myself (to me, the problme was "it broke" but I often
didn't know beyond that what the issue really was.
I'm not sure really how to fix this, either, but when building the
app, I felt there was little to figure out and therefore learn more
deeply--if you followed the tutorial with no typos, it would be
pretty easy to successfully build a Suggestotron with no understanding
of what you'd done.
I'm also not sure how effective all the lectures were--some of them,
including the ones introducing databases, were pretty high-level
for a course where most of the women in the room had zero programming
experience. I have some previous programming experience, but never
made it to databases, so hearing the way Ruby handles databases
compared to other languages was not helpful, since I had no frame
of reference.
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It'd be good to know how to access the libraries and continue
building other apps. I still feel like it's hard to start new
projects.
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Please comment on the mix of different activities, the curriculum,
and anything else about which you'd like to share your thoughts.
=====================================================================
It was great to have so many people to help us through issues,
explain concepts, etc.
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There are a couple of people in my group who I would like to tell
about the devchix Ruby study group that is getting started today,
but didn't get their emails. Not sure if everyone is cool with
sharing contact info, but might be helpful for future learning.
Loved the history of the internet from Rebecca Nesson. I feel like
it was a great into to open source community vibe, which I'm actually
only sort of aware of even though I've used open source tools before.
Thanks for the class!!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I really liked the workshop but I kind of hit a wall around 2pm.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Saturday small group work did not work for me - most of the
people at my table were very friendly and helpful, but one individual
was not and distracted me from being able to work with problematic
comments not related to Ruby on Rails or the workshop. I think this
format generally works well and don't think it needs to be changed,
but having some guidelines set for dealing with conflict might be
helpful.
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I thought the flow was great. Fast paced but just short of overwhelming
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liked the team work, liked the lessons, liked the happy hour.
instructors were friendly and helpful.
didnt attend Friday, but sat was very good.
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no comments I enjoyed myself
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall, I think the workshop was a great introduction to Ruby on
Rails that was well-paced and well-structured. At some points, I
felt that I was copying and pasting without internalizing what I
should be learning from the activities -- I wonder if there is a
way to foster more interactive learning on the assignments between
the lectures?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I like the mix of lectures, "assignments", socials, and food. Well
done guys
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Great work—the timing for tutorials, presentations, and meals
provided the perfect mix. I was never bored or felt abandoned. And
just as my brain was beginning to check out, we were already consuming
celebratory beers.
Thank you so much! I worked mostly with Chris Adams and two other
fellows who were incredible, so special thanks to them as well.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I think some of the lectures went by quickly - this was likely due
to the need to stay on schedule, but I think it was hard to follow
some of the material as a result. However, I will be looking back
at the slides (which I think are posted on the website) for future
reference.
I appreciated the mix of activities between lectures, small groups,
and meals/snacks. The happy hour at the end was also a really nice
way to wrap up.
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The lectures after lunch on saturday started getting a little over
my head. It's probably because of my lack of prior programming
experience, but I just thought I'd mention it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Good mix of lectures / activities.
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I feel like I managed to get through everything but now I'm never
going to touch Ruby again- it would be nice if there were exercises
and tips walking us through them, to guide us beyond the class.
Maybe an interactive component for us to follow up on using Ruby a
week later.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The workshop was very well organized-- more so than I expected,
particularly for a free offering. I came from NYC to participate
and this certainly was a good thing!
I appreciated the balance between mini-lecture and practice work.
Holding install-fest on a separate day from the hands-on work with
Ruby was a very good idea.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you very much for such a good workshop. I appreciated your
energy and enthusiasm. After drinks were also very nice and a good
opportunity to network with very interesting people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
it was really great, would love to TA!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The curriculum was excellent, the mix was good. I was pleased to
learn how to use GIT and Heroku and to achieve a working web site.
I would have liked to see an example of TDD but realize that there
were not enough hours. Maybe you could do a second one-day seminar
and show more in-depth examples. I would pay for an additional
seminar. It was especially good that the seminar was on a Saturday;
helpful for women with jobs and family.
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This will sound silly, but it would have been great to have a
reception afterwards that was right outside the space or upstairs
so that when/if you finished early, you could just go hang versus
needing to wait to head over to Cambridge Brewing. Or have it so
it was "OK" to go to wherever as soon as you were done. I felt
like I spent an extra hour or so just kinda hanging there.
It would also have been great to do intros at the beginning of the
students too, maybe during pizza at the install night part.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I think anything else I really want to do is too far beyond the
scope of the class. I have little things I've wanted to build, and
I'm working on them now. Project nights within the group would be
awesome, and I see that something sorta like that is in the works,
so that's cool.
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I liked the time we had to work on our own. That's where the real
learning happened. I'm glad all the lectures were short. I do
recommend more "intro to coding" or tips for learning your first
programming language in the curriculum, which could be optional for
people who have some background in programming in another language.
Also, there was a lot of talk about being able to be hired to work
in Ruby after this workshop. That's not actually true for those
of us without any CS background, so I think you should be clearer
about who your audience is.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
really wonderful! thank you so much for opening the world of Ruby
to me. i'm psyched!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
great job!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
You guys rock! I've tried learning RoR 3 times before, using
different methods (husband-as-teacher, self-study, small class)
without success. I left this course with a project in my head and
passion in my heart. Keep up the good work!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Mix was great and TAs were great. However, maybe it might make sense
to have something separate for those who are really new to web
development.
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I think you should have people try to install the software on their
own, or at least download the file to install (or some people) so
the wireless isn't so bogged down. Wasn't a big deal since I was
talking to some cool people, just a little frustrating.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I think two things would improve the overall experience: - A really
excellent classroom dominatrix would be able to deflect walk-ins
and people who didn't bother to show up for the Installfest. I saw
a lot of resources going to those people throughout the morning.
- I think that eliminating male guests would also improve the class.
If you're going to provide an experience that is geared towards
women, you need to provide a women-specific environment. Otherwise,
you will have the Man in the Room problem: men will consume more
of the available resources, because they are more comfortable
demanding them, and women will deprive themselves of the resources,
because they are trained to allow more of the resources to go to
the men AND because they are accustomed to not speaking up in the
presence of men. I caught myself doing this several times during
the class, and I'm aware of the problem; imagine how many women did
not catch themselves doing it.
In addition, I noted that 2 of the 3 men at my table consumed more
TA time and resources than all the rest of us put together, and
their female hosts seemed vastly uninterested in the proceedings.
That just seemed like flat-out theft of freely offered resources.
I recognize that the TAs may not agree with this assessment. There
are, however, studies that show that in mixed environments where
observers note teachers paying *equal* attention to the genders,
the teachers always feel like they're giving extra super attention
to the women. So the impressions of the TAs may or may not be
reliable in this case. The best way around this issue is to eliminate
the mixed classroom entirely and make it single-sex, since even
with training, it is difficult to teach people to allocate attention
fairly.
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The curriculum is very well written, it explains very well and
clear! I like the presentation in between very much. The only
difficulty with that is that if you are behind schedule then they
make less sense. I would also be happy to do a weekend course,
divide the content over 2 days to feel less rushed to get everything
done and have a better preparation to go further with Ruby on rails
by yourself. I'd like to give MANY compliments about the whole
organization. It was beyond my expectations, really great!
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Please see above.
Also, I'd love to see a Beginner's II Workshop, and eventually
Intermediate level programming.
One of the things I struggle with is finding the structured time
to sit down and continue with programming. Having another follow-up
course, especially if it followed soon after the first one, would
help people make the time to keep up with their skills.
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It was great. I just wish I had a better ability to pick up my own
projects afterward. It'd be great if we got more of a framework for
starting and setting up projects that we could take with us afterward
- like on paper or in a short form online.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
---
Elizabeth Kallman
Nov 20, 2012, 3:46:01 PM11/20/12
to railsbr...@googlegroups.com
Hi Braulio,
Interesting! Having chaired Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) conferences
for a few years now, we also got that the girls (in this case
ages 5th-9th grade) also preferred to have only other girls as
classmates (even with males as workshop leaders). But since we can't
discriminate against boys, we let them in too, but the number is small
enough (< 1%) and the workshops are structured so as to apparently not
have an appreciable effect.
--Elizabeth
> --
>
>
Interesting! Having chaired Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) conferences
for a few years now, we also got that the girls (in this case
ages 5th-9th grade) also preferred to have only other girls as
classmates (even with males as workshop leaders). But since we can't
discriminate against boys, we let them in too, but the number is small
enough (< 1%) and the workshops are structured so as to apparently not
have an appreciable effect.
--Elizabeth
>
>
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