Where

We have been meeting at the Big Chill in Small Street. They have been brilliant there, we can have a big room upstairs with wifi, coffee and tea. It would in principle be possible to have the room in the evenings as well, don't know what time it gets loud though!

Intentions (dumped into Evernote one night)

• There's social benefit to it, and learning/knowledge benefit
• there's also the benefit of teaching something to advance own knowledge as well -> give people platform to try speaking to people
• "safe" place where people don't need to fear they appear stupid
• Provide space to exchange knowledge, best practices, opinions; also simply to network
• Help a beginner become intermediate; a "home-alone-worker" a team worker

Some people said "just put it out there and see what happens" but I rather want to plan it carefully, and want to start with a distinct intention and concept; it might still develop into something different from what I envisioned, that's absolutely fine.

I like this from the OTS website:
"Encouraging people to coach, whatever their skill or experience level, lets them see how rewarding and valuable teaching others is."
 

Possible topics

• Git/Github - There's quite good workshops here that we could just take as is perhaps http://opentechschool.github.io/social-coding/,
  http://opentechschool.github.io/github-from-scratch/
• Linux/Unix
• Extending Wordpress ?
• Creating a single page app with e.g. Angular
• Website performance
• Introduction to Python for the web; again good workshops here: http://python.opentechschool.org/
• Tools for Frontend Development

Next steps

So the next steps would be:

• Clarify questions about format of workshop
• Contact people who might be willing to do a workshop
• Talk to people at Big Chill to clarify possible times (will go there 21 Jan)
• Put it out there (Blog, Twitter, Underscore!)
• Set dates for workshops, find coaches/speakers, open for registration

Questions

I have been wondering most about

• Target audience, how many people out there
• How to attract speakers/coaches, what could be incentives
• Format of the workshops; Should we aim at similar format each time; have guidelines? I like these http://opentechschool.github.io/slides/presentations/coaching/

More on Format
Different options:

• OTS style: Take one of their workshops or create one along those lines; look for coaches; then allow registration of 4 times as many attendants as coaches
• Have one speaker; they provide workshop, possibly also to a bigger group; basically they can choose the way they want to present it
• Could also have workshops where one builds on the other; have a certain sequence; but probably not very practical

So, I have been thinking about this a lot recently. There is a lot I haven't written down, some more 'philosophical' thoughts about learning and teaching in general. Also the way web development is done these days. I think it has got too complicated, and a lot of the complication is due to a) accomodate design decisions and b) provide maximum level of functionality/power to editors or website owners, that might often not be needed in the end. Just one example WYSIWIG editors. But, let's not go into all this :) And, how would I want to change that with a series of workshops?? I will be glad if this will get off the ground at all for the moment!