Comments on: AJAX Workshop Reflections

By: Steve Casburn

Steve Casburn — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:48:09 +0000

“The given at code4lib is that any preconference is BYOL (Bring your own laptop). Everyone knows it and everyone BYOLs.”
Some of us get to know this the hard way… :-(
Thank you for being so kind about sharing yours!

By: DerikB

DerikB — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:34:19 +0000

“I get a strong inclination that meatier and more hands-on, digging into the code is what people want.”

I know I’d like to see more of that at CIL. In talking to attendees there seems to be a big divide between the people who are well versed in the basics and want something more in-depth and the people who still don’t know what RSS or AJAX is.

By: Karen

Karen — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:34:29 +0000

Peter,

We have averaged about 25 people at the AJAX workshop. If I was going to do it hands on I’d like to cut that down to 15 tops. I’d even be willing to teach the workshop twice (once in the morning/once in the afternoon) to accommodate the people registered but not have too many folks in the workshop to be hands on.

By: Peter Murray

Peter Murray — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:21:29 +0000

You bring up a good question, Karen. Your post didn’t say how many people you had at each workshop. In my experience, hands-on workshops mean that the instructors have to go slower (so everyone can keep up) and have to have fewer participants (so the instructor(s) can give hands-on help when needed). That you are team-teaching this with someone else certainly helps on both points (one of the instructors can be roaming through the attendees to help out individuals without the main speaker having to stop), but attendance for an effective workshop is still limited to about two dozen people at most.