On Fri, Dec 05, 2008 at 10:27:12AM +0000, Aaron Trevena wrote:
>
> how about something more useful, a TPF backed student outreach program.
>
> If we can organise a mailing list, and maybe a web page or wiki we can
> provide some resources aimed at students based on what they needed
Also, think of the foreign students! All original material on the site
should be translated (provided we have volunteers for that translation
job, of course), and since students are often geographically linked to
a university, you can think of them as yet another kind of local users
group. Links to resources in the local langage would be nice.
> Anyway, in the south west of the UK we have 2 perl monger groups and 5
> universities, what we could do with is trying to establish a liason at
> each uni (in the computer club, comp sci department, bio-informatics,
> wherever) and a couple of people in local mongers who will try and to
> look at what students are doing, coordinate talks, socials and trips
> to workshops.
In Lyon, we are holding our tech meetings in a school that trains
librarians (I think), and have started to talk about "opening" the
meetings (our biggest attendance was 9 people, and we only advertise the
meetings on our mailing list). We also have started to talk to a local
engineering school about coming over to make some Perl presentations to
their students. They are interested, but we need speakers and material!
> A joined up effort could make it easier, we could share information
> about what uni's are using perl and how, and also ideas about what we
> could have done with at uni,
Yes, sharing the information, the documents, and reporting back what
happened would be great. For example, if someone has written a
great introduction course/set of slides, maybe others could use it
and translate it, so even more people can use it.
> a shared wiki,
> both for the mongers and students could help, and could also make it
> easier to hook up graduates or placement students interested in Perl
> with employers looking for trainees.
I think the main point anyway is less the web site (students come to us
for information) that actually going to the neighbouring university
and present stuff (we go to the students and spread knowledge).
The web site/wiki/resources you propose is not just yet another Perl
web site; it is a tool to help the Perl evangelists who are actually
meeting the students.
--
Philippe Bruhat (BooK)
The learned man makes a mistake but once... but the truly stupid keep
practicing until they get it right.
(Moral from Groo The Wanderer #75 (Epic))
