[Cialug] user group idea: coding dojo

[Matthew Nuzum]

OK, great news.

Des Moines Web Geeks is bringing the concept of the Coding Dojo to Des
Moines on Monday, May 3rd, 7:00 pm at Impromptu Studio.

To reiterate, this is an event for all skill levels. We'll break into
groups, each of which will try to solve the challenge of the evening
in their own interesting way. At the end we'll share our success and
failure and learn from each other.

I've participated in one of these and it was great. We're purposely
giving this a broad scope so if you're into PHP, Ruby, Javascript,
.Net, Java or front end work you'll have a chance to put your skill to
work.

You can find a link to the event details at:
http://www.dsmwebgeeks.com/2010/04/coding-dojo-may/

You're welcome and encouraged to bring your laptop (but if you can't,
don't let that stop you from coming).

If you're a member of another user group would you help spread the word?

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Matthew Nuzum <newz at bearfruit.org> wrote:
> Hi, I was able to participate in a cool user-group concept called a
> "code dojo" last week. It was a great idea. The group starts out with
> socializing and eating (this is optional, but the socializing part
> should probably not be excluded), then the premise of the group is
> explained to newbies, then a plan is set forth. In my case this was
> the 8th meeting so the plan was to decide how to continue from the
> previous meeting.
>
> Then you split into a number of groups of about 4-5 people to
> effectively pair program where you pass the keybaord about every five
> minutes. The goal is to accomplish the agreed upon task in the time
> allotted (1 - 1.5 hours), at which point each team demonstrates what
> they accomplished, why they chose the path they did and what successes
> and problems they encountered.
>
> The group I participated w/ on Thursday evening was extrodinary
> because each of the four groups actually had a working project at the
> end. Admittedly, at the actual end several of the groups were so close
> that they extended the time by 5 min to achieve this, but apparently
> having working code is not a given.
>
> The point is to learn collaboratively. Each team is assigned at random
> (i.e counting off) so you're bound to get different skill levels and
> experiences. Unless everyone in the group is an idiot, I'd expect that
> it would be near impossible to leave w/out learning something new.
>
> I'd like to bring this idea to our area. Here's a wiki: http://codingdojo.org/
>
> Thoughts?


-- 
Matthew Nuzum
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"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they
sought." –Matsuo Bashō