NYC is treating me well, no doubt. In addition to part-time work at the Institute of Play, I’ve found a real passion for teaching and a few excellent opportunities:
Front-end Web Development at General Assembly
This is a ten week course covering HTML/CSS/JS and more, similar to the one I taught this summer at the Saxifrage School. The class has 27 students and, being so large, it is a more traditional classroom format where we code together and I explain concepts as we go. Being in the front of the class, I don’t get the visual/body language feedback from students like in a round table or discussion structure. It took me a class or two to get in the groove, but I think it’s going really well now and is a lot of fun. Also, I’ve got a pretty pro profile on the GA site, so that’s cool.
Website Bootcamp for Creative Professionals with Simple Labs
Started by Nate Cooper at Simple Labs, this is a two hour crash course in websites. It’s perfect for creatives not necessarily looking to make websites, but to learn the lingo. Curriculum-wise, I’ll hit on client-server communication, the difference between HTML/CSS/JS, mobile web, about CMSs (mainly WordPress of course), and the current relationship between design and development today.
Interested? It’s at 7pm on Dec. 17th at the Centre For Social Innovation in Chelsea. 25% discount here and on Dec. 4th, come meet the developer (me!) for free (breakfast included!). And might as well self-indulgently link to this Simple Labs post about its growing team.
Career talk at the The International High School at Lafayette
Here, I talked with the students about my career experience and did an exercise with the kids using Mozilla Webmaker. It was really fun, and (it’s a cliche at this point) I can’t believe how quickly the kids picked up the material compared to the adults I’m teaching. No offense, adults. I talked a lot about being self-employed and the value and challenges there. I hope to work more with kids in future, it’s a refreshing change of pace and very rewarding.
Finally, in the off-chance someone reading this is looking to do a workshop, class, or whatever, definitely shoot me an email. I really love this stuff and am always looking for teaching venues.