OpenTechSchool - Javascript for Beginners

2 month ago I coached at OpenTechSchool's HTML & CSS for Absolute Beginners workshop. This weekend I once again helped at one of their workshops, this time Javascript for Absolute Beginners.

What should I say? It was again a great experience. It were less learners this time, but the ones that attended where very motivated and eager to learn new things. The material (Day 1, Day 2) was again provided by the OpenTechSchool movement and also translated into German. After just the first day, there were already great programs implemented, e.g. a star system, with rotating planets and moons.

The second day was a little less packed, but again all attendees worked their way through the material, asking interesting question and I did my best to answer them. But sometimes I couldn't and needed help from the other coaches or even a quick online search to give a correct answer. (Would you know how to describe the difference between null and undefined in Javascript in about 1-2 sentences to a first-time programer?)

This time there was a small lottery. The winner already blogged about his experience: Cool JavaScript stuff I learned at the Open TechSchool workshop.

For this lottery I hacked a small and completely fair(!) winner-picker with the same tools/code also available to the learners. As requested the code is available online in a gist.

A big thanks again to the organizers of the OpenTechSchool Dortmund Team! Spread the word, attend meetups and workshops and use the chance to coach!