This week a colleague and I will begin teaching Perl to our department. This is on the basis of a 3-day course by a knowledgeable but non-expert teacher. I will not be required to teach programming, as all of them are very good programmers, just Perl.
The aforementioned course is not (quite) all I know about Perl. I have read the Llama Book, a fair amount of the Camel Book and several other tomes of Perl wisdom. Not formal training, but a certain familiarity with the language.
Of course, I will get a lot more out of these classes than the attendees. I will have to know what I am talking about (a daunting concept) and anticipate their questions and be able to answer the more reasonable ones. I am being forced to study, which is always good for me and get what knowledge I have organized to put in lesson plans.
I estimate that by the time we have taught the last class I will know at least three to five times as much Perl as I do now. I will still not be anywhere near an expert but I hope to have a solid foundation of Perl knowledge. I should be able to measure my progress by what my 'students' learn. If they learn a little, I should have learned a lot.
So I will certainly get the most out of the classes and I can only hope that my departmental colleagues might learn a little as well.
Please, recount the experience once it gets underway (assuming there's no job-related reason not to)...
Re:Congratulations
xenchu on 2004-03-27T04:07:54
Well, we have had a couple of classes so far. We have taught Unix and vi familiarization classes(these programmers have used Windows forever). It helps, for me, that everyone in the class is someone familiar to me. I am comfortable with that.
Also, my co-teacher is very sharp. We write the lessons in PowerPoint and he converts them to slides for use in the classroom. It helps that the classroom has modern teaching aids.
These lesson plans are taking a lot of work. We usually split the lesson and each of us writes up his part. Then we get together to discuss and edit each part and put them together.
Monday I am flying solo. My co-teacher will be out of town so I will be doing the whole class alone. This class will be my first in Perl. Wish me luck.
Re:Congratulations
chaoticset on 2004-03-30T20:29:00
Good luck -- here's hoping you won't need it.:)
