[Events] Boston Python Workshop 2 feeler e-mail

[Jessica McKellar]

Hi folks!

I'd like to start thinking about the next iteration of the Boston
Python workshop, since we'll need about a month's notice to snag space
in MSNerd again, if that's something we want. If you are interested in
staffing this workshop, I have a few questions for you:

1. What is your availability on the Friday evenings, Saturdays, and
Sundays in late April and early May? I know that's too far away for
most people to know their plans, but please mark days you already know
you aren't available on this Doodle poll:

http://doodle.com/zur5whq2y7chgrdk

2. Do you want to use MSNerd again? We discussed some alternative
sites at one of our early meetings for the first workshop, but I don't
seem to have an e-mail with this information. Does anyone have our
list of alternative sites?

3. As we discussed at the wrap-up, I would like to try making the
project portion of the workshop 3 or 4 ~1-hour "modules" on different
applications of Python, instead of the larger projects we used during
the first run. To that end, I've written 3 demo modules, which are up
at https://github.com/jesstess/BostonPythonWorkshop. These modules
are:

1. Using the Twitter API to programmatically access Twitter data.
2. Plotting data with matplotlib.
3. Madlibs (well, this is really half a module -- it'd be paired with
something else, probably another text-based game, to round out an
hour)

Each module comes with a sample workflow for instructors and suggested
exercises. In my mind, the instructor-directed part takes 30-45
minutes, leaving 15-30 minutes for suggested exercises.

These modules and their documentation haven't been fine-tuned yet, but
thinking big-picture: do you want to use these kinds of modules for
the project portion of the workshop? If not, what would you like to
do?

4. If you do like the idea of modules, please fork and add more, or if
you have ideas for module topics but don't want to code them, send the
ideas to the list! It would be awesome have enough candidate modules
that we really get to pick which ones work best for our curriculum and
audience, and then have some left over for a bonus project day or
something.

I'm particularly interested in finding more social websites with
public APIs (preferably no developer signup required) that have Python
bindings that return text (to avoid the overhead of discussing
data-interchange formats like JSON). I'm also going to shore up the
ColorWall and add suggested exercises so that it's on the table too.

==

I am really excited to apply what we learned in the first workshop to
the next one!

-Jessica