[Events] economic diversity

[Mike Linksvayer]

On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 4:26 AM, Catherine Devlin
<catherine.devlin at gmail.com> wrote:
> At and after the Columbus Python Workshop, some of the students and I talked
> about how we could use workshops for not just gender diversity, but economic
> diversity.  They had great suggestions for organizations and agencies I
> could partner with - job agencies, women's shelters, and so forth.  Lots of
> possibilities there.

I think this is an important topic so I throw out ill-informed
opinions below. Please tell me I'm wrong.

> But lots of questions, too, that I'd really appreciate your thoughts on.

Just a general observation first -- I think the idea that everyone
might learn to program, at least a bit, has really taken off in the
past year or two. I've heard of lots of programs intended to teach
disadvantaged people to code, especially minority youth from
disadvantaged neighborhoods. I'd expect that to continue to grow for
some time, and questions like those you have to grow as well.

And a second general observation -- there's something for OpenHatch
(and affiliated, like-thinking, etc) initiatives to contribute (and
"we" can learn a lot in the process, I'm sure) -- that is ideas and
practices such as not just learning to code, but learning to
participate in a real open source project, and not just teaching to
code, but inviting to join local groups, and making such groups
inviting -- and some of those help address the questions raised by
just teaching disadvantaged people to begin to program.

> - Is this really a practical skill for people in tough economic straits?
> Obviously programming is a great career; just as obviously, nobody's ready
> to start at Google the Monday after a weekend workshop.  The workshop is
> obviously not just about careers - it's also about having fun, building
> self-confidence, understanding our computerized world better, etc. - but I
> don't know if those noneconomic motives will ring hollow.
>
>     - And if it is practical, how can I *sell* its practicality to get
> agencies onboard and students in the door?

Seems to me the vocational practicality is long-term (for most people,
it'll take years from starting to program to get a job primarily doing
programming or related work) or broad but shallow (better computer
skills, including some notion of how things are automated, and
demonstration of ability to collaborate, are a nice-to-have for lots
of jobs). And the long-term practicality is greatly enhanced by
becoming networked in a community of people who have tech jobs
already. Selling to agencies and getting students on-board is a
double-edged sword -- agencies are interested in improving their
short-term metrics at low cost (thus eg practice of sending people to
A+ certification training, for which there are no jobs), not sending
motivated and willing students; but this is mostly hearsay.

> - Programming on *what*?  Laptops are cheap these days but many of these
> students probably still don't have them.  Some agencies have computer labs -
> I'm told the YWCA Columbus has one, for example - though that merits careful
> checking, because sometimes machines are so locked-down as to be useless.
> (The Columbus Public Library machines, for example, run only IE, Word, and
> Excel; and the library IT director *does not have the ability* to loosen
> them up.  Grrrr.)
>     - But even if computers can be found for the workshop itself, if the
> students don't have regular access to computers that are more or less their
> own, will they be able to follow up on the workshops afterward?  It seems
> almost cruel to show people this kind of fun if they can't follow up.

I don't really think access to computers is a problem that a
teach-coding project can solve on its own. It seems to me that
computers are, or are getting very close to, cheap enough that most
people who want one have one -- I see homeless people with laptops
frequently, and kids from families with no money with them (not to
minimize the many tragic situations in which people who want a
computer don't have one; I just don't know what to do about it
directly). They probably need help in getting set up to be usable for
development though, lots of them being totally infested with malware.
"Laptop setup" may need to start with "laptop cleanup".

>     - Is there any practical over-the-web programming solution?  One where
> students could actually do things like keep their files, install packages,
> etc.?  Then a student could conceivably pursue her own programming over a
> web browser in a library.

There's scratch.mit.edu. There are lots of try(language name).org
sites, but I don't know if any facilitate long-term projects.

But for students learning to contribute to an open source project, the
problem is mitigated by public repositories keeping state.

OpenHatch sprints have shown the necessity of excellent laptop setup
instructions and help. Complementary to this might be identifying open
source projects that require minimal or zero local setup, because
state is in a public repository, editing of the repository can be done
via web, and code is executed in client. There must be lots of
projects that at least come close given all of the client-side
javascript projects out there.

Final general observation -- even before the recent boom in
teach-all-to-code projects, there have been tons of organizations
dedicated all or in part to digital divide issues, eg beginning of a
list for where I live at http://oaklandwiki.org/Digital_Divide ... I
wonder how OpenHatch(y) people and initiatives can contribute
something by creating bridges to real open source projects and local
communities?

Mike