Choose Your Own Adventure

[mikeal]

I had this thought today and it's worth a larger discussion.

One of the problems we're faced with is that the diversity of skills makes creating the content rather difficult. If we make a session fit a "static" skill set (beginner, moderate, advanced) it won't apply well to most of the attendees.

I started to think, why does the content have to be entirely linear? What if, a basic concept was taught, then they were assigned to work with it enough that they'd have it down. Then, what they choose to do at that point could be more self selected and maybe even open ended.

For instance, people learn what a stream is, how to write a stream, and are asked to write a simple pass-through stream. Then a list of possible tasks are laid out:

• extend the stream in a simple and obvious way (for people with very little existing skills)
• write a stream specifically for working with the browser (for people with browser experience)
• write a file server that has proper headers (people with more node and http skills can explore working with a mix of callbacks and streams)

Now there are 3 paths that fit people with varied skills. That's not so many possibilities that the staff won't know how to handle them all. Also, the people in the room can move to areas that are solving the same problem, so that they can work together.

Thoughts?

The stream case is just an example, i think we can create a better session for streams.

[mcantelon]

Good idea. This should help keep folks a healthy level of challenge, rather than leaving them bored or frustrated.