DevEd

Brooke Avery

Luis Hernandez

Mike Dane

Sam Julien

Joined by special guest: Aspen Payton

In this episode of the Dev Ed podcast, the panelists talk to Aspen Payton, who is currently working as a Lead Analyst Programmer at Mayo Clinic, has been in the software industry for about 20 years, and has over 32 granted patents to her name. She gives a background on her work, and talks about her ng-conf journey in detail, including what led her to become a technical speaker at the conference, the preparation involved, the things she learned along the way, and her experience in general. Brooke asks the panel their thoughts on why should one decide or even think about speaking at technical events/conferences rather than just being an attendee which has tons of benefits in itself. The panelists then offer tips and resources on how to prepare thoroughly in order to speak and present well without having a designated coach.

Aspen gives a run-through of her procedure of creating slides for her talk at ng-conf, including content and styling, and everyone else chips in with great suggestions as well. They then discuss how to choose a good topic for speaking, what other factors to consider while giving an effective presentation, combating stage fright which can be a challenge for many, how to detect if things are not going well and what to do to improve, how to increase self-confidence and increase audience engagement. Finally, they talk about making the whole process a happy and fulfilling experience, and encourage listeners to give technical speaking a chance while promising that it would definitely be worthwhile.

Aspen Payton - Twitter

Crash Course: Angular and ngRx - Aspen Payton

How to Prepare a Talk - Gary Bernhardt

Convince Your Boss to Upgrade in 5 Minutes - Sam Julien

Subjecting State to Good Behavior - Kim Maida

Aspen Payton:

NPR - Throughline

Luis Hernandez:

Teach Like a Champion - Doug Lemov

Sam Julien:

Transistor

Brooke Avery:

Alphabet Squadron

Mike Dane:

Sapper

Joined by special guest: Emma Mulqueeny

In this episode of the Dev Ed podcast, the panel is joined by a distinguished guest, Emma Mulqueeny, digital transformation strategist and an eminent technologist, founder of the Rewired State and Young Rewired State organizations, the goal of which was to bring together young developers to contribute to government services in the UK, Commissioner for the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy and a Google Fellow. She has been awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) honour in the Queen’s 90th Birthday Honours list for her significant contribution to the fields of digital democracy and education. She has been included in the 166th annual edition of Who’s Who, voted onto the Wired 100 list, Tech City 100, BIMA Hot 100 and has been voted one of the top ten women in technology by The Guardian. She is currently working with the NHS (National Health Service), UK, in the area of mental health for young people.

Emma begins the show by giving a background about herself and her work and explains the concept of digital democracy to listeners.The panelists then dive into the topic of storytelling based learning and cite examples to explain their impressions of the materials that are used in the process. They explain how this kind of learning helps in making topics more engaging and interesting, and at the same time stress on the fact that there has to be a good balance between the fun and the actual content. They discuss, if as adults it holds any merit to resort to learning through stories and games compared to its usage in kids’ education, and how it helps in making dry technical material less boring and more relatable. In the end, they each talk about their own experiences where storytelling has played a major part in their role as programmers as well as content creators.

Luis Hernandez:

Minecraft

Sam Julien:

Siri shortcuts for calendar, note-taking, writing

Brooke Avery:

Emma Mulqueeny:

Jesse Sanders:

Mike Dane:

Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin’s course

Joe Eames:

Holey Moley TV Show

Joined by special guest: Shai Reznik

In this episode, the panelists talk to Shai Reznik, web developer, educator, consultant, and Angular Google Developer Expert, who teaches courses mainly on Angular and React, and makes sure that they are topped with some humor and fun! Joe kickstarts the show by asking Shai the reasons why he considers humor to be a consistent part of his personality as well as his teaching methods. Shai explains in detail how that makes learning interesting and effective by citing his own experiences. Joe opens up the discussion to the panel and asks their thoughts about using humor in learning, teaching and their opinions on it, in general.

They then talk about the techniques they employ or those that others use, in order to make learning fun and memorable. Shai elaborates on what strategies he utilizes to keep a good balance between the technical content, and the jokes and entertainment he resorts to while teaching. In the end, the panel discusses resources and methods to help make the learning process fun and they wrap up the show by each stating one thing they would like to recommend to a friend.

Mike Dane:

Please don’t mock me - Justin Searls

Luis Hernandez:

GatsbyJS

Sam Julien:

Luna Display

Shai Reznik:

What we talk about when we talk about software - Nat Pryce

Joe Eames:

FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019

Joe Eames

Brooke Avery

Luis Hernandez

Sam Julien

Joined by special guests: Preston Lamb, Aaron Frost

In this episode of the Dev Ed podcast, special guests Preston Lamb, software developer at MotivHealth, and Aaron Frost, web programmer and organizer of several meetups and conferences, along with the regular panelists, discuss the concept of learning by teaching. They talk about what it means for each one of them and in what way does teaching lead to a positive impact on the learning process. They then elaborate on the differences between gaining expertise in a topic through application and usage versus teaching it, followed by an interesting discussion on if it is acceptable to teach something without having any relevant production or real-world experience, as well as the ethical aspect of it.

They talk about ways to tackle not knowing something when asked about it, and whether any useful learning takes place in cases where things are learnt just for the purpose of teaching. In the end, the panelists explain how they pick topics to teach, especially when the intent is to educate themselves, and how do they go about maximizing the learning involved in it.

Preston’s Twitter

Aaron’s Twitter

RxJS Conference

Aaron Frost:

Ice Fishing

Preston Lamb:

Plex Media Server

Brooke Avery:

Spider-Man by Sphero

Sam Julien:

OmniFocus

Luis Hernandez:

Pi-hole

Joe Eames:

Tip - Attend Board Game conventions

Joe Eames

Luis Hernandez

Mike Dane

Sam Julien

Joined by special guest: Tommy Williams

In this episode of the Dev Ed podcast, the panel is joined by special guest Tommy Williams, who is currently a Software Manager at Playware Media, and has a strong background in web development. He starts off the discussion by explaining what the term performance tuning really means, and the other panelists join in with their own definitions and give examples to elaborate on it. They talk at length about the tradeoff between performance tuning and maintainability while each sharing their valuable experiences. They then steer the discussion towards learning performance tuning, what resources and tools to use, recommend some good courses to listeners and discuss how to go about learning it in general.

Tommy talks about the performance issues that can possibly come up while writing web applications and ways to practice performance tuning followed by the panelists’s tips on it as well. They conclude the show with picks.

jsPerf

Chrome DevTools

Lighthouse

Modern DevTools

Umar Hansa

Tommy’s LinkedIn

Mike Dane:

Saint Thomas

Luis Hernandez:

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

Sam Julien:

Keyboard Maestro

Joe Eames:

Zombicide

Tommy Williams:

Dominican slang word -Vaina

Joe Eames leads the panel in a discussion of the path to a career in computer programming. The panel has a varied educational background, Mike and Dani share their experiences attending a university. Dani Sloan piques Joe Eames interest with her programming experience in school even though it was not the degree she set out to obtain. Mike Dane shares his appreciation for any school or program that has an alumni network. Jesse Sanders was self taught with a little formal education, he talks about the vast amounts of programming knowledge out there and how it can be hard to find a path and to remain well rounded and grounded in the fundamentals.

Using their individual knowledge and experience, the panel discuss the merits of various educational paths. The benefits and drawbacks of university, bootcamps, and teaching oneself are discussed. The panel also branches out into a few newer and hybrid types of education such as part-time school, Neumont University, Lambda School, and schools like University of Phoenix, which you can do from home. They discuss the finances and time that each may take and give recommendations for a few different situations that people may be coming from, such as, switching careers or starting fresh from high school.

Dani Sloan

Mike Dane

Joe Eames