Web X.Y

While I was hibernating for the last month, there was a lot of discussion on weblogs relating to the minor about the Ria scene in the North Netherlands.
Niels Bruin stated that he thinks companies can support eco-systems like this and education in general more(link). This spawned a discussion on how this can be done (see comments on the original post)

How I think Adobe can support us:

• Train the trainer. Educators are always busy, and some have big problems keeping up with new technologies because of the lack of available time. (Another solution would be to add an extra day to the week, but I think my first suggestion is more practical)
• Try to pick influence key figures in studies. There is a lot to gain for example by influencing the more traditional informatics studies. Pick the right person here and things will start to change slowly.
• Make training material for different targetgroups. Most of the material on the Adobe site is targeted at more intermediate programmers. More and more students are learning to program in Flash or flex, this requires a different approach.
• (Continue to) “Reward” contributors to the flex scene. A reward can be as simple as a visit and a comment. This gives the contributor some “streetcred”.
• Contribute but be careful how you do it: Wietse mentioned he thinks Adobe could contribute to a Wiki (link). I think there are risks attached to this. I noticed that when I contribute to a Wiki mostly written by students, the students tend to believe everything I write. I have found that my contributions are more likely to kill the community, than to stimulate the community.
• More evolution please! I have rewritten my material lots of time in the last couple of years. From actionscript 1 until actionscript 3, and offcourse all flash versions starting with version 5. And please fix all important bugs before the start of the lectures (I still wake up screaming remembering the dreadful not documented version of mx 2004)

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