Each six-week class each student will give one five-minute lightning talk.
The week of their lightning talk, a student will:
- attend all prep sessions
- come prepared to those sessions with the needed content
- spend 3-6 hours, in total, preparing their presentation
- deliver the presentation in front of their class and other students
- take care to promote a welcoming environment for all students regardless of their age, gender, socio-economic background, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation
Students will work with the facilitator to select their topic and prepare the presentation. Topics should fit into one of the themes below. Each week there may only be one talk per theme, but not all themes will be used.
- Computer Hardware
- Computer Science
- Design / User Experience
- DevOps
- Front End Development
- General Software Methodologies / Techniques
- Historical or Present-day People in Computer Science
- JavaScript Architecture / Libraries
- Programming Languages
- Ruby Architecture / Libraries
- Software Libraries
- Software Testing
- Technology & Society
All prep sessions take place at 4:05PM.
- Monday: Establishing topics
- Tuesday: Outline
- Wednesday: Draft slides & content
- Thursday: Rehearsal
- You don't need to be an expert on a topic. You can do the research and become expert enough to deliver a valuable talk.
- A talk needs to teach something of value to the audience.
- A talk needs to be at an appropriate level for the audience, not too basic and not too advanced.
- A talk needs to have a message, not just a subject. "Introduction to RSpec" is boring, "Why You Should Use RSpec" has a message.