►
Description
NodeSchool: A Chapter in the Making - Lydia Kats, craigslist
To date, there are 167 chapters of NodeSchool all over the globe. The basic framework and resources for running a chapter are a URL away, for anyone to use. All it takes to run your own chapter is effort, commitment, and dedication to cultivating a community of students and mentors centered around learning. And yet, NodeSchool as a global organization has potential to grow to support even more beginners worldwide. A co-organizer of the San Francisco chapter NodeSchool shares lessons learned and her perspective on the future of NodeSchool.
A
A
So
the
alternate
title
for
this
talk
is
node
school
at
node
school.
So
there
that
is
my
name's
lydia,
I'm
ll
cats
everywhere
on
the
internet.
You
see
that
that
cat
face.
That's
me.
A
A
The
answer
is
that
in
my
spare
time
I
am
a
co-organizer
at
the
san
francisco
chapter
of
node
school
and
today
I
want
to
give
you
some
background
on
node
schools
origins
what
it
was
like
to
start
our
local
chapter
and
some
challenges.
We've
come
across
in
the
almost
two
years
of
running
our
meetup
and
some
potential
ways
forward
for
the
organization
as
a
whole.
A
Node
school
is
a
decentralized
open
source
community.
Its
mission
from
the
website
has
two
goals:
to
create
high
quality
programming
curricula
and
to
host
community
learning
events
for
some
history.
I
was
listening
to
the
note
up:
podcast
episode,
number
55,
where
michael
rogers
max
ogden
jessica,
lord
and
rod
bag
all
talked
node
school
for
the
entire
episode.
A
A
A
The
new,
the
node
school
modules
were
created
to
be
taught
at
specific
events
or
meetups,
but
it
was
immediately
apparent
that
they
could
be
reused
again
and
again
so
or
even
someone
could
follow
or
download
them
by
themselves
and
work
on
them
on
their
own.
A
So
after
they
had
a
few
of
these
modules,
max
ogden
was
talking
to
another
developer
brian
brennan
at
node
conf
eu
that
year
about
how
to
take
the
concept
even
further
max
came
up
with
the
name
node
school
and
brian
bought
the
domain
name
right
away
that
night,
which
it
wasn't
wasn't
quite
quite
right.
At
the
beginning,
he
woke
up
the
next
day
the
the
dangers
of
partying
a
little
too
hard
realized.
He
hadn't
quite
gotten.
A
It
right
and
tried
again
registering
the
nodeschool.io
url,
which
is
the
central
hub
and
home
base
for
node
school
online.
Substack
and
max
did
the
initial
front
end
on
the
first
node
school
io,
home
page
and
mac
said
I
should
show
a
screenshot.
So
here
it
is
inglorious,
internet
archive,
wayback,
machine
vision.
A
Lord
helped
max
redesign
the
current
homepage,
which
is
what
you'll
see
today,
as
the
organization
grew
max,
came
up
with
the
idea
for
chapters
as
location-specific
recurring
meetups
and
he
launched
the
chapters
feature
on
the
website
with
growth
came
complexity
and
matthias
boos
mcintosh
on
github
wrote
about
to
automate
tasks
in
the
repo
along
the
way.
Lots
of
other
people
helped
out
rod
and
sub
stack
with
workshop
or
modules
themselves,
and
still
many
others
helped
with
the
main
node
school
website.
A
It
was
truly
a
group
effort
and
they
helped
create
about
100
new
chapters
in
that
first
year
alone,
max
told
me
that
they
designed
the
repos
so
that
each
chapter
is
in
control
of
its
own
github
team
and
its
own
github
page's
site
underneath
the
nodeschool.ao
domain,
so
that
there's
little
or
no
bottlenecks
or
maintenance
really
needed
by
the
people
who
work
on
the
core
domain
itself.
A
He
said
that
giving
each
chapter
control
of
their
own
website
and
presence
under
the
node
school
organization
was
the
key
thing
that
he
thought
made.
It
work
as
a
decentralized
group
that
could
grow
quickly.
One
of
the
challenges
they
faced
initially
was
their
work
on
internationalization
in
both
the
website
and
the
workshoppers.
A
Martin
heidegger
really
led
the
charge
there
working
with
node
school
osaka,
and
you
can
see
the
variety
of
languages
across
the
top
there
that
anyone
can
choose
from
so
it
was
truly
global
in
its
focus
from
the
very
beginning.
A
It's
kind
of
important
to
have
an
identity,
and
I
think
that
the
logo
really
helped
with
that
and
stickers
are
basically
a
requirement
for
meetups
these
days
anyhow.
So
it
was
another
way
to
help
organizers
get
their
events,
all
official
and
stuff
like
that,
and
you
can
see
that
people
have
taken
it
even
further
and
made
really
creative
designs.
A
As
we
got
started,
the
documentation
in
the
repo
and
the
wiki
were
really
helpful
and
a
bunch
of
people
chimed
in
to
give
advice
to
get
a
website
up
and
running
really
quickly.
I
forked
the
node
school
campina
site
at
the
suggestion
of
felipe
oliveira
and
made
a
few
tweaks
and
went,
live
reza
made
the
twitter
account
and
we
created
the
initial
logo
from
the
logo
builder
online
and
we
finally
had
our
first
event
on
february
7th
at
new
relic
in
san
francisco.
A
So
there's
the
proof
that
is
from
our
very
first
event
and
since
then,
almost
every
picture
of
an
active
event.
Just
kind
of
looks
like
that:
it's
a
bunch
of
people
in
a
room
working
on
their
computers
and
getting
help
from
other
people.
A
A
Pardon
me,
so
our
chapter
is
sustained
with
a
variety
of
different
things.
I
think
we've
been
holding
node
school
sf
for
almost
every
month
for
almost
two
years
now,
and
that
sort
of
regularity
comes
with
a
lot
of
effort.
A
First,
having
mozilla
as
our
monthly
sponsor
means
that
the
logistical
overhead
of
finding
a
an
event
space
sorting
out
how
to
get
there
informing
our
attendees.
It
solved
a
lot
of
that
logistical
overhead
for
us
as
organizers,
and
it
also
provides
a
consistent
home
base
for
our
attendees
reza,
also
redesigned
our
homepage
and
our
stickers.
We
thought
about
the
identity
we
wanted
for
the
chapter
and
eventually
settled
on
the
rainbow
as
an
identifying
color
scheme.
A
A
We
also
have
a
community
of
mentors
this
steady
pool
of
people
in
the
area
who
donate
their
time
and
energy.
We
have
lots
of
repeat
mentors
and
I
especially
have
to
call
out
rich
trot
the
guy
all
the
way
on
the
left.
There
he's
a
node
core
contributor
and
he's
also
mentored
with
us
every
single
event.
A
I
can't
even
say
I've
been
at
every
single
event
since
february
2015,
because
he's
really
awesome
experienced
node
developers
in
the
bay
offer
the
time
they
have
to
spare,
whether
it's
for
one
event
or
for
several
and
that's
sort
of
dependable
community
has
been
awesome
to
tap
into
we've.
Also
experimented
with
our
format
like
offering
other
lessons,
while
the
main
event
is
happening.
A
A
Can
you
hear
me
all
right?
That
is
a
cool
partnership
is
what
I
said,
and
of
course
I
couldn't
do
any
of
this.
Without
my
amazing
co-organizer,
hey
my
computer's
being
a
little
pokey.
My
amazing
co-organizer
reza,
whose
energy
and
ideas
and
steady
work
makes
all
of
this
possible,
and
I
know
that
he
leans
on
me
for
the
same
spreading
out.
A
The
work
of
logistics
and
organization
with
a
team
you
can
depend
upon
is
crucial
for
the
success
of
a
node
school
chapter,
and
it
also
helps
if
you
get
a
cake,
that's
decorated
the
same
as
your
sticker
logo
too.
That
was
that
cake
was
really
amazing.
I'm
just
never
going
to
forget
that
cake
come
on
and
jane
is
making
a
cameo.
A
The
in-person
events
are
really
important.
I
think,
because
it's
as
much
of
a
space
to
network
and
build
relationships
as
it
is
a
place
to
learn
how
to
code
to
meet
other
people
at
your
level
or
learn
how
to
help
other
people
and
become
a
mentor
like
students
learn
how
to
teach,
and
then
they
become
mentors
in
turn
or
they
can
learn
how
to
public
speak
and
lead
sessions.
A
Attendees
at
node
school
sf
have
met
people
through
whom
they
got
jobs,
not
by
being
recruited
but
by
expanding
their
network.
These
face-to-face
interactions
present
people
with
opportunities
that
they
just
can't
have
any
other
way.
A
There
are
some
growing
pains
that
that
we've
encountered,
although
node
school
has
grown
actually
really
well
for
three
years
now.
So
instead,
I've
been
thinking
of
these
challenges
more
as
maintenance
pains
now
that
we've
we're
comfortable
running
our
meetup,
it's
a
little
easier
for
us
at
node
school
san
francisco
to
look
beyond
our
chapter
and
appraise
the
current
landscape
of
node
school
as
an
organization.
A
A
This
is
the
core
learning
material
for
node
school
command
line
modules
that
contain
related
lessons.
This
is
a
screenshot
screenshot
from
learn.
You
node,
which
teaches
fundamental
node
concepts.
Khan,
has
an
old-timey
crt,
monitor
dos
feel
to
it.
The
lessons
range
from
I
o
and
async
concepts
to
writing
simple
http
servers
to
complete
a
lesson
a
student
has
to
write
code
and
then
run
it
against
the
workshopper's
tests.
A
A
A
A
We
even
had
tried
having
a
couple
mentor
hack
nights
in
sf,
but
the
the
problems
with
that
approach
were
that
it
was
difficult
to
know
where
the
group
should
even
get
started
and
that
they
felt
like,
even
if
they
did
create
some
pull
requests.
There
wasn't
any
faith
that
they
would
actually
get
merged.
So
what's
the
point,
if
you're
going
to
do
work
that
doesn't
actually
land
in
the
in
the
project
itself,
another
challenge
that
we
face
is
that
it
can
be
fairly
difficult
to
get
going
even
with
it
can.
A
Even
if
you
have
mentor
support
the
learning
materials
can
be
really
difficult
to
approach,
especially
as
a
very
fresh
beginner.
You
need
to
have
an
ide
or
a
text
editor
set
up.
You
need
to
figure
out
how
to
execute
or
you
need
to
know
what
the
terminal
is
and
how
to
actually
execute
commands
on
it.
If
you've
no
newly
installed
node,
you
might
get
that
e-access
error
when
you
try
to
install
a
workshop
or
module
globally.
A
These
are
difficulties
that
mentors
are
great
at
assisting
with
like
I
mentioned,
but
it
remains
a
point
of
friction
for
beginning
programmers
and,
finally,
there
just
doesn't
feel
like
there's
an
overarching
goal
or
direction
for
the
event
or
the
organization,
though
we're
a
global
organization
chapters
still
feel
fairly
siloed
from
each
other.
On
the
one
hand,
this
lets
people
mold
the
event
into
what
fits
the
needs
of
their
community,
but,
on
the
other,
can
feel
kind
of
amorphous
for
new
chapters
to
start
or
continue,
there's
a
lack
of
direction
for
improvement.
A
First,
I
think
that
we
should
be
moving
the
workshoppers
at
least
the
ones,
especially
in
the
core
curriculum
to
an
organization
where
node
school
members
have
permission
to
merge,
pull
requests
once
people
are
confident
that
they're
that
their
pro
requests
will
get
merged,
I
think
we'll
have
a
lot
more
volunteers,
updating
content.
A
A
It's
not
a
pinacea,
but
it
could
be
a
useful
tool
in
certain
cases
and
then
there's
a
whole
lot
more
suggestions
that
I
had,
but
I
don't
really
have
time
to
go
into
them,
but
just
understanding
the
the
needs
and
wants
of
attendees
and
mentors
and
organizers,
organizing
and
prioritizing
tasks
so
that
people,
you
know
we're
all
busy
people
with
lives.
A
If,
if
tasks
are
more
approachable
to
take
on
feasibly
in
an
evening
or
in
a
weekend,
we
might
have
more
contributors
and
then
also
explore
how
other
groups
are
teaching
programming
their
methods
and
motives
and
see
what
we
can
learn
from
them.
Node
together
and
railsbridge
are
two
groups
that
spring
to
mind.
A
I
know
that
there
are
a
lot
of
really
smart
people
thinking
about
all
this
stuff
too.
I
I
just
feel
like
we
need
to
bring
them
all
together,
somehow
and
start
working
in
all.
I've
come
to
realize
that
the
effort
you
need
to
start
something
is
really
different
than
the
effort
that
you
need
to
maintain
it
once
you
have
the
content
and
the
organization
together.
What's
next,
I
think
that's
the
question
we're
asking
ourselves
as
we
continue
working
with
node
school
events.
A
In
closing,
you
might
know
those
saying
give
someone
a
fish
and
you
feed
them
for
a
day
teach
someone
to
fish
and
you
feed
them
for
a
lifetime.
What
I've
learned
about
node
school
is
that
if
you
give
a
community
a
framework
for
education,
they'll
go
out
and
teach
the
world,
and
I
think
that's
a
remarkable
fact
about
the
javascript
community.
We
will
continue
to
think
of
ways
to
maintain
and
grow
the
utility
of
node
school,
which
is
already
off
to
such
a
great
start,
and
I
feel
really
lucky
to
be
part
of
it.
A
I
have
a
few
closing
shout
outs
to
people
who
contributed
to
this
talk
with
content,
information,
advice
and
people
who
have
made
node
school
in
school
san
francisco.
What
it
is
today
and
to
all
of
you
for
listening,
I
hope
you
take
a
look
at
what
we're
doing
over
at
node
school
and
help
us
grow
the
node
community
by
teaching
the
world
thanks.