A while back I mentioned that I was approached to setup a training course for programming psychology experiments. I spent a considerable amount of time researching the best approach for this, putting together some resources and drawing up a plan of attack of how I would potentially approach teaching this. The biggest challenge faced with is the fact the majority have absolutely no experience or concepts of programming and that the course duration would be very short, less than a week. So after a lot of work I presented some findings and heard nothing more. I decided that it was just one of those bright ideas that someone had and just wanted to get some information, but that is was never really going to go anywhere.
A couple of months back I was approached with the very same concept, setup and run a training course to teach not only staff but also students how to program. I listened, nodded and smiled in the appropriate places. After they finished they asked for my views to which I pointed out that I already had been asked to investigate this previously but nothing came from it. They looked a little confused, but went away. I thought nothing more of it, until I heard on the grape vine that it had been brought up in a department meetings. Shortly after that meeting I had another two visit one from the head of the department and another academic asking if I would look into this and come up with a plan.
So I pulled the files from moth balls and re-worked the contents a little. Filled in some of vague details, and suggested a new method for providing contents to the course attendees (not gonig to call them students since half of them would be the lectures of the department). After that I fired it off to the two members of the department that asked for it, and though not much would come from it. Half an hour later I’d had a reply saying this looks great lets see if we can get some money and also look into the possibility of offer this out to other users not just our department. Today I just got another reply from the other member of staff pretty much saying exactly the same thing. So I guess this means it’s a go this time round.
