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Java discussions and screencasts for learning

From some time I have been thinking about publishing a series of podcasts/screencasts to help people learning Java. I would like to structure them as discussions (with professional Java developers) instead of lectures. These discussions will be structured with the aim to educate.

Each session will be focussed on a particular Java concept or library. Things that would ideally constitute a session are:

  1. Brief explanation of the concept/library (say the Java IO library)
  2. Places where it can be applied
  3. Special situations to take care of
  4. Pain points
  5. Best practices

These sessions will be augmented blog posts containing screencasts, code samples, exercises, and links to other learning resources.

What do you guys think of such a series? Will it be helpful to developers? Do you have any suggestions?



Note: This text was originally posted on my earlier blog at http://www.adaptivelearningonline.net
Here are the comments from the original post

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sanket Daru
URL: http://sankdadevildaru.blogspot.com
DATE: 06/07/2007 08:58:40 AM
Great Idea. Go for it.

Its only through a developer's interaction with other developers that any value will be added to his knowledge base. This to-be followed methodology of yours will go a long way in ensuring that the value-addition takes place.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Parag
DATE: 06/07/2007 11:45:40 AM
Thanks for your thoughts Sanket.

I would like to start this series with the perspective of a student who has learned Java sometime back. A discussion where he or she talks about what they found difficult to understand, and how they finally managed to grasp it. Their methodology for learning, and some tips for those who are starting now. It will be very valuable for other learners to know where pitfalls exist and how to overcome them.

Since you are the first person to post a comment on this topic and you are also a very good learner :-) I would like to start this series with a discussion with you. Would you like to be participate?

--
Regards
Parag
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: anonymous
URL:
DATE: 06/08/2007 05:23:39 AM
gr8 idea. Looking forward to it.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Badal Burathoki
URL:
DATE: 06/11/2007 06:34:05 AM
sir, your idea to publishing a series of podcasts/screencasts will really help us to learn and the section 'Special situations to take care of' will be interesting one.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: kishore hariharan
URL:
DATE: 06/13/2007 09:38:45 AM
hi,
its an interesting thought to which i would like to add my own..what i found after being into development in java for the past 9 months or so is that there is a clear distinction between concepts and their implementations..concepts more or less are well understood through appropriate real world analogies..but its their code implementation that pose a challenge..the implementation part could be one other area which could be looked into..which would enable better programming practices..its just a suggestion..what do you say prof.??

kishore hariharan
student 2006 batch SCIT
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sanket Daru
URL: http://sankdadevildaru.blogspot.com
DATE: 06/15/2007 03:50:22 PM
Dear Sir,
Sorry didn't reply to your comment. I usually go through the blogs with the help of RSS reader and hence miss out on the comments.

Well, you know that I am always very eager to participate in any form of learning and if I can be of any help to you in this process, it will be my pleasure!

I do agree with Kishore that implementation is one area where many students fail. After clearing the base thoroughly, the implementation is the one key area which needs to be addressed.

In any case, I will be very glad to offer any help possible from my side. And now I will keep in mind to visit the blog often to check out the comments.

Regards,
Sanket.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Parag
DATE: 06/15/2007 05:16:36 PM
Hi Sanket,

Thanks for offering to help.

--
Regards
Parag
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Parag
DATE: 06/16/2007 08:34:30 AM
Hi Sanket,

I too have a lot of trouble keeping track of my comments and people's responses. Some blogs allow you to subscribe to the comment feed or support email notification when someone adds a comment to the post on which you have commented. However, this feature is not available on all blogs.

A simple process that I follow is to bookmark all the posts that I comment on and then check the posts after a few days to see if someone has written anything in response to my comment. This process has worked out well for me.

HTH

--
Regards
Parag
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sanket Daru
URL: http://sankdadevildaru.blogspot.com
DATE: 06/23/2007 11:31:50 AM
Dear Sir,
Will try out the tracking method suggested by you. But I guess, keeping a track of the bookmarks itself will become a headache if one is used to commenting a lot!!! Nevertheless, a good idea.

Subscribing to the comments feed doesn't make much sense, that is what I feel, because more often than not, the comments are mere one-liners, not informative and hardly worth reading! Still, some blogs have really interesting comment feeds as well. So again, its a matter of choice and availability!

Regards,
Sanket Daru.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: A.K.Purandare
URL:
DATE: 06/24/2007 04:18:46 AM
You are very precise in your description and plan.I believe you may be somewhere sharing your thoughts on other fields as well.Like providing solutions/help to Indian University students,Discussing various problems and solutions related to on line coaching and learning etc.Will be delighted to know.Thanks.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Parag
DATE: 06/25/2007 05:39:29 AM
Hi,

I try to share my thoughts and the results of my online learning experiments with everyone through my blog. Even though I do not formally collaborate with or mentor any students or institute, though I will be glad to share whatever I know through this blog.

For online learning there are some people who are real pioneers. They have an awesome vision of how learning should happen and how the Internet and New Media can prove to be helpful resources.

Some people whose blogs I regularly visit to get more insight on learning are:
Stephen Downes: http://www.downes.ca
Cristopher Sessums: http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog

--
Regards
Parag
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