[PyAR2] [PyAR2-organizers] pyArkansas 2010

[Bob Fahr]

 Greg,
First of all, thanks for continuing to drive this effort!

I really like the idea of 30 min classes for a track.  We can cover a
lot of topics and appeal to a broader audience.

I think it is great that the high schools are contacting us, if we are
getting enough participation from the high schools I think it would be
worth ensuring that we have present topics that would be useful to
them.  As an offshoot of our conference I'd be interested in presenting
to the EAST classes or high school computer classes on-site too.

I'll work on getting some donations of $$ and swag.

Do you have a summary of the stats on the prior conferences we've held? 
That would be useful in persuading supporters that this is serious. 
Something like number of attendees, where they came from, number of
presenters and their background, past sponsors, feedback from
participants, etc.

Bob

On 8/21/2010 7:34 AM, Greg Lindstrom wrote:
> Good Morning, Everyone -
>
> pyArkansas is scheduled for Saturday, October 16th and once again, our
> friends at UCA have agreed to host us.  This is our 3rd pyArkansas and
> I'd like to start leaning on local talent more than we have in the
> past two years.  Part of that is because I think there are plenty of
> Python developers/user right here and the other is that the bast
> majority of our budget the past two years has been devoted to flying
> people in and housing feeding them.  I am going to pyTexas this
> Saturday and may ask Jeff Rush if he could come up (he was here in
> 2008) but, unless there is a huge cry from the masses, that will be it
> this year.
>
> Our format has been classes in the morning and talks in the
> afternoon.  This worked well when our primary thrust was to introduce
> Python to people but, as I mentioned, there are a lot of people using
> Python and we need to accommodate them as well.  To that end, I'd like
> to propose that we have at least 1 classroom devoted to talks or open
> space in the morning.  We need a "Python for Programmers" class for
> experienced coders to learn Python (Dr. Burch from Hendrix College has
> already offered to repeat his class from last year) and I'm torn on
> the "Python for Complete Beginners" class.  Dr. Chen (UCA) did a
> fantastic job teaching it last year but, if memory serves, we only had
> 4 people in it [however, one was a representative from Philander Smith
> College looking to evaluate Python for their CS curriculum!].
>
> I have been contacted by Michael Finch, EAST Lab Facilitator out of
> Greene County Tech High School (Paragould) about pyArkansas.  For
> those of you who are not aware, the EAST program -- Environmental And
> Spatial Technologies -- is an effort to get technology into High
> School classrooms and, I think, is a perfect fit for us.  Michael has
> stressed that they do not promote one technology over another, but is
> interested in making his students aware of pyArkansas; this may be a
> perfect opportunity for us to offer the "Python for Complete
> Beginners" class.  I've included him on this email and will  contact
> him separately to see how we can work together.
>
> If we are going to have talks, we need people to speak!  I will put
> together a "call for papers" and I need *YOU* to think about
> presenting something.  If can be on a specific Python topic (how to
> program objects, database, web) or on something cool where you have
> used Python.  I have even toyed with having 30-minute talks as well as
> 60-minute talks because I think we cold get more people to speak for
> shorted periods of time and I'd love to see all sorts of topics.  We
> will need to get a list of topics people would like to see.  I am
> working on getting our wiki up (friends from pyTexas are helping me
> with that).
>
> So, here's where we stand.  We need to get word out to everyone (Dr.
> Burch has volunteered to get word out to Universities/Colleges and I'm
> handling High Schools).  We need to get a wiki up (hopefully tomorrow)
> and then we can get a call for papers out.  I need someone to handle
> swag (if we want it); I can help out, but someone has to do the
> legwork (write email/make phone calls).  And we will need some $$. 
> I'll ask Novasys but does anyone have a contact at Acxiom or HP? 
> Anywhere else in Conway that we can think of?
>
> This may have repeated some of what I wrote two weeks ago, but I only
> received 2 responses.  If this is going to go forward, more people
> have to get involved!  Let me know what you want pyArkansas to be this
> year!
>
> --greg
>
>
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