I am interested in some mentoring! I just heard you on the Code Newbie podcast, which I was listening too at work, and when you started talking about Knoxville, TN, I had to rewind the whole podcast and start again because I got really excited! I live in Knoxville! Once I looked you up, your face looked familiar - did you eat at the Tomato Head often enough that I may recognize you from there? I was a manager/ host/ food runner/ etc. at the Market Sq. location from 2003 - 2012. Anyway, you seemed familiar, and I loved hearing someone say “East, TN” and Knoxville on a podcast :)
Currently I am an architect at Johnson Architecture. I have an idea for an app that I have been trying to learn some code, software development, etc., but I feel overwhelmed by the variety of information I could learn. I have several books on different programming languages, and tried CodeAdademy and Flatiron school for a little bit, but lost some momentum.
Here is the general background of my idea: When I was going through the licensing process to become an architect, I had to take 6 licensing exams, and study 30+ books of information, which works great for me - I love reading, but didn’t work for a lot of my peers. I also found all the study material out there really isn’t geared toward busy people. You have to read a ton of books, take notes, make your own flash cards, etc. Some big names like Kaplan offer study guides and exams, but they were of poor quality, and often not edited well or kept up with the trends in our profession. I want to create interactive learning material for people to learn from their phone. I imagine a lot of animated content (which I would produce using Adobe products, such as After Affects), and interactive quizzes, and a data base that tracks the person’s learning. I imagine a listening mode, where maybe you are on the treadmill after work, just listening to key terms in architecture as a review… I have a lot of ideas to address learning of many styles.
The general idea is to 1) address how busy young people need this type of content to fit studying for the ARE (Architectural Registration Exams) into their life, 2) offer a visual and dynamic way to learn (I am also a teacher at Pellissippi, and architects are general visual learners, so it is surprising the lack of visual content for a lot of our technical information), and 3) I hope this tool will make studying for the ARE more accessible to working parents, particularly women and also under represented people in architecture. A little less than 2 out of 5 architects are women and about 1 in 5 are minorities. I would keep the app affordable so everyone could learn, and I imagine eventually having a learning mode that is child friendly - so while mom is learning about the relationship between the contractor, owner, and architect, the animation is presented in such a way it would engage a child.
I am sort of all over the place, but I have been thinking about this for three years! I have brushed up on all my Adobe skills, so creating the content is not the issue (finding the time to do it is!), the issue is, once created, how do I get it into an application?
I have started all kinds of programs on JavaScript, React, Swift, etc. I feel overwhelmed, and would love to chat about some direction that may be helpful. If nothing else, it is awesome to know another Knoxville person is out there making things happen.
Session Notes
Has started HTML and CSS. Got into Java and Javascript.
Send responsive web resource.
Send modern javascript tutorial
Send Javascript30