Billibala

Freddie Mercery 65th birthday

This is the tribute video of Freddie Mercery’s 65th birthday – a compilation of some of his previous interviews. It’s a glimpse of his view to his own art and legacy.

“If all my money end tomorrow, I will still be the same person.”, Freddie Mercury

New and Noteworthy – Nowbox

Almost a year of work. Booting up, failed, rebooting, taking a different path, changing course, resuming… Numerous interface tweaks, feature change, extra radiation exposures in cross pacific flight, thousands of hours time and life…

Nowbox is now in “New and Noteworthy” category of US iTunes App Store.

Kevin who used to be curator of TEDx Tapiei, once, when we were sharing event after thought, said, “這些都是用生命跟血換的…”

True! It’s great reward of a great journey. 但真的這累…

Let’s move on in 2012.

Teaching… it’s freaking hard man!

Started teaching in HKDI on an iOS development course. They, weirdly, call it iPhone apps creation.

I railed about the architecture of their build before. This post has nothing to do with that.

So, teaching… it’s hard. Freaking hard.

Problem: You mix a bunch of adults with different background. Make them sit in the same class and, hopefully, make them be able to develop iOS application without having to spend much effort apart from attending class.

I segment my students into 3 major categories…

1. Designers – they know design. Maybe some HTML and Javascript. But they are definitely not the type of designer who would read A-List-Apart.
2. IT professionals – they had some formal technical education before. They know some kind of programming languages and they’ve probably written some code at some point in their life
3. People from nowhere – they can be a clerical worker, admin officer, like a random person you encounter on the street

I had 2 classes already. In the first class, I know nothing about the students. Got some basic understanding about them. And got a better understanding about myself as well.

Second class… I started explaining Obj-C and doing some coding with the students. It’s hell difficult to get everyone in the same page.

Those who understand coding… they fell asleep once I began the basics… types, variables, control flow (conditions, loop). Those who don’t get it… they fell asleep as well.

Fuck! I am one of those boring teacher incapable of explaining things and keep students interested in the subject! (Actually, it’s not that bad. But definitely need to better prepare for class)

I need to fix this.

3 problems:

1. How to give interesting lecture?
2. How to make those smart guys interested in the topic? And, at the same time, …
3. How to keep those random people on track and learn something?

Gotta think through this tonight. Had 4 shots of coffee. It will be an enjoyable night of thinking.

If you’ve got advice for me, let me know!