
This is how you actually teach people to program - jmtame
http://jmtame.posterous.com/this-is-how-you-actually-teach-people-to-prog
======
zedshaw
I'm super confused. This is actually how they created their business. This is
_not_ how they expect to teach people, or even how they're currently doing it.
Still interesting from a business perspective, but the title is way the hell
off from the content.

~~~
hanibash
I can see how it could be confusing, but for us, finding our business model
and learning how to teach were in tandem with one another.

I think the main thing we discovered about teaching was that we weren't going
to get anywhere by relying on other people to do the teaching for us, or with
a fancy web application. The thing I find most interesting about our story was
that it took us four iterations to realize that the best way to teach people
was also the simplest -- teach what we know and do it directly. As far our
methodology, it's going to be pretty simple: try to teach people, online, as
if they were all in the room with us. That means lots of Skype calls, chat
room, etc.

~~~
zedshaw
Yeah that just sounds like marketroid startup dude speak. If you want to say
that your business model and $3000 price tag are weeding out all but the most
dedicated students, well then don't claim that's an effective teaching model.
It's an effective way to find people who will learn no matter what, and
doesn't say anything about how effective what you're doing is or is not.

~~~
hanibash
Teaching people directly and offering personal mentorship is the teaching
model. The price is just set at a point that people are willing to pay us. It
has the added benefit of keeping the bar for student motivation high. That's
not the only way, as Hacker School has shown, where the tuition is free and
they instead filter purely on applications.

Not many websites are offering the personal touch online, and I personally
think more people should. I think <http://railstutors.com/> are an example of
two guys doing it right.

Judging by the success of DevBootcamp/Hacker School/Etc. have had, I think it
can safely be said mentorship is a pretty effective teaching model. Our job is
to make that model work online as well.

~~~
niels_olson
Are you aware of any mentorship models in San Diego?

------
petercooper
I know Jared casually (having been involved with Office Hours) and I think he
has an interesting story that's worth the attention. There's a mismatch with
the title here though.

Figuring out a business model that results in a better clientele is an
achievement, but we learn how to find _good people to teach_ rather than "how
to actually teach people to program" in general. This model dismisses those
with a casual "tourist" interest in order to focus on those who are already
motivated. Business wise, that's a great idea for Jared, but companies or
teachers looking to have a mass impact will need to keep doing their research
because many a tourist has turned into a fine developer (and some are finding
success in this area with wildly differing models - Treehouse, Code School,
Zed Shaw, etc.)

~~~
anthonyb
Yes, the title is definitely out of whack with the article.

My take is that a key part of learning how to program (or anything new, in
general) is in the motivation - if your student is just "kicking the tyres"
then forcing them to commit $3k or making them digest an entire book is only
going to deter them.

Once they're motivated though, they'll usually plow through obstacles that
would've stopped them just last week. So give them small wins at first and
give them an idea of what it's all about, then ramp up the difficulty once
they've figured out what they want to do.

A common "tell" for this I find is that they move from "how does 'x' work" to
"I need to do this thing; how do I do that?" combined with doing lots of stuff
(They might do it in a weird, non-programmer way, but they'll still be doing
it).

~~~
helen842000
Yes, anyone that has gone through lots of courses and STILL keeps looking to
learn is pretty dedicated to start with, even before bringing money into it.

Udacity gets you thinking on your own. It teaches you principles then presents
a blank screen and says 'now make something that does XYZ'

That's a whole world away from a pre populated page of code where you type
between the quote marks.

Going from a blank page to something that works - where the steps, logic and
reasoning are all your own - THAT's what makes beginners jump around the room
with excitement.

Beginners also often need to be reminded that if you get stuck your job is to
stop coding and find out.

------
pg_bot
I have used bloc and I must say it is a bad product. It doesn't challenge you
to figure out what to do and allows you to just copy/paste pre-written code
they have provided. After using it I got the feeling that I had not learned a
damn thing.

~~~
endlessvoid94
That was our first product, www.trybloc.com. We're now doing a $3k / course,
one-on-one, personalized dev bootcamp-style product.

If that sounds like something that interests you, I'd encourage you to apply!

------
helen842000
I've tried Bloc, well I've tried everything! (Code School, Codecademy,
Treehouse and many more)

None of them address the frustrations of WHY other programs don't stick.

After an in-browser coding course - the pupil isn't left with anything.
(except a false sense of achievement)

There's no project to put in your portfolio. Nothing live on a website, no
repository in GitHub.

It's also pretty much impossible to show others what you have learned outside
of the website.

After a course, comes the question, "if I want to start my own project or
replicate what I just learned outside if the learning environment, how do I go
about it?"

That makes you feel like you're back at square one.

Learners don't get a sense of achievement from "Hooray, you built your first
app" they get it from building something they can either use or at least show
to others that it works.

To actually teach people to program, you can't do it in an online environment
that is far removed from actually building real projects.

I look forward to seeing something that combines the support that Bloc offers
with the working projects of Udacity - helping to set people up with their own
development environment that they can use for their own ideas.

~~~
helen842000
The solutions I can see appearing soon are either

1)An in-browser coding environment that starts with classes and then supports
any project you build.

Once this type of environment exists and experienced developers prove that it
works with impressive applications - people will see it as a viable learning
route. This could be monetized as a SaS, monthly subscription.

2)A package to download/install that creates a local development environment.
It could even be some progression of Light Table, with classes, forums &
support!

------
bomatson
Hey Jared, enjoyed reading this. I'm in your target- Previous startup founder,
just quit an agency gig to learn to code full-time.

Bloc was on my radar but the $3k price point just didn't make enough sense. I
have a pretty strict burn rate (~2k month) for the summer. Using Bloc sounds
amazing, but it takes a month and half out of that runway. I don't want to be
worried about money, I only want to be worried about learning. Maybe you take
a cut when I'm hired at a startup?

Sans Bloc, I squeeze every resource I can find online to learn (Zed, Hartl,
Pine) and connect with people who can do casual office hours. Set a cirriculum
for myself and bug dev friends / SO when I run into something I cannot get
past. Tougher but I'm learning the whole time.

In my experience, the code review, office hours and peer-peer cohorts are
super valuable for someone learning on their own. Good luck w/ Bloc and hope
there's a good fit soon!

~~~
jmtame
Thanks, I want to help you with this. Can you e-mail me at jared@trybloc.com
so we can chat?

~~~
shurane
Isn't that how hackerschool is making money? 20k hiring fees? You could do
something similar, right?

------
ahsanhilal
So I originally got an email from Roshan, who asked if I wanted to join your
first cohort. I think at that time, you guys were offering for $500. I
actually said yes, but then Roshan replied that you guys filled up quickly.

I then asked him if I could join the second cohort. This time I learned that
the price moved to $1000, and he again told me that he would contact me as
soon as they open a class.

So is the class now $3k? What made you switch the price point?

Also, I am still interested in going through it, but I really need someone to
reply to me. Plus, as fellow UIUC alum/enterpreneur, would truly appreciate
that.

~~~
mhoad
I figured I would jump in here too. I am currently a part of the first cohort
that is going through the program now at the $500 rate. I know that both
myself and a few others practically begged them to raise their prices. It was
HUGELY undervalued at $500. Value aside also, I think $500 is not really the
kind of figure that really demands a certain level of commitment from the
other students involved in the course. While $500 isn't something you just
happen to find in your wallet, for a lot of people they are still able to
write it off mentally when things get difficult.

~~~
ahsanhilal
Oh I dont disagree with the price points, just what was the thought process
behind changing them. Its their company they are free to price their product
at will.

I just want to be a part of it.

------
sopooneo
This piece hits on something that as a former teacher it has always been very
frustrating for me to _not_ see mentioned in most discussions of online
learning: motivation. One of the main things that teachers have to work
hardest on in all but the most elite schools is motivating their students.
That is very difficult as it is, and doing it without physical proximity it
becomes potentially impossible.

It may be that this can be handled, but it needs to be discussed. You can't
just gloss over it and talk more about the stuff that is interesting to
programmers to implement.

~~~
endlessvoid94
This is actually a big reason I like the personal training metaphor. We're not
trying to solve motivation. At least not yet.

You pay a personal trainer, and you (theoretically) grow from the experience
and get value. But you still need to show up to the gym.

------
pjbrow
Title aside, what I really like about this article is the section that talks
about teaching terminal and text editors.

I've been learning to code over the last few months, and while I've got a
reasonable handle on it now, by far the most difficult thing for me was
understanding how the dev tools work together (terminal, git, virtualenv etc.)

There seems to be a tendency for coders to underestimate how steep the
learning curve on dev environment is for noobs. I think there's also a
reticence to deal with a fiddly topic that depends so much on the settings
that the individual has on their computer.

The irony is, you HAVE to understand dev environments before you can actually
make code do stuff. I know more than one person who's been turned off by how
hard it was to get started.

I know that means they probably didn't have the commitment needed, but for
those that do, setting up dev tools as a hazing process still isn't fun.

~~~
endlessvoid94
I think dev tools, as a microcosm of human tools in general, are fascinating.
I think if you zoom out a bit, it's clear the tools have plateau'd in their
complexity and power -- that's not to say they aren't advanced or fucking
awesome. But the pace of things seems to have slowed.

Like you noted, a lot of the complexity comes from how the tools work
together. There's version control, editing, code intelligence, test suites and
test runners, different sorts of environments, and more. And every possible
permutation and nuanced setup depending on the runtime you're using and
depending on how opinionated and/or fickle the community is around whichever
language you're using.

Meta-problems of this kind are seldom discussed directly and are difficult to
improve upon. I suspect things will get better slowly, and problems we have
now will seem trivial and quaint in the future.

EDIT: What heroku has done for the production environment, I want for the
development environment.

~~~
pjbrow
I like the idea in your Edit. If you manage that, you're on a winner. I'm not
technically astute enough to have a serious opinion, but intuitively, it makes
sense that a dev environment (particularly using tools like VIM and TMUX)
isn't far away from what Heroku is already doing with virtual machines. People
are always bunging on about how to develop using an iPad - that's clearly the
way to do it.

Don't agree on the plateau so far as dev tools are concerned. Would be
surprised if you haven't come across Bret Victor's ideas
(<http://vimeo.com/36579366>). In my view, implementing those principles could
really change how things are done. Can't wait to see what he comes up with
over the next few years.

As to solving the core problem for now: the only solution is to just be really
opinionated so far as beginners are concerned. Reasonable minds can differ on
textmate/vim etc, but just showing students how to setup one solid set of
tools on windows or mac (and more importantly, explaining it) would be a hell
of alot more than is already out there. :)

------
snootyusher
I'd be interested to hear what's happened with the graduates. Do they go on to
actually be employed in web dev? The testimonials all say how great the
program is, but I'd like to hear how the ROI is.

~~~
jmtame
When we announce our demo day, where our students show off their products, you
can be the judge :) We also plan on gettin them intros to various companies--I
will be reaching out to YC alum personally.

------
eldavido
Hey Jared, post wanders a bit but you bring up some good points. Definitely
right about investors. At AngelPad, the refrain was always "product, solution,
team, traction", but in terms of securing a commitment, who else is in the
round matters _WAY_ more than anything else. Traction matters too, but it's a
distant second behind who else is investing.

Just proves how much opportunity exists for those willing to stick their necks
out and think independently, even in this world of supposedly very smart and
"rational" people.

------
_feda_
There seems to be a disproportionate difference between perceived intelligence
of males and females. The males rank much lower. Could this be due to a bias
towards males in the people who were voting? I imagine if the voting sample
was mostly male, then females would come out more favorably generally.

~~~
endlessvoid94
Are you in the wrong thread?

------
berberous
invite code please?

~~~
jmtame
LNCH for trybloc.com

~~~
berberous
Awesome, thanks!!

