BarnCamp 2010 Workshops
Format of Workshops
Can you please follow the following format if you can be bothered
Title of Workshop: Data control
Name and contact : Barbara@woodhouse.co.uk
Length: 45 mins
Short Description: How to get your data to behave like you want it. Not everyone has time to invest in a full time data control course. We'll look at coping strategies
Type: practical
Are you up for collaboration? Yes
Full Description: Although Mike Harris is renowned for being one of the best data trainers from a couple of decades ago, even this book cannot make his apauling methods appear any better. His abusive and consistent use of the cursed choke chain and details of his harsh methods she would use upon computer delinquents is awful to detail the least. Neither a book for the first-time, nor the experienced data owner...not even for non data owners. After reading this book, I feel better prepared to exploit modern, more effective, kinder training methods that utilise some of the practices described in this book. Why not try: "Data Training, The Gentle Modern Method" by David WESTON, "Why Does My Data...?" and "Think Data!" by John FISHER?
Presentation Workshops
Please put down your workshops here if they are mainly presentation based.
Citizen Video Journalist workshop
Facilitator: PaulO
Length/type: 60 minutes presentation
Short Description: Would you like to join a network of motivated people filming their own news? Undercurrents is seeking people with camcorders to join a 'Citizen Journalists Network'.
Full description:
Citizen Journalism : 'Participation by citizens in gathering and distributing news. Aims to provide an independent and alternative viewpoint to traditional news organisations.'
Would you like to join a network of motivated people filming their own news? Undercurrents is seeking people with camcorders to join a 'Citizen Journalists Network'. You will be trained to support your local community and campaign groups by producing regular video clips about local positive news.
During this workshop we will introduce the concept with examples of how people have used their video cameras for social change.
If you have a camcorder and want to put it to good use, come and check us out. More info on www.undercurrents.org/training
Found Sounds & Live Coding Playshop
Facilitator: Mark R
Length/type: 30 minutes presentation/practical & 20 minutes performance
Short Description: Stand-by activity to do if a proper workshop is cancelled at the last minute
Are you up for collaboration? Hell yes, I have more to learn than to teach
Full description: The plan would be for a 20-30 minute barcamp-style session preparing an experimental musical piece, to be performed on Saturday Night as part of the entertainment programme. I don't see this as a core part of what Hacktionlab is about, but there are some "transferrable skills" in audio manipulation & live-coding so I propose it as a stand-by if something better gets cancelled
The barcamp-style part of the event could involve finding some sounds from around the site then sampling them to be triggered using Hydrogen to form a soundscape, and/or using Puredata and/or Supercollider to code up some oscillations, depending on people's interests. If it flies then a small group could re-convene after the workshop programme finishes, make a few loops and prepare a performance. People wanting to make non-electronic noises (e.g. banging shit, shouting) would also be encouraged to join in. If we lose power completely, prepare to behold the wonders of the vegetable orchestra!
Email security - strictly for non-techies
Facilitator: ana
Length/type: 60 to 90 minutes presentation with a practical after-math which can be put at the bottom of this page because people don't need equipment for this one, but might need for the practical bit
Short Description: What is the difference between using and not using a "secure connection" for email? What is the difference between plain and encrypted email? Why should I use any of those?
Are you up for collaboration? In what I can ...
Full description: Think of emails as letters carried in lorries, think of corporate and state authorities as flying in planes or similar from where they can see those letters. The lorries can either have their tops covered, or not, and they may travel on open roads, or through tunnels, and the choice of lorry is yours. Then you can also think of emails as messages in a box that can be either open or closed, and you have the option to put a good or a super-good lock on it. And so on.
Practical Workshops
Please put down your workshops here if they are hands-on practical workshops. Ones where people are asked to bring their own equipment, set up an account on a service and step through activties etc.
Get your Windows or Apple computer running Linux too! (Dual Boot)
Facilitator: Andy and Bristol Wireless people
Length/type: 60 minutes practical
Short Description: You'll learn how to take a laptop with Windows or Mac operating system and install Linux on it. This will most likely be Ubuntu or you could choose Debian as well.
Are you up for collaboration? It would be good to have some people floating around to be able to give 1-to-1 help to anyone who gets stuck.
Full description:
You'll find out how to install an extra operating system on your computer so that you can try out Linux. It's pretty easy to do, but it's nice to do together with people who can help you out if it gets confusing. There are loads of things that are much easier to do on Linux computers and if you learn Linux it means your computer life will be bullet proof!
Requirements: This session should be early on so that people can get the most out of later sessions. You will need to bring a laptop computer with Windows or Mac operating system on it. Or you can watch how it's done.
It is important to backup your data files to an external backup medium before attempting a dual-boot install (or any other hard drive manipulation), in case your hard drive becomes corrupted during the process. External hard drives, USB flash drives, and multiple DVDs or CDs are useful as external backup media. It's good to do this before you arrive if possible. Also if you have your copy of Windows or OSX then please bring that along as well.
The Command Line Interface Is Easy and Fun
Facilitator: Mark R
Length/type: 20 minutes practical
Short Description: Simple orientation exercises for people who haven't used a CLI much
Are you up for collaboration? Yes. It would be good to have some people floating around to be able to give 1-to-1 help to anyone who gets stuck.
Full description: This should be very early in the programme, to enable people to get the most out of later sessions. It's just going to be getting people to open a terminal emulator then simple use of cd, ls, nano, less, man. Then we'll have a quick look at the fun-fun-fun anagram generator "an" to show how switches and parameters work, pipe output to less, write output to a file.
Requirements: You will need to bring a laptop computer with a GNU/linux (or similar) operating system already installed and working. (See other workshop). Please make sure that your battery is charged up, so we don't have to find lots of mains sockets. It would also save time on the day if you could have the "an" program already installed - again, ask for help if you need it. It's in the debian and ubuntu repositories; see also http://packages.debian.org/lenny/an if your geeky friend offers to help you compile the source code.
Getting encrypted
Facilitator: ana p
Length/type: 60 minutes, more if people require individual assistance and/or if there are many of them
Short Description: How to get all set up to send your emails securely and even encrypted - graphically and easily
Are you up for collaboration? Yes. It would also be good to have some people floating around to be able to give 1-to-1 help to anyone who gets stuck.
Full description: Using Thunderbird's OpenPGP extension, people who attended the first, more theoretical workshop on the subject, will end up being able to set themselves up to use encryption at least in its most basic level. We'll use only graphical interfaces unless absolutely indispensable.
Requirements: You will need to bring a computer, preferably with a GNU/linux (or similar) operating system already installed. Thunderbird is in the ubuntu repositories. Otherwise please make sure you have Mozilla Thunderbird already installed with its OpenPGP extension, although there might be people who can help you install all that if you can't do it at home. Please make sure that your battery is charged up if you can, so we don't have to find lots of mains sockets.
Renewables and 12 volt
Title of Workshop: 12 volt heaven - an introduction to renewables and DC
Name and contact : Mike Harris / JimDog
Length: 60 mins
Short Description: What are renewables all about, what is DC and AC and what's the pros and cons.
Type: practical
Are you up for collaboration? Yes
Full Description:
- 12 volt theory: AC vs DC, pros and cons.
- the simply battery + bulb set-up
- connecting a solar panel to it, the charging/discharging equation, how
many panels does it take to charge x batteries and how many batteries does it take to provide x power for y amount of time?
- likewise looking at pedal generators and dynamos
- fitting a split-charge relay to your vehicle to charge on board
leisure batteries
- types of battery (lead acid, deep cycle, nimh, li-ion, etc)
- running stuff demos: 12 volt cinema (Jon's setup) and 12 volt
cybersuite (BW set-up).
Strategy / Discussion Workshops
Please put down your workshops here if they are strategy or discussion based
Why would I want to use Indymedia?
Facilitator: Mark R
Length: 30-45 minutes
Short Description: A discussion about the importance of open newswires and how the praxis of citizen journalism can build community.
Type: Facilitated discussion, possibly developing some documents.
Are you up for collaboration?: Yes.
Full description: I'm offering this because I've been doing some outreach work recently for my Indymedia collective. This has made me think about the importance of open newswires (text and multimedia) and their interaction with listings/announcements as a means of developing (political) community. My thinking about it is captured in this sketchy diagram, which I'm hoping can be bettered by the end of the session.