Yesterday night my lightning talk got accepted to the Information+ conference in Vancouver! I always wanted to go to Vancouver. And the conference looks very, very promising. I will talk about “Goals for Data Visualisation in Advocacy and Journalism” - which is a topic I don’t know suuuuper much about yet, but that will change. I started reading “Discovering the News” this morning, a book that hopefully will give me some answers to the questions I have in this regard. Good book, so far. Good book.
What I did today: Pair programming with Katie, part 2, this time for real, as Katie explained to me. Seems like pair programming means that the one who has more of a clue about what needs to get done is the one who is NOT at the keyboard. Yes, that means that I was the one at the keyboard today. Pair programming was mind blowing in three regards:
1. Externalizing your “intuitive” approach in concrete words is hard, but makes you aware of the things you actually know….and of the things you only thought you’d knew. “Teaching is the best learning”, people say. People might be right.
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Talking through your approach or code means that you don’t unconsciously “jump” over necessary steps. It happens to me all the time that I forget one step in my thought process. I then need to go back, when it’s way too late for it. Pair programming can prevent that.
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As the one being at the keyboard, I am not in control, but I FEEL like I am. I can just stop typing in code and ask questions instead when I don’t understand a step. That means I, as a student, control the pace of teaching. The teacher can be sure that I understand every step because….I need to. With other words, it’s easy to detect when one part of the pair programming pair doesn’t follow.
It makes me happy to know pair programming now, and it makes me upset because I’ve never done it before. AND I COULD HAVE LEARNED SO MUCH.
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Input: 6
Output: 8
Learnings:
Some things about the penny press and about objectivity in Journalism from The “Discovering the News” book. Eg » “It should be apparent that the belief in objectivity in journalism, is, as in other professions, is not just a claim about what kind of knowledge is reliable. It is also a moral philosophy, a declaration of what kind of thinking one should engage in, in making moral decisions.” Good book.
People might be less open with sharing information on the radio now than they were twenty years ago, because now they know it goes on the web and will be archived and googlable.
Radio is considered to be more “passive” than podcasts. You know what to expect when you listen to your favourite podcast (eg broad topic or style), but you don’t know what to expect when turning on the radio (except, in some cases, when you listen to it every single day). Radio editors need to pay attention to that.
R: the dyplr mutate feature. I need to get into dyplr more. Urgently. I need to understand it 100%. It would help me so, so much.
Questions:
What’s the best way to prepare the lightning talk?
How should I deal with my weekend? The first totally free weekend in months?
What would be good questions to ask / parameters to have to decide when I should put a thought on my “real” blog or here? I wrote a blog post today which could also have happened here. And my thoughts about pair programming could have been on my real blog. Hm.
Which kind of images should I hang in my cubicle? Which ones should I hang up in my room? Where do I want to feel more at home? Which ones MAKE me feel most at home? Which ones inspire me the most? Where will I get new ones?