I got some email this morning from a middle-school teacher who is interested in using Inform in the classroom, but wants some help in getting up to speed with it. Here’s the text of the request:
Do you know of any sources I could check out that might offer workshops,
conferences, etc. (especially in the summer), that I might be able to
attend and get some training on the program? Is there anybody out there
doing that, or is it mainly a “learn it for yourself” situation? I’d
really like to get in a small group setting with an expert who can take
me through the basics while we’re in the same room.
I was about to write back and say, no, no one does that — but it occurs to me that I don’t know that for certain. Does anyone out here know of such a thing?
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 
No. Just checked.
I’d be up for attending that, myself.
Yeah, but where would you hold it? (My impression from the IF map done a while back is that IF enthusiasts are pretty thinly spread around, with major clusters only in high-tech, high-education cities like Boston and Seattle.)
Public libraries are wonderful for this sort of program. They are, of course, unlikely to have this program already in place; but it’s worth inquiring whether a librarian would be willing to coordinate such a workshop. We librarians don’t know what kind of programs people like until they tell us, y’know? And we always like to provide programming that patrons will attend and enjoy. On the other hand, the economic downturn has a lot of public libraries busy with helping patrons fill out applications, find jobs, and even learn to read — so they may be too busy to set up a IF-based workshop. But there’s no harm in asking.
Where is this teacher located? Anywhere near Pittsburgh (where I am)?
Jim Aikin just taught a series of Inform lessons for homeschool kids in California.
http://midiguru.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/inform-7-not-just-kid-stuff/
He’s in North Carolina, I believe.
There are free and very cheap video conferencing packages available online. Never used them myself, but I hear good things about them.
Might check out Skype for starters.
Conrad.
About two years back, I was teaching a class on Tapestry and one of the students’ daughters was being taught Inform in school; I believe it was an afternoon program. She was 12 and this was in Austin, TX.
A local home schooling group has been wanting me to teach kids in that age programming, and Inform is one of the tools I’ve been thinking of. The integrated IDE and tools help a lot.
I have wanted such a workshop for a long time. It seems like a perfect fit to run an InForm workshop during Penguicon, a science fiction and open source software convention that I run in Michigan. The good thing about that arrangement is that the convention covers the overhead, like facility rental, computer lab, and audio-visual equipment.
I would be willing to try to organize an InForm workshop, but the tricky bit will be getting qualified instructors, since such a small event could not afford to pay to fly them in.
One of the keys of creating this event would be to collect the locations of those who would be interested in attending, and how far they would be willing to travel to it. Ms. Short, would you be willing to make another blog post asking for that information to be sent to me at matt.mattarn@gmail.com?
Posted.