Naoko Hamamoto's Weblog
Wednesday May 14, 2008
Proctoring JavaOne Hands-on Labs
This year, I decided to do something different for JavaOne. Instead of being an attendee, I decided to be on the other side - be the one to help attendees. I volunteered my time to proctor four hands-on labs.
It was truly an amazing and exciting experience for me. It was a great opportunity to work closely with engineers/evangelists/technical writers who work on key Sun technologies. I also got to play around with the latest and the coolest technologies that Sun has to offer. It was fun! I also met with many Sun employees from all over the world and had a great time chatting with them. And of course, last but not least, chatting with the lab attendees was a lot of fun too. I love helping others and hearing what they had to say about our labs, our technologies and our company. Many stopped by on the way out to thank me for all the help that I have extended to them and told me that the labs were good and they learned a lot. I felt great!
The labs that I have proctored are the following:
1. JavaFX
2. Ruby on Rails
3. jMaki
4. Woodstock
Since I was not very familiar with most of these technologies, I spent a significant chunk of my time studying and learning to make sure that I have enough knowledge to help our attendees should they encounter any issues during the lab. Yes it took a lot of my time, but I really think it was time well spent.
If you did not get a chance to attend the labs, here is good news. All of them are now available for you to download and work on at your own pace. Check out JavaOne Hands-on Labs 2008.
It was interesting to see that there were all kinds of lab attendees. Some were really interested in doing the labs fast (I mean really fast) to get the prizes. Others were taking their time to really learn the technology, sometimes what's behind it. Others were familiar with similar technologies and wanted to compare. I also met one attendee from the JavaFX lab, who was a graphics designer. She told me that she saw the demo and she wanted to see if this can be used in her work. I was excited, as they (content developers) are one of the targeted users of JavaFX!
Despite the long commute (it took me 2.5 hours one way door-to-door) I enjoyed the event very much and I am looking forward to being a part of the team again next year.
Posted by naoko ( May 14 2008, 12:11:09 PM PDT ) Permalink
This is a personal weblog, I do not speak for my employer.
