Website Team

[Dan Zollman]

Why do you need to "make" it fun?

In my view, a mentor's job is (when possible) not to make a program or a plan for the students, but instead to facilitate the students, let them drive themselves, and give them access to the tools and the knowledge they need in order to learn and create.

If coding isn't fun, there are ways to build a site without coding; if design isn't fun, there are ways to build a site without designing (not that I would endorse that path myself).

[quinxorin]

Originally Posted by Dan Zollman

Why do you need to "make" it fun?

In my view, a mentor's job is (when possible) not to make a program or a plan for the students, but instead to facilitate the students, let them drive themselves, and give them access to the tools and the knowledge they need in order to learn and create.

If coding isn't fun, there are ways to build a site without coding; if design isn't fun, there are ways to build a site without designing (not that I would endorse that path myself).

I would like to agree with Dan. The students will have fun - if they don't, then they shouldn't be building a website. I honestly think PHP is a really fun thing to write.

Here's how I run my web meetings (with myself, seeing as I'm my team's only webmaster): I sit down at the computer. I open up a file named "update.txt" that has a big list of everything that I still have left to do. I pick whichever one I feel in the mood for. I do it.

Of course, that approach definitely will not work if there's more than one person.

My recommendation to you as a mentor would be to sit back and let the students do everything. When they start pulling their hair out because their php if statement evaluates to true every single time, even when obviously false (somebody used "=" instead of "==", probably), you step in and point it out. Offer friendly suggestions about how to make code better, how to design well, or just completely new ideas - but let them do all the work.