Wednesday, August 06, 2008

APEX for 55+ people - The concept

The last weeks I've been doing some interesting things.

Normally I'm asked to train or coach people when they already have some experience in the IT-field, or know some things about Oracle SQL, PLSQL and APEX. Or I need to train youngsters who already know a lot about the internet and web development.

But what about people who have no real IT experience and are 55+ old? Is it possible to let these people know something about web development and get them up to speed with Oracle Application Express?

The reason I found it an interesting idea, are multiple:

  • if you can teach people from that generation a "web 2.0" solution, everybody should be able to learn it
  • 55+ people have time, their children are already older, their career is probably in a direction
  • motivated 55+ people are searching for a challenge and want something new
  • some managers seem to think their 55+ staff can only do "old" stuff, which I don't agree with
  • it's a challenge to teach normal people (= non-programmers) development skills and you'll probably need to explain more and better so they can really understand
So I started a pilot project with one 55+ person to see how it goes. We're a couple of weeks further and I thought it's time to do a series of blog posts with the outcome.

I thought to seperate the posts in
  • Part 1: The landscape (more info about 55+ person and the environment)
  • Part 2: The first steps (the start)
  • Part 3: The positive points and challenges
  • Part 4: The first APEX application
  • Part 5: The next steps
  • Part 6: Conclusion
If you have some specific questions I should handle, feel free to leave a comment.

7 comments:

Louis-Guillaume said...

Hi Dimitri,

This is a really good idea!
I want to know what is harder to learn for your students. (SQL, PL/SQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
I am also concern about how will they know what language to use and where/when to it use.

I am waiting for more news on this story ;)

Anonymous said...

so u r sayin that Apex iz only gud for old peeople?

Monty Latiolais said...

Dimitri,

Not many people have wanted to touch this potentially volatile topic. Kudos to you.

For the most part the entire web experience thus far has been taylored to the young, when as you mentioned it's the 55+ population that has the available cycles. The rest of us are out there trying to scratch out a living.

I'm very interested in seeeing your results as I will be in your target demographic too soon.

Monty

SydOracle said...

I'll keep an eye on it.

"normal people (= non-programmers)"
Remember, there are programmers over 55 too.

Brian said...

Good idea!

How many days a week do you have class and how long was each of your classes?

Thanks,
Brian

Anonymous said...

wen iz ur nxt Rby train?

Anonymous said...

Hey, I'm 56 years old and the main Apex creator in the company which happens to be a major IT company.
I have had to learn it all by trial and error as well as there are no classes in the US that I can find.