Saturday, June 07, 2008

Marist Sakai Bootcamp


We just wrapped up the Sakai Marist Bootcamp which ran from June 2nd through the 6th at Marist College in PoughKeepsie, New York, USA. There were 32 participants from universities in Michigan, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Hawaii, Canada (not comprehensive) and commercial groups like IBM, rSmart, Unicon, and Serensoft. This is the first Sakai bootcamp of 2008 and I guess something like the 10th one I have taught overall.
Topics covered included Sakai installation and development environments, Eclipse usage, Sakai code structure, development practices and tips, and various Java development tips. Participants had quite a varied level of knowledge from those who were new to Java and Sakai to those who had been using Java for 10+ years and Sakai for 3+ years. There were participatns from higher ed and K-12. Marist is helping provide Sakai services for K-12 schools around NY state and I had a chance to see how they are using Sakai. I felt like the workshop went really well and I enjoyed my time in Poughkeepsie, NY.
Our hosts at Marist treated us very well and provided lunch and snacks every day and a great location to have the workshop. We went to Shadows (a semi open air restaurant along the river) on Tuesday evening and had a good time with fairly traditional upscale american dining. I was honored to have a chance to meet a dean and the president of the college on the last day.
Cheers to everyone who organized things and gave me a chance to come to NY and hopefully expand the Sakai community.

Flickr photos are posted here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sakaimaristbootcamp/