On Tuesday, February 10 begins the FREE Catdroid Android Study Jam at itnig. During 7 weeks, 20 developers will meet in our offices to learn together, solve questions and go through the main issues of the Udacity course “Developing Android Apps — Android Fundamentals” by Google.
Although these developers are truly beginners on Android, they should have at least 3 years of programming experience in Java or another object-oriented programming language (for example: C++, Objective C or Python).
For knowing a bit more about this supervised study group we have talked with Sergi Martínez, Senior Android Developer and tutor of this Android study jam.
Question: What is a study jam and how it works?
Answer: The Study Jams are an initiative from Google to create global groups run by local communities. This is the first one we do in Barcelona and it will be about the Udacity Android Fundamentals course. The idea is to run 7 study sessions during the course in order to review the topics of every lesson and help students build their own app during the course. So, students watch a Lesson by themselves, and then, we review it in the local session and review how to apply this knowledge into their own application.
Q: What is Catdroid?
A: Catdroid is a community of Android lovers, fans, developers, designers and users created 4 years ago with the objective of creating events, speeches, courses and all kind of activities + helping each other when having questions or issues about the Android topic. The idea is to create something from the community to the community.
Q: And what is the Catdroid Android Fundamentals course about?
A: This is the Catdroid instance of this course. The courses are normally held by the official Google Developers Groups (GDG’s). But after talking with Google people they offered us to run our own study jam in parallel with the guys from the GDG Barcelona. The idea is to open more opportunities to the people of the community, no matter who organizes the jam.
Q: Why is this course relevant nowadays?
A: Mobile development is one of the most growing industries nowadays, and it’s not a temporary thing. A lot of developers are looking for a way to recycle themselves into the mobile world. Taking a course like this is an excellent opportunity to make this move. If we only had something like this when we started, our last four years would have been much much easier.
Q: What will people learn during this course?
A: People will learn how to make a complete application from scratch. We will review the most important issues to start working on the Android development world. Besides, the course is focused not only on learning things, but also on how and where to look for information when needed.
Q: What practical skills can people expect to have upon completion of this course?
A: Starting from the most basic concepts, they will be able to create some advanced UI, use external REST services to take information, local databases to cache this information and how to sync this information to save battery and data, among many other things. And it will work in phones and tablets.
Q: Who is this course recommended for? What should be the background / relevant experience of the attendees?
A: This course is for developers who want to introduce themselves into the Android development world. Experience in object oriented development is required. If you are experienced in Java, this is the best option, but people coming from languages like C# or Objective-C shouldn’t have any problem, they only will need to review some things. The course is also perfect for professional developers who want to push their careers forward or for computer science’s students who want to start learning Android development.
Q: Main takeaways of this course:
- Learning from the people who made Android
- Build a full app from scratch
- Become familiar with the Android world, being able to find information by yourself and knowing where to go to ask for help
- Doing apps the right way, taking the user into account, avoiding battery drainings and network hogs
- Be ready to start a career as an Android Developer
Q: Prereqs and preparation:
Basic, Intermediate or Advanced Level?
A: This is an intermediate level (not big experience is required), but students should already know what OOP is and the basic concepts.
Is prior experience required?
A: Prior experience with an OOP language is required. This is not a course to learn programming, but to learn developing Android apps.
Any specific software needed?
A: The only thing needed will be Android Studio, and this is available for free.
ABOUT THE TUTOR
Q: Sergi, why are you doing this? What is your motivation for organizing this free study jams and how long have you been organizing this kind of study jams?
A: I really love sharing knowledge with the community, anyone who has attended one of my speeches knows that I’m really passionate about that. I think this is also a perfect way to introduce new people into the Android community.
I have worked on training more than three years and I have always tried to have places to share and teach. With Catdroid and the GDG we made a lot of events with a different formats.
This is the first Study Jam at a global level (you won’t believe how many are being performed). I have never worked with this format, but everybody in the organization is very excited about it and, if the results are good (which I’m sure they’ll be), there will be more Study Jams in the future!
Q: In short, who is Sergi Martínez?
A: Sergi Martínez is a developer with more than 15 years’ software industry experience — with a strong focus on software localisation projects and tool development. He is now working on the Android platform and he helps people learn new developing skills by sharing his knowledge and passion. At the moment, Sergi is focused on the Mobility R&D sector, and is eager to push the industry forward. He has been declared by Google as a 2015 Android GDE (Google Developer Expert). Twitter > https://twitter.com/SergiAndReplace
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Thank you Sergi!
// Mar
More info about this Android Study Jam
SCHEDULE
Session 1: Tuesday, February 10–7pm to 9pm
Session 2: Tuesday, February 17–7pm to 9pm
Session 3: Tuesday, February 24–7pm to 9pm
Session 4: Tuesday, March 10–7pm to 9pm
Session 5: Tuesday, March 17–7pm to 9pm
Session 6: Tuesday, March 24–7pm to 9pm
Session 7: Tuesday, March 31–7pm to 9pm
PRICE: for free!