By Melanie Stone
Chicago Tribune News Applications Developer Andy Boyle led a coding workshop on Jan. 17 for current and former SPJ/ONA DePaul members.
The event came just a few weeks after SPJ DePaul reorganized as SPJ/ONA DePaul in an effort to combine traditional journalism with digital innovation.
Boyle kicked off his presentation by encouraging the group to embrace the learning process and ask questions throughout the workshop.
“At one point, I was a beginner, too,” he said. “This is a no-hater zone.”
From there, Boyle’s three-hour workshop covered HTML, CSS and JavaScript — three languages of the Internet. He also showed the group useful tools, such as Bootstrap, Tabletop.js and Sublime Text. Boyle assisted students, reviewed their work and answered questions as they coded pages.
The afternoon ended with sandwiches and a tour of Boyle’s coding experiments, which included funny sites he built in his spare time. Boyle took questions from workshop attendees as well, highlighting the importance of web programming and news applications in media organizations.
Participants tweeted under the #spjcoding hashtag. Some highlights:
.@10000Words said a resolution for #journalists should be to take a coding workshop. @spjonadepaul is doing that now w/@andymboyle #icancode
— Jakub Rudnik (@jakubrudnik) January 17, 2014
All journalists should be following #spjcoding right now
— dcd (@realdoriandavis) January 17, 2014
And now we’re talking about tabletop.js #spjcoding pic.twitter.com/ajK1SwWxLg
— SPJ/ONA DePaul (@spjonadepaul) January 17, 2014
Checking out Twitter bootstrap in the #spjcoding workshop with @andymboyle: http://t.co/mAAhArPQZn
— Ali Trumbull (@atrumbull) January 17, 2014
Trying to learn code with @andymboyle #spjcoding pic.twitter.com/rI9KCCRLFu
— Brianna Kelly (@bkelly91) January 17, 2014
And we’re off! The coding begins after the ground rule is established #NoHaters @andymboyle @spjonadepaul pic.twitter.com/5YUkqNYDfY
— Rima Mandwee (@RimaMandwee) January 17, 2014
Coding is too fun. I will definitely spend all night not doing my homework and making my blog pretty. Thanks, @andymboyle! @spjonadepaul
— Rima Mandwee (@RimaMandwee) January 17, 2014
DePaul University Society of Professional Journalists 