Chat with Katherine Kuan about Udacity courses - Coffee with a Googler Video Lecture | Coffee with a Googler - IT & Software

LAURENCE MORONEY: Welcome
to the Googleplex.
This is an incredible place
with lots of great stuff being
worked on every single day.
Before I worked here,
I always wondered
what it'd be like to
come to the Googleplex,
meet up with a Googler,
and have coffee with them,
and just chat about what
they do, how they do it,
and why they do it.
And today we're going
to do exactly that.
Hi everybody, and welcome
to this episode of "Coffee
with a Googler."
Today we're outdoors
in these lovely gardens
beside the coffee lab
on Google's campus.
And I'm meeting with
Katherine Kuan who's
an application developer
extraordinaire who's done
some fabulous stuff at Google.
And she's going to
tell us all about it.
Hey, Katherine.
How are you?
KATHERINE KUAN: Good, Laurence.
How are you?
LAURENCE MORONEY: Doing good.
So tell us all about it.
I hear you've built
a lot of cool apps
that a lot of the viewers
have probably used already.
KATHERINE KUAN: Sure.
So I worked on the Android
apps team here at Google.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
KATHERINE KUAN: And
I've worked on apps
like Google Play, Google
Keep, and the Contacts app.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Google
Keep is one of my favorites.
KATHERINE KUAN: Oh, really?
LAURENCE MORONEY: Nice, yes.
KATHERINE KUAN: That's awesome.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
So now you're
moving on from being
a person who builds all
this wide diversity of apps
to somebody who's helping new
developers learn about them.
So tell us about that.
KATHERINE KUAN: Yeah.
When I was on the
Android apps team,
we had so many great
resources here.
Really great engineers and
designers and product managers.
And they kind of helped me build
a good understanding of what it
means to build a good product.
And I wanted to share
that type of information
with people out in the public.
Because sometimes,
building for Android
can be a little
bit intimidating.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Yes, it can.
KATHERINE KUAN: There's so
many resources out there.
And you just don't
know where to start
or what's important or not.
That's why I've been so excited
to work on these Udacity
courses.
Because I feel
like it's a chance
to provide people with a
linear flow of how to start
building an Android app.
So we kind of guide
you along the path
of what are the
important components
that you need in your app,
whether it is building a UI
or building a database,
or a content provider,
or a sync adapter.
We guide you through building
the Sunshine app, which
is like a canonical
example app that
has a list of data
and a detail page,
and it also works
on tablets, as well.
So we kind of teach all
these fundamental concepts
in a story, almost.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So the
fundamentals course was great.
I took it myself.
It was a great refresher.
And I've done Java
on and off for years,
but it was really good
to sit down and see
some of the great
Java techniques
that you can use for building
Android applications.
And actually, finally,
make sense out of them,
which is great.
But I was wondering as
I was doing it, though,
what about somebody who
hasn't done Java before?
Or somebody who is a newcomer
to mobile development?
How do we get them on
ramp so that then they
can enjoy the goodness that was
in your fundamentals course?
KATHERINE KUAN:
Yeah, absolutely.
So in Android
fundamentals course,
we kind of breezed through
some of the concepts
like hitting a server or
using SQL for databases.
And so we want to-- we're
creating a precursor
to Android fundamentals now.
And this is a new course.
It's called Intro
to Android now.
It might change.
But essentially, we're taking
people from the beginning.
So someone who's never
written any lines of code,
we're going to teach them
XML from the beginning.
We're going to teach
them Java concepts,
event-driven programming.
And just create like a
couple of really simple apps,
just to give people
the feeling of what
it is like to create
something from scratch.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
And then they'll be
prepared to then go
into the really, really cool
stuff that's from fundamentals.
KATHERINE KUAN: They have
to practice a little more
on their own.
But hopefully they'll see
from this intro course
whether this is right
for them or not.
Because computer science can
have a lot of misconceptions
to people.
People think that developers
just sit in a corner
all by themselves working.
Or that-- Yeah, exactly.
And so we want to show
people that building Android
apps is really to help
improve other people's lives.
LAURENCE MORONEY: I mean,
one of the things about how
Udacity courses work, and you're
building these through Udacity,
they're a little
different, right?
It's not just like
you're sitting watching
a video of somebody talking.
There's a lot of
interaction involved.
And there's a lot
of app building
that the person has to do.
Could you explain a little bit
of the process behind that?
KATHERINE KUAN: It's a series of
videos and interactive quizzes.
So we are-- in the Android
fundamentals course,
we're guiding them through
building a weather app.
And so there will be videos of
me or my two co-instructors.
And we'll teach in a style that
we call just-in-time learning.
So say they need to
build the list page.
We'll build up parts
of it at a time
and then as concepts arise
that they don't know,
we'll just do a short
lecture on that.
And then to test
their knowledge,
we'll have an interactive quiz.
So you can-- it's a
multiple choice answer,
or maybe it's a
little coding task
that they have to do on
the side in Android Studio.
And then we reengage them and
then go to the next concept
and so on.
LAURENCE MORONEY: I see.
And then you also make the
source code available, right?
So if they do get stuck, they
can download the source code
for that section.
And then they could
learn from that.
So they're prepared
for the next section.
KATHERINE KUAN: Yes.
All the code is
available in GitHub.
And we've split it up based
on this code checkpoints
parts of the course so that
people can follow along.
And another really great thing
that we've been rolling out
recently is this thing called
Android Fundamentals Study
Jams.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Yes.
I attended one.
KATHERINE KUAN: Oh, really?
LAURENCE MORONEY: I went to one
in Dublin a couple weeks ago.
KATHERINE KUAN: Oh, really?
How was it?
LAURENCE MORONEY: It was
actually really, really cool.
I didn't realize
you were doing that.
But I love the concept of it.
But explain it for everybody
hasn't been lucky to go to one
like I have.
KATHERINE KUAN: Yes.
For the Android
Fundamentals Study Jams,
basically we're partnering with
a lot of the Google Developer
groups around the world.
And there's leaders in
each of these groups
who have taken the Android
Fundamentals course
or have already learned Android
development on their own.
And now they're
leading a classroom
of students who are going to
take the Udacity course online.
But every week after
they finish one course,
they come together and meet
and talk about problems
that they had and work
through things together.
And then by the end of
meeting maybe seven times
or so, they're going
to start working
on their final projects.
I think it's so
important for people
to not learn purely through
online, like at home.
Because when you get stuck,
you don't know what to do.
So I think that community aspect
and having these local leaders
teach Android development
will really round out
people's experience to help them
get ramped up on creating apps.
LAURENCE MORONEY:
And I notice one
the themes that you're
bringing up a lot,
and what's important for
you personally, I can see,
is how people learn is social.
By having a social impact.
So when learning is like
working with other people
rather than working
as an island.
But also, I understand that
you have an encouragement
for people who are
building the apps
that they have to
build as part of course
to do something social.
Can you share a little of that?
KATHERINE KUAN: Sure.
The power of mobile, I
think, is connecting people
to the right information
at the right time.
And so I feel like
a lot of challenges
that we have in
society today, people
might not have access to
basic resources of life
like food, water, shelter.
Things like that.
But if we can use mobile
phones to connect them
to that information, then they
can get access to those things.
I think that blows my
mind, how powerful that is.
And I really want
our developers to see
the power of what Android
can provide as a platform,
but also to identify
those problems
and kind of marry those together
to create a solution that
works well for people.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
So the Android
Fundamentals course
is available now for
people to get started.
And your upcoming course
to help newcomers ramp up
to get the skills for
that is coming soon.
So sometime this year?
KATHERINE KUAN: Yes.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK, cool.
And it'll be available
on Udacity's course.
And they're also available
free of charge, right?
KATHERINE KUAN: Yes.
LAURENCE MORONEY:
One of the things
that people always ask about
with Udacity services--
and I went to the Study Jam
and I got the question a lot,
was that, is it really free?
Because it just seems
to be a paid link.
Could you tell us
what's the difference?
And what do they get for free?
KATHERINE KUAN: For free,
you can access all the course
materials that the other
co-instructors and I have
created, like videos,
quizzes, and the code.
And then if you want
additional help,
you can sign up for
the paid experience,
where you would get
one on one tutoring
with someone from Udacity.
And then you also get a verified
certificate at the end of it.
So it really just depends
on what learning environment
is best for you.
LAURENCE MORONEY: But anybody
who wants to learn the beginner
stuff and wants to learn
the fundamental stuff,
they can learn it all,
they can build the apps
without paying a dime.
KATHERINE KUAN: Absolutely.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
Cool.
Thanks, Katherine,
for being here.
And thanks everybody
for watching this far.
And if you want to learn
more about the courses
that Katherine has
been working on
and other courses for
Android, go take a look
at the Udacity.com site.
As Katherine explained,
it's totally free.
The Fundamentals
course is really cool.
And you can join about
200,000 other students
who have done it.
Or maybe even join a Study
Jam in your local area.
I attended the one in
Dublin a couple weeks ago,
just the first
one, unfortunately.
And it was really wonderful.
And I strongly recommend
everybody to do so.
So with that, I just want
to thank very much Katherine
for being here today.
KATHERINE KUAN:
Thank you, Laurence.
LAURENCE MORONEY: I've
learned so much from you.
Thank you so much.
KATHERINE KUAN: Yeah.
It was really great catching up.