SkillDisplay - Mainzific Rim: Future TYPO3 Experts Meet JWeiland and You

Thanks to Christina from SkillDisplay for sharing!

Mainzific Rim is a hands-on way to learn the TYPO3 Editor skills and will be part of the upcoming University Day 2018 in Mainz. We recently asked several students, who are currently studying IT at HTL Rennweg and a supporter of the event - Jochen Weiland from jweiland.net - to give us an interview. Thank you to the interviewees for your time and cooperation!

Furthermore, we have great news, abaton will be backing the crisis teams with the “Stay sharp” package!

Note: All interviews were held in German, so the answers have been translated.

First of all, both teams - which consist of three learners each - go to a high school in Vienna, which focuses on information technology/media technology.

We talked to the team Born to shine - their team members are Marina, Elisabeth and Johanna.
Team Born to shine: “The name 'Born to shine' was a spontaneous idea. We are a girls’ team, so why not take a stereotypical name?”
Born to shine came together, because they are all in the same class. Two of them have worked on a project together, where they used TYPO3 and Fluid. They gained insight into doing business and had a TYPO3 specialist as their building owner.The third team member has also had her first CMS experience: She built a website for a local music school. The team was pre-informed about the event and seized the opportunity to gain hands-on experience.

The second team we interviewed is Seimenlic and consists of Benjamin, Hans and Tobias.
Team Seimenlic: “'Seimenlic' is a combination of the first three letters of our surnames.”
The Seimenlic team members are also from one class, Benjamin asked his classmates if they would like to join. Tobias and Hans agreed, so they are now a registered team for Mainzific Rim. The main reason why they are participating: “It’s always good to learn something new.”

Are you a TYPO3 learner, and between 17 and 24 years old? Set up a team of three and join the Mainzific Rim! All costs are covered besides the transportation costs.

“What do you need to bring along to successfully set foot as a TYPO3 learner?”

Jochen: “Of course you need to be curious and eager to learn new technology. You can learn all of that easily. When I started to learn TYPO3, there was almost no documentation. But now, TYPO3 learners can get into the matter very well with tutorials, videos, books and documentation.You don’t need any other basic prerequisites, it’s also possible to use TYPO3 without the ability of programming.“

“What do you want to tell Mainzific Rim crisis teams?”

Jochen: “Take the opportunity to get to know the new topic. Find out if TYPO3 is right for you. There’ll be a lot of experts on-site at the TYPO3 University Day, you can ask them just about everything and tap into their knowledge and expertise.”

The questions “Why do you want to join the event?” and “What are your expectations?” gave us several answers:

• Team Seimenlic: “We expect that the basics will be covered, maybe also some slightly more specific skills.” They have already heard that there will be TYPO3 experts, who will help them getting TYPO3 Editor skills by accomplishing the tasks of Mainzific Rim. TYPO3 Experts are very welcome to support the team with the dark green package “Deploy the Crisis Team”. Also, the other packages are helpful for the crisis teams.

• Team Born to shine: “We expect a cool story! It will not be like a normal class, it will be fun and a cool opportunity to gain expertise” - Gamification was part of SkillDisplay’s last article. The Mainzific Rim is a way of learning TYPO3 skills with a story. We have already created a mission preview - in case of you want to get an insight.

• Team Born to shine: “A great expertise and making connections to companies.” The Mainzific Rim might be the beginning of an employer-employee relationship. Both parties will be present in Mainz and people can get a first impression of each other.

• Both teams: “We want to join the event because we want to get familiar with TYPO3 and also want to know how we can apply the newly gained knowledge.”

• They also mentioned that they will learn TYPO3 in regular classes next year, so they are eager to take the opportunity of gaining extra instructions ahead of time.

“Why TYPO3? Why not a different content management system?”
Jochen: “I’ve been using TYPO3 for many years, and over time it got better and better! I like the structure, the further development and the community.”

“Why do you support so many TYPO3 activities? We have already seen each other for example at TYPO3 Camp Stuttgart.”
Jochen: “Of course I want to promote my agency and my services, but I also like to meet the community. TYPO3 is a big project, which is advanced by all of us.”

“Why do you participate in TYPO3 University Day?”
Jochen: “There are a lot of people I know from the higher education sector and there are thousands of TYPO3 Editors, who create content for university web sites. This large user base should be supported.”

“Why do you support TYPO3 learners?“
Jochen: “It’s an important factor to find out as a young person if a software suits someone. There is a lot of great software coming out every year, a lot of great tools, but some are not supported over a longer period, so they might disappear from the market after some years. TYPO3 has been here for over 20 years now; it’s long-living and there are a lot of amazing features.”

You can read TYPO3’s history here.

1. Motivated TYPO3 Learners

Both teams: “We are interested, motivated, excited and committed students, who are open to technology. If a company supports us, we will be even more motivated to dig our heels and stay consistent with that commitment over the assignment; we will learn TYPO3! And maybe they can recruit some of us - we’ll be graduating next year!” They have knowledge in a lot of areas of media technology. Now they get their new challenge - learning the basics of the well-known content management system (CMS) TYPO3.

2. Future Specialists in Media Technology

HTL Rennweg is a technical high school in Vienna, where students get a three-year instruction in all fields of information technology. Beside subjects like software development (Java), electrical engineering laboratories and network technology, they learn media technology basics, like HTML and CSS, JavaScript and PHP as well as software like Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator.

In the following two years they learn how to use frameworks like the free PHP framework Laravel in combination with Angular. Furthermore, they learn how to use Fluid - a template engine - and several JavaScript libraries like D3.js (Data-Driven Documents) and canvasJS. Also, topics like photography, typography, database development, 3D Graphic Suites like Blender and many more are covered.

And of course, they learn how to use content management systems, it’s part of the last class. If you now ask, which CMS they are learning, it’s TYPO3!

3. Storytelling, a Good Way of Marketing

As both interviewed teams also learn about marketing in school, team Seimenlic answered the question “Why should a company support your team?” with “It’s good marketing. If we get the opportunity to take part, then of course we’ll be talking to people in school and our friends about the whole experience. We will talk about people we met at the event and of course, we will talk about our supporters too.”

The students will get the opportunity to take the TCCE exam (TYPO3 CMS Certified Editor) at the event. What else will they be doing?

Team Born to shine: “All doors are open. We’re really looking forward to gaining more insight into TYPO3 and what the event will be like. If we like TYPO3 as much as we think we will, it’s realistic that we will dive more deeply into this CMS.”, “We will definitely need to be able to use a content management system when we are media technology engineers. For media technology engineers, content management systems have a high value.”

Team Seimenlic: “If one is already familiar with TYPO3, why not use it for the implementation of a task? And why not work on this task at a company they already know?”

Stay up to date by following SkillDisplay on Facebook and Twitter or by checking out the platform. We look forward to meeting you at University Day in Mainz! As always, thank you for reading, and contact us if you have any questions.