Fun with time zones and daylight savings
If you also want to host an online study group, remember that the internet is for everyone. I started in February and by now, our usual time has shifted by 1 hour for everyone who's region doesn't do daylight savings. Adress it in the first session so people will know in advance!
People love interactive examples
At first I thought they would be more effort for me to add to the slides, copy the link into the chat each time, switch tabs to share the example and then edit the awkward silences from when I waited for the participants to complete them out from the recording. But once you've been talking for 1.5h, you start to appreciate those tiny breaks. And the participants loved them!
GitHub is great, not just for code
Now I collect all links to session recordings, slides, materials, cheat sheets, and written recaps in one repository instead of scattered across event descriptions.
People will drop off
In the first few events, there will always be some dropouts. But the 20 people who stick around? They’ll stay until the very end. And that loyal core makes it worth continuing, because consistency builds community.
You have to promote your own stuff: People don't know what you are doing unless you tell them about it. Even a quick post copy-pasted on all platforms has an effect on how many people show up.
The pros and cons of CC on YouTube
If you download a video, the Closed Captions option disappears. I didn't realize this for the first 4 sessions until a participant reached out. To fix this, I will reupload all sessions with Open Captions.
It takes so much more effort than you think.
Initially, I set the study group up for every other Friday only because I had calendar conflicts on some Fridays. Now I'm so glad I didn't make it weekly because editing and publishing materials from one session while already preparing for the next is time-consuming.