On Thursday Chris Johnston announced the upcoming Ubuntu User Day.

From the announcement (emphasis is copied from pleia2):

The Ubuntu User Days Team would like to announce the first Ubuntu User Day, on January 23, 2010. This will be a very informative one day session geared towards beginner and intermediate Ubuntu users, as well as people who are interested in using Ubuntu. We have 14 classes covering topics ranging from installing Ubuntu, finding help, equivalent programs, using IRC, getting involved in the Ubuntu Community and more. We have enlisted the help of many talented people to lead these classes throughout the day. These classes will be taught in #ubuntu-classroom with questions being asked in #ubuntu-classroom-chat on irc.freenode.net. Please visit http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays for a complete class list and schedule of classes. There is also a Spanish version of Ubuntu User Days being offered on January, 23, 2010. Please visit Día Del Usuario Ubuntu at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiaDelUsuarioUbuntu for more information on the Spanish Ubuntu User Day!

The classes will begin at 12:00 UTC and end at 3:00AM (Sun) UTC

Users can connect to IRC from Empathy, Pidgin, Web interface, or X-chat. Empathy is available as default in Ubuntu Karmic, and Pidgin and X-chat are available from the repositories. Remember to join both #ubuntu-classroom and #ubuntu-classroom-chat, and remember to preface any question with “QUESTION: What is blah blah blah?”

Lernid is available via PPA and after Jono did a demo session, the interest is pretty high. Nathan Handler and I have worked to get the Lernid schedule submitted so it is possible to use Lernid to participate in this User Day, but we will not be fashioning our classes for Lernid (sorry, no slides) because we feel adding PPAs is something beyond a normal user.

I had a great time so far working with some great folks like Chris Johnston, Elizabeth Krumbach, Mark Cox, Nathan Handler, and Penelope Stowe in this project. Initially, I helped Chris recruit (read “strong arm” 😉 ) several volunteers from the Beginners Team and brainstorm for topics for people to teach. Two people from my LoCo even volunteered to teach. I myself will be leading a session on “Using Launchpad” from a user standpoint at 1700 UTC. Its going to be a great day and I’m looking forward to it.

It’s been a real delight to work on this project with all these fantastic folks and to see all these teams come together for our first Ubuntu User Day. So join us on Saturday, January 23rd to share with us the fruits of our labors!