We'll be working through Learn Ruby the Hard Way: Click Here. The idea of this book is that there are no answers to the problems they give - hence, it's the hard way. In the spirit of that, I'd like to not offer too much help on each exercise initially. You will struggle through getting the exercise done by yourself (with Google to help - although don't Google specifically for "learn ruby the hard way answers"!). If all of you end up working on this, you could also ask each other for help. Then, when you are done or can't get any farther, we'll meet to discuss your work.
Keeping Track on GitHub
To keep track of progress, you'll create a GitHub repository in your personal account called "learn_ruby". You can create a repository on github by going to your homepage and clicking "New Repository", or click the book icon in the top right with the "+" sign on it. You should then be able to checkout your newly created repository using GitHub for Windows (http://windows.github.com).
Create one subdirectory per exercise, so your folder looks like this:
learn_ruby/ /ex1 /ex2 etc.
This has the side benefit of getting you more comfortable with git and github, and lets me easily access your code when it comes time to talk about it.
I don't yet know what will be a good rate at which to go through these exercises. We'll figure it out as we go. Also, it won't be just me going over work with you - we'll rotate between me, Steve, Will, and perhaps others, so you can get a feel for different people's problem solving strategies. Many of the exercises are quite short, and the first bunch will probably be pretty easy for you guys.
Use whatever text editor you like. I recommend Sublime Text 2.
Feel free to see me with questions or suggestions about this.
Jeff