Training

Introducing Our New Drupal Training Program: DrupalTutor.com

Wayne Eaker — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:26:32 +0000

Introducing Our New Drupal Training Program: DrupalTutor.com

After months of hard work, I’m happy to announce the launch of our new Drupal training program: DrupalTutor.com. DrupalTutor.com combines the best of aspects of in-person and online training to make comprehensive Drupal training classes conviently accessible to more people at an affordable cost.

What’s wrong with existing Drupal training options?

Drupal training is currently offered in two basic formats:

Self-Teaching

This consists mainly of books and online videos, supplemented by a lot of Google searches and (hopefully) some visits to local Drupal user groups. This approach is common because it’s inexpensive and easy to get to started. However, it has a lot of drawbacks. Drupal is pretty complex, and it takes a long time to learn. It’s easy to get lost when following along with books or videos or to run into errors that you don’t know how to fix. Books and videos can get out-of-date fairly quickly, and don’t address all the possible ways to combine modules to accomplish various tasks. Students who follow this approach often tell me they know how to do a lot of individual tasks, but they can’t put it all together to get their site up and running.

Formal In-Person Classes

One of the best ways to get a comprehensive understanding of Drupal is with an in-person training class. These classes are offered by many development firms, ours included. With a formal class, you get the benefit of being able to ask questions and get help when you get stuck. However, we have found that they can be difficult for students to manage. First off, they’re expensive. A typical “site builder” level course costs $800 - $1200. Second, the classes are taught in a particular place at a particular time. Students wanting to take the classes often have to travel to neighboring cities, which is inconvienient. Finally, Drupal classes are often multi-day intensive programs, which can be too much, too fast. A typical site builder’s course is 12 − 15 hours, over two days. In my experience, that’s too much for a normal person to absorb.

Experimenting with Online Training Classes

Last fall, we ran a trial of an online, live course. I taught the same material as our normal in-person site builder’s course, but I delivered the training in evening sessions over GotoWebinar. (There were six 3-hour sessions.) This format far exceeded our expectations, and from the feedback we received, those of the students, as well. (see the reviews) The evening classes, accessible from home, were convenient, and the ability to ask questions and have me troubleshoot error messages was seamless. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and several of the students asked for more advanced classes to continue their progress.

The Next Iteration: DrupalTutor.com

Taking what we learned from last fall’s trial, we’ve designed a new approach to online Drupal training, DrupalTutor.com. Classes at DrupalTutor.com will be delivered as a hybrid of pre-recorded video, online assignments, and live lab sessions. For example, for the Building Websites with Drupal 7 course will consist of six weekly video lessons (2 to 2.5 hours each), a weekly online assignment, and six 1-hour live lab session. While the bulk of the instruction will be covered in the weekly videos, students will be able to use the live sessions to ask questions, get advice, and have the trainer troubleshoot errors they may have run into. Some students may also choose to work on the assignment during the lab session, so they can ask questions if they get stuck.

With this new approach, we expect to be able to deliver more classes than ever before, available more conveniently than ever before, at more afforable price than we’ve ever offered. Our first class will be Building Websites with Drupal 7, will start January 25 and costs $295. In late February, we plan to add PHP Bootcamp, followed by Drupal 7 Module Development. Drupal 7 Theme Development should be available in the Q2 of 2013.

To read more detailed information about our classes, see our course descriptions page on DrupalTutor.com.

Wayne EakerJanuary 2, 2013

Drupal Drupal 7 Training

Online Drupal Training, Coming in November

Wayne Eaker — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:09:52 +0000

Online Drupal Training, Coming in November

I’m excited to announce our live, online Drupal training class, coming in November. The class will be taught through WebEx, in the evenings, for three weeks starting November 5.

Course Overview

In this course, you will learn everything you need to know to build and maintain your own Drupal website, from simple blogs to more complex database applications. The training will consist of live online video sessions and offline assignments. During the course, you will build your own complete Drupal site, with custom content types, dynamic pages and forms, and e-commerce integration.

Who is it for?

Anyone who wants to build a Drupal website for their organization or business.
Web designers and developers looking to use Drupal with their clients.
Website administrators tasked with maintaining and enhancing their existing Drupal sites.

This class is designed for people who have never worked with Drupal, but it’s also appropriate for those with some experience who want to build more complex applications. A basic understanding of content management systems is helpful, but knowledge of HTML, CSS and programming experience is not required.

For more details, visit the training page here: https://zengenuity.com/drupal-training

Wayne EakerOctober 12, 2012

Drupal 7 Training

The Week in Drupal: April 8, 2011

Wayne Eaker — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0000

The Week in Drupal: April 8, 2011

A look back at interesting modules, articles and other Drupal news of April 2 - 8, 2011. Tutorials on Drupal mobile development, high-performance setups, and extension modules for Apache Solr, Services and Ubercart.