I've discussed this idea to some extent on the dev and docs mailing lists, it was suggested that I also post here. In brief:
I think it would be great if we (the broad Drupal community) could put together a series of online courses which teach people different aspects of Drupal.
This differs from new documentation. Indeed, it doesn't necessarily require any new documentation and could make use of documentation that is already available online. A "course", in this sense, is a structured document that links to pieces of documentation - whether they be text tuturials, videos, exercises, or something else entirely - and helps someone move further down a particular track of learning about Drupal.
The Drupal Cookbook is a great example of what I consider to be a course in this context. In fact, it could be described as "Drupal 101: Beginning Drupal". Other courses would very likely be more specialised, focusing on theming, say, or contributing to Drupal Core, or more popular modules such as CCK and Views.
Drupalversity would address a number of shortcomings in Drupal documentation viewed on the macro level. There is tons of great documentation out there, both in the form of books and (usually free) online resources, but this documentation is, by and large, reactive. If you have a particular thing you want to be able to do with Drupal then it is often possible to find documentation that will help you do what you want to do and get your project finished. But if you just want to learn more about jQuery and how it works wit Drupal then things are less easy. Worse still is trying to answer the question, "I currently know X, Y and Z about Drupal - what should I learn next?".
Traditionally, Universities and structured education solve these problems, and that's what I'd like Drupalversity to do. There would be no teaching, assessment or accreditation (although training companies could use courses to teach from). It would be really cool if some Drupal rockstars could give a little time over to consult on what should go in a course that covers their field of expertise: Crell on databases in Drupal, webchick on contributing to Drupal core, merlinofchaos on Views, etc. This isn't necessary, though, and I certainly see the courses as being a collaborative effort where we try to reach informed consensus.
So, what do y'all think?
Comments
Interested in contributing.
I am interested in contributing time and skill to this vision.
I am not yet sure what that will mean. For now I follow the discussion, and offer some non-specific reflections.
I especially like the idea in the second last par above that "There would be no teaching, assessment or accreditation". In my understanding a University that does not teach, assess or accredit is then a Research Institution. It exists to solve problems. Other institutions exist in co-operation with a University to teach and evaluate. "Training companies", as you put it.
Research may have the meaning of sourcing and synthesising and 'making available' the various documentative resources you refer to above. As you express it, the Drupalversity mission statement might be to "put together a series of online courses which teach people different aspects of Drupal". In other words providing knowledge pathways into and through pre-existant materials. That might be considered a University functioning at Masters (Research) level.
I would see that goal of being achievable in the next year or so.
'Research' may also have the sense of supporting the creation of new forms of knowledge pathways that have till now not been considered. That is, a University operating at Ph.D. level.
Perhaps that goal is achievable during this new decade just beginning.
We are indeed fortunate to be under the ultimate guidance of a Ph.D mind in the form of Dries Buytaert. Is Dries supportive of the 'Drupalversity' concept?
May I ask has consideration been made already of creating a "Drupalversity" group, here at groups.drupal.org?
I like the: "a collaborative effort where we try to reach informed consensus".
Thanks for the reporting of the discussion thus far.
John
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
I think your comparison of
I think your comparison of what I've described with a Research University is very useful. When I was doing postgraduate studies, having access to academics who were at the top of their field was invaluable: they fulfilled exactly the role I am giving to "courses" in my description, in that you could go to them and say "here's what I know, here's what I'm interested in and where I want to get to, what should I learn next".
The ideal would be to have supervisors of this sort that anyone wanting to learn about Drupal could consult, but this just isn't practical. My proposal is intended as the next best thing, as it would condense the expertise that is already present in the community.
I think your suggestion of creating a Drupalversity group on g.d.o is a good one. I'll leave it a little while to see what sort of support the concept gets here, and then we can transfer the work to its own group.
It would be interesting to see what Dries (and other Drupal rockstars, for that matter) think of the concept - I guess we can do that once the idea is a little more fleshed out and the g.d.o group is established.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Waiting is...
Thanks for progressing Jim.
On reflection I feel the main thing I would seek here is community support for the concept. I personally probably would not take much action until that sense of 'congruence' is established. I pick up you are feeling the same.
I agree that one of the roles of a university is to allow 'learners' to have access to those at the top of their field. We are all learning from each other of course the entire way through our education/career as Drupalisers. I agree at times each of us needs to ask somebody who is a bit further down the pathway than us "Hey what do you reckon is the most productive thing for me to learn/take on right now?".
I am wondering why you say that having Drupal supervisors available for consultation by 'learners' is not practical?
I agree that a sense of timing is a valuable asset and go with your feeling that it is not yet time to create a "drupalversity" group.
I have more ideas but in the end they are just ideas and the most important thing is "where does the community wish to move with this, right now." I'll read this thread for awhile and see what transpires. Thanks again for you work thus far. I still find it a powerful concept.
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
I completely agree. I've
I completely agree. I've worked on briliant but unsuccesful projects that are a bit similar to this in the past, and it gets very lonely and frustrating writing wikis on your own. As keen as I am to get this going I'm not going to do anything until there's clear support from the community.
To explain my comment about having Drupal supervisors available not being practical: for this to work, those supervisors would have to be available at relatively regular times. Currently it is possible to chat to some brilliant Drupal developers on IRC, and lots of people have been helped by them - but I think that all of us have at one point or another been frustrated because there hasn't been anyone on IRC who can/will help.
To get a reliable system of supervisors would probably mean employing them, and although that might be part of this project in the future I don't like to start projects with funding applications :-) - one of the many reasons I didn't pursue academia.
I guess one question we can try and answer now is "when will we know that we've got enough support to move this forward?" I think that we need ten people who are willing to commit to giving some time to the project for it to work - factoring in people dropping out, which always happens with things like this.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Interested in Contributing
Hi James,
As per the mailing list, I just want to confirm that I am interested in contributing.
My expertise is in multimedia writing and technical communication. While there are several different areas I can work on individually, I can also take existing documentation and create WBT around the current documentation based on a syllabus and outline - should that be something that needs to be done.
Currently, I am working as a professor and can create courses as well.
Glad to help wherever I can.
Marcia Wilbur
Overlap w/ this effort?
This sort of open coursework and curriculum seems relevant to what is proposed/discussed here - http://drupal.org/node/489392
Currently there's an effort to develop a proof of concept as part of a larger Drupal Open Learning Initiative (http://groups.drupal.org/node/22703). Even if the vision isn't identical, on the surface it seems like there are several points of overlap in which interested parties could collaborate.
Thoughts?
Gus Austin
With regards to the "Course"
With regards to the "Course" project type at http://drupal.org/node/489392, this was brought up when we discussed this on the dev mailing list. While the new project type would add a certain weight to the courses, I'm not yet convinced that the extra overhead of source control is really worthwhile when compared to a standard wiki with revision history.
As for the Drupal Open Learning Initiative, thanks for making me aware of it. It does seem like there's a certain degree of overlap, especially with the area of DOPI described at http://drupal.org/node/322495. But the efforts being made there seem geared towards more formal, accredited courses. Perhaps the courses that I'm suggesting could act as a foundation for that area of DOPI?
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Move forward and see what sticks
Winston provided some detail on why source control would be beneficial in the original issue description (http://drupal.org/node/322495). Personally I think it would be good to try some of these ideas out and give the community and d.o. decisionmakers something to evaluate.
In regards to the Open Learning Initiative, I think we're just coming from different starting points. DOLI starts with the creation of learning materials while this and Winston's proposal have more to do with organization. Since all deliverables for DOLI will be available under a free distribution license, it's completely up to the community, individuals, and businesses to decide where the materials would reside and how they should be presented. We are trying to provide a framework and guidelines, but not a formalized training program w/ massive overhead.
Thinking about this more, what's described here really has a lot of similarities to the original intent of the Drupal Dojo and where we are going with the current learning initiative. (This summary post may provide additional detail - http://groups.drupal.org/node/24866)
If similarities outweigh the differences, possibly all interested parties could converge on a concept that already has proven it's value to the community and see where it goes from there.
Gus Austin
Apologies, I should have been
Apologies, I should have been clearer: I've read what Winston has written but I think that the cons vastly outweigh the pros, unless I'm missing something.
It looks like DV would mesh well with DOLI, and would leave people working on DOLI to just write material, rather than worrying about how they're going to be organised.
Yes, there does seem to be a degree of similarity between DV and DD. The bit that's missing from DD which would be a key part of DV for me is the idea that someone can go to DV and find out what their different options are for the next stage of their Drupal development. I also think that DD is much more flexible and broad than I envisage DV being, and that is perhaps one of the reasons why it has stumbled. DV has two clear, measurable objectives: (1) organise existing learning materials into courses; (2) provide a system whereby individuals can quickly work out what they should do next.
I agree that we should get something written up: a course or two and outlines of other courses. Where is the best place to do this?
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
We're going to set up a
We're going to set up a course on the Drupal Kata site to give people something to evaluate - http://drupalkata.com/drupalkata/node/295. I personally don't have a preference how courses are organized on d.o... let the community decide what's best.
This previously referenced issue (http://drupal.org/node/322495) contains a few outlines and examples - the original intent was to create a series of weekly workshops and curricula from the remaking of the Drupal Dojo site and subsequent installation profile. We've decided to focus on a wider variety of smaller workshops/Katas once the site is complete (actually should be finished by months end), but possibly the course outline could be salvaged, improved, organized as part of this project?
A g.d.o. wiki (w/ comments enabled) may be a good starting point for an outline. This group on Drupal Kata may also be a good staging and organization area - http://drupalkata.com/curriculum/dashboard.
Gus Austin
Hi Gus (and everyone
Hi Gus (and everyone else),
I'm going ahead and throwing some courses up onto a wiki page at http://groups.drupal.org/node/44418 - anyone who wants to help, please go ahead. Once we've got something set up I think it will be easier to work out medium-term strategic stuff and how Drupalversity fits in with other projects. Big thanks for your feedback so far.
--Jim
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
What I'm seeing is an
What I'm seeing is an exploding amount of drupal learning material scattered everywhere, from forum to groups, comments, Dojo..etc. Not to mention handbooks and modules guides.
This is becoming very confusing for new comers to Druapl as they have to first learn how to get around the site to find the learning material and why there is 100 different site sections talking about the same subject.
I think the first thing that should be accomplished is creating a centralized respiratory for current learning material on Druapl.org, this is a big step to ease the learning curve for new comers. One approach to accomplishing this task is researching and tagging learning content, then indexing all in one category that has filtering and searching features.
Drupal is in continues growth and we have to plan for future based on easy access to data. The more popping ideas here and there will make druapl.org far from being user friendly, where each branch project is another effort isolated from the unified objective of just presenting easy learning to all.
...
Best thing you can do is get involved, we all know the issues but its a gargantuan task to accomplish. Hopefully the d.o redesign will really help the new comers to the project and I think we will see the rise of some very useful sites in the near future to help and assist new drupal users and developers.
@sos2, @JeffBurnz: What I'm
@sos2, @JeffBurnz:
What I'm proposing here would partly achieve what you are talking about, but with a lot less work. We wouldn't have to move any resources or tag anything; we would just have to prepare meta-resources that point people in the right direction and provide a structured learning path.
The project is limited and what you are suggesting is certainly preferable, but the advantage of this project is that it is very lightweight and relatively easy to get off the ground.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Think this is a great idea
I would love to help in some way, and would also like to see some of these courses in Spanish for those learning / interested in learning in Latin America.
Look forward to hearing more.
Carla
Carla Briceno
Bixal
www.bixal.com
On "Getting Approval" from Community "Leaders"
I'm totally in support of your plan. I'd love to see the first draft so I can submit a patch, or suggest changes. Send me the link when you've posted it.
Ryan Price
DrupalEasy Podcast
Thanks Ryan. I've just posted
Thanks Ryan. I've just posted higher up about getting a couple of drafts written. I'll ping you when we've got something concrete.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Great Idea. Count me in...
James, Let me know if you need anything from us... esp funding :-)
I'd also be happy to do recordings over gotomeeting or camtasia.
Salim
WebEnabled.com
$$$
I've tried to get these things started up once or twice already (see: https://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/ as what content is there i've contributed 99% of) and it seems very difficult to get a huge footprint of users without a ton of dedicated time / effort on someone's part so usually there's $$ involved. Just look at core or specific projects, yes Drupal is a community of users and open but there's still a group of elite / higher ups as you put it that shape the project and contribute waaaaayyyy more then the rest of the open community.
I like the idea, I just think that it's a difficult one to do without some form of grant to do so which especially now is hard to come by. There's also the issue of competing resources which I know has been an area of contention with having a drupalthemes.org kind of offshoot that's different then the batch of themes on drupal.org. Same issue occurs with the Drupalmodules.com site. If you build a resource, separate from drupal.org's api / reference materials then who's to say which is more definitive? Say I write something that becomes huge in the community as a project, do I fill out and write about it in the book on drupal.org or at drupalversity?
There's also a lot of money to be made in the development of training materials in terms of travel and consulting work. Like it or not when you get a phone call and someone asks for info on configuring certain views and will pay you for your time, are you inclined to take the x/hour rate or blog about it openly and freely on drupalversity? I've tried to walk the line on doing both but at it's core Drupal's code is free and the services surrounding it (knowledge typically) are what's for sale. Just look at the lullabot training series or any other consulting groups that have for pay (quite pricy at times) seminars in which you learn how to do complex things in Drupal (or even simple some times).
It's always been very aggrevating to see training sessions fetching 1 to 3k per weekend per person and know that that information is available online but it's also part of the business model. It's actually to the benefit of the developer to provide daisy-chain, difficult to hunt down information on how things work because all the work in the code is given away for free :).
Sorry to be a downer, just outlining the hardships you would have to overcome in such an endeavor because of the politics of the community. I would be willing to review / contribute to a resource if you're able to build one but typically what I've found works best is creating more of an RSS type of resource where you list topics and link off. If you could do all that search and then have the author of a blog post that talks about how to do something really well do it on the drupalversity site for free, you could have something.
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
LMS+SCORM+Registry
If Drupal had a Learning Management System, and plenty of SCORM compliant subjects in a Drupal registry, it would benefit both for-profit$ and non-profit users.
LMS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system#Systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JoomlaLMS
SCORM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCORM
http://drupal.org/project/scorm
http://groups.drupal.org/scorm
Registry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADL_Registry
Thanks - I agree, to a great
Thanks - I agree, to a great extent. It seems that the road is littered with other versions of this idea. I've gone ahead and created a wiki page which I'll add to when I get a chance - http://groups.drupal.org/node/44418. If I can do this without funding, so much the better - funding needs applications, which needs time, which I'd rather spend doing what I wanted to do in the first place :-). I'm hoping that I can keep this sufficiently lightweight that in can be a spare-time project. We'll see.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
LMS and SCORM Requirement?
Hi,
I have an interest in helping out, and believe that I have a background which might be useful (over 18 years leading training and e-learning development teams). However, when the goal is to produce a Drupal curriculum of self-paced training that is broadly open to the public, I don't see how adding LMS and SCORM compatibility requirements will help.
An LMS is used by organizations to control access to training and to track users progress. SCORM is an interoperability format that 'theoretically" allows you to move e-learning content from one LMS to another. Adding these requirements would seem to restrict development and distribution of training content in the following ways:
In order to create the greatest value for the community, believe that we should keep the process as open and accessible as possible. Provide a wiki, authoring guidelines, and a list of desired objectives - and let members of the community contribute where they see fit. In other words, more cheerleading and coaching and less technology.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Regards,
Chris Luther
LMS and SCORM Requirement?
I agree with keeping the process open to Drupal content contributors. SCORM content should be output, (product of the product) and therefore not a requirement for contribution. The immediate user/contributors of a Drupal SCORM repository will be those involved in professional training, academia and LMS development. The benefactors will be the Drupal community at large: individuals, for-profits and non-profits.
Ideally, information flow will be bidirectional.
Drupalversity wiki curricula <--> SCORM repository <--> LMS (supported by developers, trainers, and academia)
(Flow oversimplified to make a point.)
As Drupalversity matures, it could migrate to an LMS/SCORM platform as part of its curricula delivery system.
Editorial: Without a Drupal SCORM repository, for-profit training organizations may not contribute to Drupalversity in any significant way. I think Drupal professionals will be willing to share core content, but will keep the cutting edge subject matters inhouse for competitive reasons.
My 2 cents.
--John Walling
I'm now starting to build
I'm now starting to build courses at http://groups.drupal.org/node/44418. It would be great if you could help, in any way you like. Perhaps the simplest way is to just add resources that you think are cool to the bottom of that page; we can then build them in to courses as those courses are written.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Like
I'm on FB so much lately I was looking for the "Like" link :)
Very nice structure forming here.
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
Great start!
Probably posted these already, but there may be a few more resources and ideas here -
Gus Austin
Thanks guys! I'll keep
Thanks guys!
I'll keep plugging away. I've spent a good deal of time writing an article that teaches graphic designers the basic programming knowledge they need to do Drupal theming (variables, arrays, conditional logic, functions - all the stuff we all assume everyone just /knows/) so I'll be adding this when it's finished.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Boy..do I..
want that article. You immediately piqued my interest. Are you close to completion? Need an editor assist?
I'm not sure we'll ever
I'm not sure we'll ever complete this - it isn't that kind of task - but I've started putting stuff up, and if I hadn't got really busy with other stuff we'd be getting close to having some courses finished.
If you want to help now, there is one really easy thing you can do: at the bottom of the wiki page (http://groups.drupal.org/node/44418), add any resources that you think are good. This can be an ongoing task: I've always got that page open in a different tab, so that when I come across a new resource I can add it straight away.
You can also sketch outlines for courses, if you like. I've done a bit of work on this on the wiki page. Anything you like is fine, just get it out there.
Thanks for your interest, it would be great if you could help out.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Second me
I'm new to Drupal but am pretty good at technical writing so would be happy to donate my time to any editing task required. I'll contribute back and learn something at the same time!
If you're learning Drupal,
If you're learning Drupal, one really useful and really easy thing you can do is to keep notes on how you are learning, what resources you are using, and where you get stuck, and then add it to the bottom of the wiki page at http://groups.drupal.org/node/44418. The whole point of this exercise is to get already available resources arranged in a way that matches the way people learn. People learn in different ways, sure, but most people learn in a relatively similar way. It would be great to hear what problems you're hitting and where you're learning, so we can shape the courses better.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Ok, I'll start writing stuff.
Ok, I'll start writing stuff. Right now all the stuff at the bottom are links, I'll be adding as you suggested, the areas I had trouble with, some resources I've used, steps I've taken, etc.
Feel free to let me know if you want me to change tack with the content or if the formatting needs changing
Fantastic!
That's fantastic. Thank you so much. If you want to stay in touch easier while you're adding this stuff, my instant message details are at http://state68.com/Contact.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Correction
Here is the new url for the courses, it saves a click :)
http://groups.drupal.org/node/49778
Bilal Hakim
Imprimante | Pilote imprimante
Like
Dupe. Deleted.
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
Fantastic!
Count me in. I also agree that LMS functionality and SCORM/AICC compliance are critical. In addition I am hoping localization and media can be supported from the outset. Thanks!
- Eric
New Drupalversity Group!
We've now got a bit of momentum building, so it seemed the right time to set up a specific g.d.o group for Drupalversity: it's here.
I'll move the wiki page there in a bit. All Drupalversity-based discussion there from now on, please!
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Mind if I interject a 'newbie' viewpoint?
I am reasonably new to Drupal, and comparatively a 'babe'! I've spent the last 9 months (10+ hours a day) struggling my way through Drupal, learning what I can on my own. Now you're talking 'Drupalversity', and I hear a great deal of upper-level wisdom, but when we get proficient in a field, we easily forget what it's like to be new. How, prey tell, does one go from being brand-new, to 'Drupalversity' ready? Has anyone considered the 'elementary school' through 'high school' levels of Drupal, before contemplating 'Drupalversity'? I also wonder if the 'PhD' of Drupal is even interested in the struggles of an 'elementary' level? I want, here, to give some feedback, but in all honesty, I'm afraid of the reception I might get when speaking to the 'PhD's in this thread.
I would like to throw out on the floor a thought - Often the best author of material, such as technical documentation for operator/end-user, is someone without the expertise, but in fact totally 'green'. Have you considered such? I think, from what I've seen of the Drupal community as a whole, there are a large number of people who are well past the 'early-stages' of learning Drupal, and have forgotten what it's like to be 'new'. The documentation on modules alone is proof of this, as the 'ass-u-me' level of those writing modules and associated documentation is enormous - and leaves out critical information absolutely necessary for a newbie's understanding and implementation. Then to think that those same 'PhD's are going to develop teaching materials? That scares me!
(Quick example experienced just this past week; 'Shadowbox' module... documentation instructs installation of library-material, step-by-step, but totally omits that the file-name for the library-file must be re-named, and the suffix (.3.0.1 ?) must be removed from the file-name or the module wont work. This, to a 'PhD' is "common-knowledge"(?) - but to a 'newbie' might as well be written in a foreign
language, yet 'PhD's don't think of such trivialities.)
May I ask - being that this thread began with the idea of mentoring those who want to learn - how many here (or elsewhere) are actually mentoring/teaching someone new like myself? Ohhhh... I want so much to share my experiences, but again - reception?
Thanks - and keep up the brain-pickin'!
Lee
Great points, a solution!
Some great points there, Lee. I have a few solutions to your quandary. We were all Drupal newbies once & had to wade through the initial learning curve like everyone else. Some folks joined their local Drupal User Group. Others looked online for videos/screencasts. Still others looked for books to guide them. The ones that truly succeed did all three. I agree that it's easy to forget what it was like to be a newbie. But here are some solutions.
1) Get involved! Contributing to the documentation (where you see failings) is a great way to contribute. Since you (& others) are 'green,' now's the time to write notes & help other newbies as well as contribute to the documentation effort. Other great places to help other newbies is in the Forums & the #Drupal IRC channel.
2) Don't be afraid to speak up! The Drupal community is pretty great & there aren't many "RTFM!" type of individuals that I've seen who thumb their nose at the newbie. We all remember what it was like when we first heard the word Taxonomy & were like "wtf?!" If you see an information gap in a module's documentation, contact the project maintainer & notify them of it with the wording you'd like to see included. They're very receptive as we all want the best for Drupal to grow & gain (even) more adoption.
3) Share your experiences! By sharing your experiences as a newbie to non-newbies & fellow newbies alike, you're furthering the discussion of everyone being more aware of spelling things out for all involved.
4) Do not expect everything to be handed to you! I know you're not, but it's a big turn off when folks expect info to be handed to them without even trying to find an answer themselves that a simple Google search could've answered. It's a basic tenet of the #Drupal IRC channel & I think it goes a long way in folks discovering things on their own which is a very wonderful feeling.
5) Do not get discouraged! Most of us learned on our own & it was harder for some of us back in the day (when I started using Drupal there were hardly any books available- like 1 i think at the time). There's alwasy something new to learn & even folks like myself who've been using & contributing to Drupal for years still don't consider ourselves 'Drupal PhDs.'
Those are my candid responses & recommendations. Hope that helps.
--miguel
Miguel Hernandez - www.migshouse.com
Founder & CEO - The OpenMindz Group
Writer- Linux Journal & TechZulu
My point exactly...
Thanks Miguel, for bothering to respond, and nothing 'personal' here at all, but your response emphasises exactly my point. If/when you're new in Drupal, no one with any 'real' expertise will bother to do anything further than give you the 'brush-off', by telling you to go find the information yourself. Now, as I mentioned, this thread began with the concept of "mentoring" the new Drupalers, and THAT, my friends, is a concept in itself. That same concept needs to be applied to life in general, but we're talking about Drupal, and if your ideas/thoughts are only to develop "Drupalversity" for those who are more seasoned in Drupal, then who will you teach, because those who are "seasoned" and experienced don't need "Drupalversity", and those of us who do, can't get more than a "brush-off". Teaching, not to mention Mentoring, doesn't happen by removing yourself from the ones who don't have the knowledge equal to your own. -- Miguel, you talked in your response of how you and others had to search out the answers for yourselves, and then you turn around and tell me to do the same - but isn't this thread about ending some of that lost searching? Aren't you, here, trying to develop a better way for people to learn Drupal, or are you just blowing-smoke while you ignore the very ones you claim to want to help?
The reason for my negativity (especially in this post) is that this has been my experience... Virtually every time I've had any interaction with anyone in Drupal who has the expertise and knowledge I seek, they don't have 'time' to help - but simply say the same sort of 'brush-off' that you, Miguel, gave me -- and that is to tell me there are "other sources". You mention the books -- I happen to be an unemployed Minister (and X-Engineer), and the Drupal books cost $40.00 and up (most are closer to $60). Honestly, at the present time (and the reason I have the time to work on Drupal is) I'm Unemployed - and therefore can't afford a $50 book (even on Amazon they start at about $35 and though I've bought two, which took going without to buy, they're so old they only cover Drupal 4). But this isn't my point - my point is that this thread began with an awesome idea/attitude to help those who want to learn Drupal and struggle to do so "on their own". Now - is that your intent, or will you 'brush-off' the newbie, while talking with other 'seasoned' Drupalers ABOUT helping the newbie? -- My father used to say... "Put-up or shut-up" -- meaning, if you're going to help the newer ones on Drupal, then do so - help them (us), instead of telling us where to go (for sometimes that causes the newbie to want to tell someone else where to go). Take the time to TEACH... and I believe that "Drupalversity" will evolve from that -- not creating some nose-in-the-air society (or group) of seasoned Drupalers, who talk about their knowledge but refuse to take the time to help someone. That's not helping!
Aren't YOU the "Drupal community"?
The times I've gone in IRC seeking help, I've found two types of people, (1) the seasoned Drupalers who only tell you to go read a book, or look in the forums, etc., and (2) those who have only enough knowledge to be dangerous, by boosting their ego and giving advise about things they really don't know, and sending the "newbie" off on a wild goose-chase, which ends in having to repair the damage done by following their advise. Now you talk about trying to change some of the difficulties the newer ones have in learning Drupal, and dream up ideas of how to form a "Drupalversity", while you continue the same line-of-thought that the rest of the "Drupal community" has -- too busy (or too high on the Drupal knowledge-ladder to be able to see those of us still on the ground-level) -- and tell us to go elsewhere for our answers. If everyone says, go ask someone else, who do we ask? --- If you want to teach - teach! If you want to boost your egos by talking - then forget "Drupalversity" and just have another "Group" which is only for those who are already on the higher levels of the proverbial 'ladder' of Drupal.
As I mentioned, I'm a Minister. I've ministered to the homeless, poor and addicted for years, and I have a saying that governs those ministries... "People want to know that you care, before they'll care that you know." Is the TRUE motive of this thread and 'concept' to help people, and if so - I say, "NIKE" (Just DO It) -- or do you not have the time to lower yourselves to our level? An auto-mechanic can't teach someone how to repair a transmission, by standing -- they have to come down to that level. There are already too many 'teachers' who are 'above' the task of lowering themselves to a level at which the student needs to learn. What if all teachers only told the student, "go read a book, or ask someone else in the class" -- why attend school? Why have "Drupalversity", if it's real method is to tell the newbie to go somewhere else to learn? Are you teachers, or wannabe teachers? I came to this thread with the excitement of the original idea/concept - "Maybe someone actually is willing to help the newbie" -- but maybe I was dreaming -- maybe there is no such person in "Drupal Community" -- PLEASE tell me... WHO is the "Drupal Community"? Are you not they?
"the community"
I definitely sympathize with you, Lee, but I think some of this is "just how things are." The "community" is composed of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly decentralized and loosely organized, so I think it's unlikely you're going to see some sort of free intensive mentoring program arise anytime soon. Trying to assign a common goal or attribute to that many people is an exercise in futility and when newbies think "Well, they are not going to help me like I want so they suck!" then they miss out on all the wonderful things that DO exist for free in the community.
The people commenting in this thread, as far as I can tell, are taking the lead in putting useful learning/educational resources in place for the community, newbies included. I am actually pleasantly surprised to see how much effort is being put into educational and training resources - I don't think anyone in this thread is doing this as their "day job" for money... so those of us waiting for these resources need to be patient and lend a hand wherever possible. And on a related note, most of the people I know in the IRC channels ARE busy working, so if you need handholding, don't expect them to stop their work to do so. Your hypothetical auto mechanic isn't going to stop working on a client's transmission so he can explain to you how a muffler works... or he won't be a mechanic very long.
So what else can you do?
Drupal is a complex beast - you've been working with it 10 hours a day for 9 months. I have been working with Drupal nearly every day for FIVE YEARS and I'm no expert. It takes time and you're not there yet. Keep working, though!
Do you have the underlying experience in HTML, CSS, and especially PHP? I have no idea what you're trying to do with Drupal, but as a programmer-wannabe with no formal training, I can tell you that my understanding of Drupal advanced leaps and bounds when I started studying the underlying technologies in greater detail. Back to your mechanic metaphor: do you want to be the guy who polishes the cars when they are fixed, or do you want to be the guy who gets his hands dirty under the engine and knows how everything works together? The first is easy, the second requires a lot more than 9 months of experience.
Miguel suggested that you join your local Drupal user group (if one exists) and watch the videos and screencasts that are available - have you done that?
He also suggested books, but as you noted, you can't afford the new ones. I can sympathize with being broke - as a community/nonprofit worker, it happens a lot, as I'm sure you know. That said, if you wanted to learn mechanics, don't you think you'd need to buy/beg/borrow some tools and a repair manual? (A Drupal 4-era book is about as useful in 2010 as a 1945 Ford repair manual). If there's a local user group, can you borrow a friend's book? Can your local unemployment/job training center order a book on your behalf as a training cost? Have you tried contacting your local college or university and seeing if they offer a Drupal club or any classes? Could you skip Internet at home for a month to afford a version 6 book and spend that month working from a library, friend's house, or local community technology center? (Note: I'm convinced that it IS possible to learn everything in the Drupal books for free, online, if you have enough time and ambition BUT they are fantastic resources if you can afford them.)
I think Miguel DID answer your question: how do you go from Newb to Expert? Investing resources, both time and money. If making websites with Drupal is just a hobby, then the costs of advancing aren't worth your investments of time and money and energy, so you've probably hit a wall. If you are trying to become a pro at this eventually, then you're going to have to invest as much time and money as possible, and if you don't have any money, you'll have to spend more time.
Hope I'm not sounding negative, but it sounds like you'll be a helpful member of the community once you get a little more seasoned, so I encourage you to stick with it, put another year in :-), and keep trying.
I hear you
Lee-vit-Over,
I am in almost the exactly same place you are. I've spent the same 9 months, and experienced the same frustrations when searching for help. My advice to folks just starting out is to read a book! That's not a brush-off, though. It is what I wish I had done when I was starting. Actually, I did buy a book, but I picked the wrong one, and I did not read it cover-to-cover. I actually think it would take several cover-to-cover books to get me from where I was starting out to where I am today, but I could have read those books in a week, maybe two. Think of the time it would have saved me!
The trouble with relying on the Drupal community is that most community members are not good at technical writing. That is a specialized skill, not to mention tedious hard work. You have to write out in many, many words what you could say to an expert in a single sentence. You have to force yourself to write out all those extra words time and time again. It's painful. It's exasperating. And it doesn't provide much opportunity to show off what programmers really want to show off...their superior coding chops.
I don't know many programmers who enjoy writing detailed documentation, let alone instruction. I certainly do not enjoy it. So, here at Drupal.org you have a community of very knowledgeable people who lack both the talent and the inclination to do the very hard work necessary to bring beginners up to speed. On the other hand, there are book authors. The best of these have both the talent and the inclination to do the very hard work, but they expect to be compensated for it. They deserve to be! And let's not forget, you don't really have to BUY the books. You can check them out of your local library, or get them through inter-library loan. Reading the books might be hard work, but it's simply GOT to be easier than what you and I both did.
I do think it would be great if beginner mentoring were available right here. Perhaps you could even contribute some yourself. As you yourself point out, sometimes experts can't speak to beginners, but maybe you should make the attempt. I'm sure there are many people who would be grateful for it.
Have you seen the Lynda.com training videos?
Hi everyone: just following this thread from the sidelines. I am very new to Drupal, but created a basic functioning site for my film students to post their videos, see grades, discuss topics in a forum, etc. and for me to post assignments and a calendar. Nothing earth shattering, but it works -- it's a start.
The basic information about Drupal I learned from Lynda.com, specifically this course: http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=620.
There are also courses on CCK and Themeing. The cost is very reasonable. Maybe this is too basic, just throwing it out there to see if it might help someone!
Theo
Bozeman, MT
Getting started with Drupal
This really shows the difficulty of the task since there are so many levels of usage.
If you are looking for developer documentation the best I found is here http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/library/i-osource5/
It REALLY explains Drupal's inner workings. I still look at the "Node-building sequence" http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/library/i-osource5/#N1044D when I implement hooks.
Thanks, Valeroid
OMG, that IBM link is exactly what I've been looking for. Maybe I wouldn't have understood it had I looked at that page on day 1, but I'm oh so happy to have it today. Thanks a million.
From 2006
That documentation is solid, but it's from 2006 -- I didn't read through it, but I suspect that some of it is out of date.
Cheers,
Bill
FunnyMonkey
thanks
Bill,
Yeah, I noticed that too, and I'm taking it with a grain of salt, but based on what I've learned the hard way, it is still mostly valid. I wish I could find the Drupal 6 equivalent.
Pro Drupal Development
Hi Becky,
Buy, beg or borrow http://www.drupalbook.com
Frank
My LinkedIn profile
The book is dated 2008, is it
The book is dated 2008, is it still a worthwhile investment?
I'm at the point now where I feel confident enough to try tackling modules, heck I just improved a Views argument handler two days ago and finally figured out how to write a JSON callback module for use with Google maps. But I still often feel lost and it still takes me days to figure things out when I start on something new :)
A book might be what I need?
yes
It covers Drupal 6, and so is relevant. It will be a little bit before the D7 book ships, I imagine, since D7's not officially out yet. :-)
In any case, I found it extremely useful. But reading the Drupal docs (especially the API and Themer's Guides) are the most important first step.
--Kelly Bell
Gotham City Drupal
twitter: @kbell | @gothamdrupal
http://drupal.org/user/293443
Lynda.com videos
From what I've seen (I think I've watched about 6 hours worth of the lynda.com Drupal videos), this site is well worth paying for to follow along these Drupal Videos (not to mention they have tons of other non-Drupal resources that might be applicable to your needs). It may be pretty basic stuff at first, but it gets a little more advanced (maybe not as advanced as some in this forum). I've had my team watch them, as well and it helped us tremendously. I also have enrolled several of us in Lullabot classes both online and seated.
We found it was very helpful to watch the Lynda.com videos that covered the same material as our Lullabot classes, surprisingly. I think it helped that the teachers we had at Lullabot and then the Lynda.com video both described things a little differently, so I felt we were given more than one angle on the instructions.
~ Liz Winfrey Ventura
How Did You Like The Lullabot Videos?
Out of curiosity, how did you like the Lullabot the videos? I'm curious how those compare to other stuff out there.
Also, for those that have tried video training, how do you think the video format compared to using books for learning Drupal? It seems to me video never gives you the depth of knowledge on a subject that a book does...but I also haven't watched the 17+ hours Lullabot produced that they have for sale.
Lullabot Videos
I haven't actually used their videos, unfortunately, so I can't compare them to the Lynda.com ones. Their classes are good, though, especially if they're seated ones. Their books are good (we have several in our library now) as well as their podcasts (the podcasts are free and pretty informative sometimes). Not to mention, the staff at Lullabot is really awesome and friendly.
I do like the fact that the Lynda.com videos are a subscription and with that subscription you can also watch videos on CSS, Photoshop and other topics that might help you in building your Drupal web site, if you need them. For us, being able to watch a video on almost any topic at any time was the selling point.
~ Liz Winfrey Ventura
A different format for a different purpose
I like the videos. I think they are great when you are doing a voyage of a thousand clicks -- i.e. using the UI to save settings in the database. Not very useful for coding though.
Very interesting points here!
Clearly there are different levels of skills and goals among Drupal users. i think that what's needed is to create personas -- as we do in marketing -- and target courses to these personas.
I can start with two broad ones:
I bought the lullabot series
I bought the lullabot series and think it's great. For someone familiar with Drupal the overview and first few chapters of each will be very basic. But the more advanced topics were invaluable for explaining some of the tricker things like Views arguments and relationships. While not as in depth as books, really helps you "get-it" when starting. Not really oriented towards the experienced developer.
I also agree with valeriods suggestion of approaching training with different personas in mind. For beginners docs I think it's really useful to have a more guided, top-down approach. Scrounging around disjointed wiki's and scouring forum comments can be very off-putting for the newbie!
I'd also propose another persona: "theming" for designer types who want to customize layouts, views, CCK fields, etc. (ie template hacking)
I personally would love to see a structured course with video clips, for quick high-level instruction/overview, with more in depth text and links etc for each individual topic or stage in the course.
If this discussion matures into an active project, I'd be interested in contributing.
YES!!! :)
I absolutely agree with the different types of target audiences when learning about Drupal. I'm sure there are more than just the two valeriod mentioned, too.
Like, Seth mentioned... Some people aren't really worried about the logistics of laying out the content and developing modules or even manipulating the system. Some folks just want to make it look good and that's all they do (lucky bastards lol).
Unfortunately for our poor (lack of...) sanity, most of my team has to be versed in both PHP/MySQL and in design due to how (ridiculously) understaffed we are here. So, we'd probably fall under this category as well as the category for those who are interested in applying their own PHP/MySQL codes into the system or building custom modules.
I think once I had the AHA moment for CCK and Views, my life became a TON easier, so it may be pretty important for all parties to understand this type of content manipulation. It's something that can be used by almost any type of Drupal developer.
I still can't believe Views isn't incorporated into 7!!! Oh well... not like it's hard to incorporate it yourself. sigh I just worry for those folks out there who are attempting to weed through the expansive and ever growing module lists that they realize how freakin' important this one is!
Ok, shutting up... steps off soapbox...
~ Liz Winfrey Ventura
persona #3
I think there is another, equally ubiquitous persona we should consider (I personally have met quite a few of these):
The user that is very proficient in the webmastering side of things (installing and maintaining Core and contrib modules and themes, running the site, setting up dev environments even, etc.) and who can take Drupal as far as it can go by using contrib and Core, but hasn't quite taken that leap into custom coding yet (beyond maybe css/javascript/JQuery/front-end coding), and needs help getting there. S/he is not a n00b in any sense (likely has several years' experience), is very comfortable with Drupal, CCK and Views, and may even know the principles used to make a custom module, have thoroughly read/understand (from a high-level) the Themer's Guide and Drupal API, know how to troubleshoot, etc. but just aren't comfortable with php coding enough yet (or command-line interfaces and/or SVN/CVS and/or standard coding practices) to take the plunge into creating custom modules and/or using super-advanced techniques that are natural to those who come from a sttraight coding background. A lot of front-end coder types fit into this category, even ones who have a high technical aptitude but not the CompSci background.
This persona is consistently underserved at most training "camps" and other get-togethers, and they basically define the "intermediate user". They are interested in learning how to build and troubleshoot custom modules, advanced themeing techniques, multisite/multistage, drush, Capistrano, server and db optimization strategies. and other mid-level topics.
Thoughts?
--Kelly Bell
Gotham City Drupal
twitter: @kbell | @gothamdrupal
http://drupal.org/user/293443
I agree totally, kbell. I'm
I agree totally, kbell. I'm one of those users. I'm very proficient with CSS and the front-end stuff. I'm actually pretty proficient with PHP as well and can understand all the stuff involved in creating a custom module. But all the SVN/CVS, drush, and "roll a patch" stuff is like just so much Greek to me. It adds to the intimidation factor of surfing through a lot of these issue queues. Often, it is not the code or the process involved that mystifies me, it is the shorthand and idiomatic way some of these things are discussed.
But I do recognize that this is a learning curve that I must master...I can't expect you guys to hold my hand, you're as busy as I am if not more so. I've learned from experience that the only way to get up to speed is to shut up and put in the time to read and read and read and google and read until it starts to come more natural to me. But when I'm trying to get a site in production updated with a new feature or fix it can be a bit harrowing to try to digest a lot of "command-line" "patch" "drupalish" kind of content quickly.
No easy answers, I think....
Behind every big man is a big behind.
summer project for intermediate drupallers
I have been contemplating doing a summer project for drupallers at this level.
this is how it would work:
1. find a topic for something that would benefit an aspect of drupal.
2. find a few more people who are advanced drupallers to be mentor/teachers (who know how to use version control, IDE's, the command line, make patches, writing php/jQuery code, navigate in the issue queue, know lots of other drupallers)
3. find intermediate level drupallers interested in participating as the students. (people who can use drupal, cck, views, ftp, html...but maybe not writing modules, knowing php/javascript/mysql, contributing documentation or making patches)
4. break the project into pieces and parts. we would use the same open source contribution model already used in drupal, but explaining it as we go.
basically we would take 2 months of this summer (like google summer of code, but for more 'beginner developers') and work on the project together. we would take time to learn some of the contribution skills.
ideally, this sort of structured project could be part of a hands-on learning project as part of a 'drupal university' - or even just a model of how to have an 'open source class'
i have some ideas for projects.
personally, i prefer projects that are based locally, though could be replicated in other communities. and ideally having some local face-to-face learning. (this seems to be how the gsoc drupal mentoring program works)
the other day i attended the HFOSS annual meeting (humanitarian FOSS) - there were lots of college computer science professors who are doing 'service-learning' projects with their students and having great success. this makes me confident that this sort of approach could be really great for helping experienced 'web people' bridge the gap to being open source contributors.
also in attendance was leslie hawthorn, the programs manager for google's open source office. she gave me the advice that i should find a topic that i am passionate about, and get a small group of mentors to work with me, and then we would have a good base to support 'students.'
my biggest question is about the time commitment, and how much time students would need to learn. i can say with certainty that the only reason i was able to get better at version control was by needing to use it, and that took hours of practice, and solving problems over the course of months/years.
if anyone is interested in doing something like this this summer...let me know! i'll be making an invitational post somewhere in the drupalsphere in the next week or two. i'll post a link back here when i have it.
Already starting something similar
What you're describing has a lot of similarity to the intent behind the Drupal Kata. Main difference, from GSOC is the program is ongoing and open to anyone who wishes to learn by doing.
http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-kata
http://drupalkata.com/home
If we ignore the multitude of project and initiative names, I think there are points of overlap we can begin with before summer.
Gus Austin
Hi Lee, This is precisely the
Hi Lee,
This is precisely the sort of thing I wanted to hear when I started the Drupalversity project. I haven't yet read the various replies below your post so I don't know how the conversation developed, but I wanted to respond to your post directly anyway.
You just turn up. Maybe the "university" illusion is intimidating, and the name should be changed. The whole point of this project is to provide entry points to Drupal learning for people of varying levels of ability. Courses will (eventually :-) ) start at an absolute beginner level.
I'm hardly PhD level Drupal, but I do know quite a bit of stuff. And yes, I'm very interested in what people have to go through to learn Drupal, simply because I (1) remember how difficult it was to learn Drupal and (2) know how easy it can be to teach Drupal once you know what you're doing. It's an efficiency question, really. When I'm teaching people Drupal they learn much more quickly than I did struggling through the documentation. This isn't because I'm a great teacher, but because people learn better that way. Obviously it's almost impossible to reach this ideal, but I reckon the DV project could get meaningfully close.
And I guess my point here is that if I'm interested in teaching Drupal from the ground up, other people must be. And I'm pretty sure various Drupal "PhD's" share that sentiment, even if they don't have the time to do much work on this kind of stuff. webchick and add1son spring to mind.
If you get a reaction from anyone in the Drupal community that is any less polite than "I'm sorry, I don't have time to help you right now" then screw them. There is far too much elitism, egotism, hierarchy and bullshit superiority in development projects in general, and unfortunately some of that bleeds into the Drupal community. Don't get me wrong, I think the Drupal community is the best FOSS community there is, but there is still far too much of this stuff.
You are potentially no less of a developer or themer just because you haven't yet stored some information in your brain. To reiterate, if anyone makes you feel inferior for not knowing something, screw them.
You are entirely right, and yes I have considered this. The problem with any system of education is that the people who know stuff are the only people who can quickly write documentation. But that documentation has to be informed by the people who are going to make use of it. To this end, there's a section on the wiki page (http://groups.drupal.org/node/49778) titled "Drupal Learning Experiences". Please describe your story so far with Drupal there - what was useful, where you got stuck, how you solved problems that you came up against. More experienced Drupalistas can then use your experiences as the basis for future courses.
It scares me too. We need people who know about Drupal but who remember how frustrating it was to learn what they've managed to learn.
I am. Or was; I taught a graphic designer up to the intermediate bits of the Drupal theming system. We're just about to submit a proposal for a relatively well-paid Drupal job that I wouldn't have been able to do on my own and which we're very likely to win; what goes around comes around.
And please add your learning experiences to the wiki page. I can't promise that no-one will judge you (although the Drupal community can be incredibly supportive), but just ignore them if they do.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Following with interest
This caught my attention a while back but I sat it out to date.
@Lee-vit-Over, your experience is, sadly, all too prevalent. I've highlighted it before myself, but the folk who generally behave in this way tend to close ranks when challenged and act like they're being constantly put-upon by idiots and lazy time-wasters. I suspect there is a little from both columns here, but too many people seem to be unable to distinguish the interested newbie from the lazy hack ... and they treat everyone like a lazy hack ... in issue queues and in IRC. But anyway, I've decided you can't do anything about that and I've vowed not to blog about it any more, as everyone just gets all upset and nothing changes.
What I would say is IRC depends on your channel. #drupal is overcrowded and generally not very helpful, IMHO, whereas many of the sub-channels, independent local ones, etc. are where you find real community and real help. For example, I hang out in #drupaluk. It's quiet enough that we're not inundated, we know each other mostly, we're friendly to new faces and we're a pretty helpful bunch. I bet there are state/city channels in the US that have a similar make-up. I'd suggest you find them.
And I happen to know the maintainer for Shadowbox - raise an issue in his queue regarding the documentation and I'm sure he'll fix it. =)
@Drupalversity in general, this is all very well, but I'll remain cynical until actual courses start to appear in finished form. As someone who sometimes teaches Drupal courses in the line of my work, I know how much time can go in to preparing them and I surely know I don't have time to do that in my spare time! I'm busy enough already, with the modules I maintain, my business to run, my daughter, etc. You know how it is. If the Drupal Association was able to pay for courses to be created, I can see this working. Has anyone asked them??
And there's another problem... With a free university made up of unpaid volunteers creating and teaching courses, online or otherwise, you're asking people (like me, I might add) to work for free to teach people Drupal who, in turn, will be competent Drupal developers in direct competition with their teachers! I'd be cannibalising my business from every angle if I started giving out free training courses - as a paid Drupal teacher and as a Drupal development company. Harsh as that sounds, it's an undeniable reality.
In the interests of being positive, I do have another suggestion... It's a little off topic, but when I was at college I took advantage of a grant-assisted scheme which placed me in industry, learning on the job for a summer. It doesn't exist any more, but here's an equivalent running in the UK today: http://www.step.org.uk
I think some kind of development program like this would be a much better way forward to tackling the skills shortage and getting people trained up. Incentivising companies to "adopt" people who would ultimately work for them with a grant-based structure - not interns, per se; in order to qualify for the grant incentives companies would have to demonstrate the person is actively learning Drupal on live projects, not just licking stamps and counting paper clips. There is loads of precedent, this does work, but you would need to get the Drupal Association and/or big sponsor buy-in to help fund it. It won't happen if it's just batted back and forth in a Drupal group. But something like this might really boost the numbers and bring through a generation of new Drupal talent
With a placement scheme companies mentor up someone who works for them. They're scratching their own back by teaching them and they're potentially further incentivised by a grant on the trainee's salary. Sure, this person will probably leave one day, but as long as lots of businesses are doing the same thing, you'll pick up someone else more easily at the same level. Everyone wins.
That's the sort of scheme I think can really help people who want to learn Drupal - by plugging in to the people who want to have Drupal people and empowering them to do the teaching.
Either way though, I think the Drupal Association ought to be directly involved in this. AFAIK this is the sort of thing the Association exists for...?!
@Lee-vit-Over - you are the
@Lee-vit-Over - you are the community as are we, its really as simple as that. You'll get out what you put in.
The reason why us with the knowledge are slow to share with those that don't is the incredibly high attrition rate, people come and people go and I personally do not have the time to mentor those who are not dead serious about this. I tend to look out for people in my issue queues or those who approach me directly with a proposal and mentor them along if they show interest and promise.
Have you ever been an employer in a busy business? I can tell that one of our biggest worries is the human resource - getting the right people with the right skills. Its tough and frankly we don't have enough time to go and find the right people. My point is this - if you want to be mentored then go and ask someone to do it. I don't have time to find you, you have to come to me, and you better come with a base set of skills otherwise I won't take you seriously, that's just the way it is. If you come to me and tell me you want to be a themer and you have little or no CSS skills I'm not going to take it further. Drupal theming skills can be learned quite quickly, CSS takes real time and experience to learn.
Now, don't think for even one minute that someone like me doesn't want to do this, we WANT and NEED more highly skilled Drupal themers, site builders and programmers. A few months ago I took on a themer who had very rudimentary knowledge in Drupal but very good CSS skills and paid him to learn how to build Drupal themes and spent a lot of time helping him. So don't think we're not dedicated and concerned about things - we are. He's turned out to be one hell of themer and picked up things very quickly, and he's earning good money doing it.
We are TIME CONSTRAINED, those with plenty of time on their hands don't quite understand the pressures of being a developer and simply how much time we put into this - think 12 to 14 hour work days are not unusual. Then we have our Drupal projects to maintain, Drupal docs to write, and other involvements (I am at time of writing one of the Project Managers on the D.O redesign Project), and of course we have families, friends and yes I do want to have a life. If comes down to spending time with my family or helping some guy on g.d.o bitching about no-one wanting to teach him I know what I'll be choosing.
Look, when I went to university about a million years ago I had to attain a certain level of knowledge before being accepted. The way I see this whole Drupalveristy thing is that its about taking those who have proven they are serious and helping them take the step towards becoming a professional - this is a step in the process that is sorely missing and one that needs to be filled.
Like many others have said before, there are tonnes of resources for the beginner to learn, but very few structured learning programmes to take them the next step.
The way I see it you have an opportunity staring you in the face so just do it - organize a book exchange, start a local group, do what ever it takes to give resources to yourself and others in your position, but do not come here bitching that someone else should do this for you, that's NOT how the Drupal community works, never has and never will. Drupal is a doOcracy, so do it.
This is a very interesting
This is a very interesting discussion. I am about to finish a large Drupal site - my first one - and had to come up to speed very fast. I read some books, spend countless hours on Google, joined a local Drupal user group and attended a Drupal camp. I am an experience Joomla developer and so I understood many of the concepts. Still, Drupal is a very large, complex system and one has to learn it - there are many resources that will fit ones learning style.
What I not completely understand is what people are looking for when they talk about free tutoring. Does anybody really expect that people who know Drupal well will be available for "extended" free advise. These folks would be swamped in a second with request of all kinds. There are companies specialized on Drupal and I am sure some of them would tutor you to become an expert if you'd pay their fees.
What worked best for me was to actually build a site after my initial reads. I researched every problem I encountered and found solutions through Google, Book examples and some times through email via the SF user group. All that advise came free but I still had to pursue it.
I'll write some of my experiences down and participate in Drupal user groups but that is about the extend to what I can do time wise. If I come about someone that has a question I know the answer to I'll answer - if I have the time. I don't think we can expect more from anybody.
Exactly!
I think this sums up the situation perfectly. Currently, documentation and support for Drupal is reactive: someone is working on a Drupal project, gets stuck, goes to IRC or the forums, asks a question and (hopefully) gets an answer. This is incredibly inefficient. Imagine if you turned up on the first day of a University course in Mathematics and were shown the questions you were going to be asked in your finals, and then pointed to the library and told to work it all out for yourself? You'd get stuck, go and find a professor, ask him a question about what you were working on, go away, get stuck again, go back to the professor... and eventually give up.
The point here is that Drupalversity will be a proactive project. Courses will be written by whoever has the time and inclination to write them, just like modules and themes are. To reiterate, in most cases this won't involve writing documentation: just organising documentation that already exists. There will be no "professors" on hand. Once the courses are written, they're written and whoever wrote them can get on with doing whatever else it is they have to do, rather than answering another 1,000 IRC questions or forum posts. And new Drupalistas will learn more quickly and will have more time to contribute courses of their own, or to edit courses they've used, or to feedback with their own learning experience so more experienced Drupalistas are able to write better courses, or to do something else in the Drupal community. What's more, they'll have had a better experience using Drupal from the off, so they'll be more likely to want to help out themselves.
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
a different approach?
Jim,
I applaud your enthusiasm and willingness to help, but I think there are some built-in reasons why this approach, which has been tried many times in many places, has historically failed to meet the need.
First and foremost is the dizzying complexity of Drupal itself. There are hundreds of possible paths through the vast tome one must master in order to become truly Drupal-literate. Depending upon the requirements of your site, or module idea, there are bound to be things you simple don't need to know, and others you'd like to get to in as direct a way as possible. It is extremely difficult, maybe even impossible, to tailor instruction to such a vast array of learner needs. Every time you write a chunk of instruction, you are forced to make assumptions about what the learner population does and does not already know. For advanced topics, you simply can't make progress without assuming that some prerequisite knowledge is in place. Unfortunately, most people don't want to wade through chapter after chapter of difficult introductory information that does not directly impact the task of the moment, so they don't. Instead, they leap into a topical tutorial that matches what they are trying to accomplish, and then complain that it has been written in 'Drupalese'.
This is one of the sole remaining advantages of formal education: it is possible to force students to learn basic fundamentals before getting to the parts they are personally motivated by. Here, we are promoting informal education, and we must deal with students who lack the self-discipline to work their way through a lengthy introduction, no matter how well written that introduction may be. When a student tackling an advanced topic without mastering the pre-requisites gets into trouble, they quite naturally ask for help. Sometimes an expert is there to provide the missing pieces, and the learner happily moves forward. Other times, an expert is unavailable, or available but unwilling. That is the state we are in.
The second barrier is the profusion of badly written/inaccurate/outdated information that is just a Google search away. The problem is not too little documentation, it is too much! Adding more to the pile is unlikely to help. What may be more helpful would be to take the approach used by the Learning Object community: assemble a database of freely available instruction, which is then rated, commented on, and assembled into 'assignments' and 'collections' by both experts and non-experts, and thus provide users with an easier way to sift through what is available in order to find what is useful. In fact, it might well be that the best thing would be to have everyone submit urls to Merlot.org. They have a pretty sweet set-up there, freely available to anyone who wants to submit or consume 'learning objects'.
The other thing that might be useful would be for documenters to actually give people a pre-test, which they would be advised, but not forced, to pass before taking the class. The questions could be tightly targeted to what you'd need to know to understand the tutorial, and the feedback could contain links to additional information. There are a zillion ways to put such a test into place either inside or outside of Drupal. Obviously many, many documentation pages already lead off with a caveat about pre-requisite knowledge, but I think an actual quiz is both more motivating and more helpful in terms of pointing up the EXACT information any given person needs to brush up on before diving in.
Finally, I think it would be very helpful if experts would use some of their documentation time adding some well-commented example code to the bottom of the existing API pages. The links to examples already in place are useful, but many examples are not commented on well enough to be helpful to a newbie. Better examples on the API pages would provide a really awesome resource for tutorial writers to link to from their pre-tests and other locations inside their instruction.
Wacky Idea #93847635
How could we get some help from the AI (artificial intelligence) Lab to assist the Drupal community in constructing a tutorial that can respond appropriately to students at all levels...
In 1997 I created a chat software and the programmer I worked with created this script that would chat with you and it would get smarter each time you interacted with it. I am sure that advances have been made in this area...
Hopefully there are a few AI students at MIT that need a senior project. I think we have to approach this in a different way to avoid adding to what you note above -
"The second barrier is the profusion of badly written/inaccurate/outdated information that is just a Google search away. The problem is not too little documentation, it is too much!"
Handbook on Platform Cooperativism, a movement building platforms and tools owned by the people. http://bit.ly/hackitownit
I love it
Now that would be cool. I don't have any ins at the AI lab, and I didn't see a suggestion box. They already have START, which supposedly answers questions, but it doesn't seem to know much about Drupal, and I didn't see a way to feed it information or get it interested in a topic.
If you know how to go about getting the AI lab's attention, and if there's anything I can do to help, let me know!
Becky
Finally, I think it would be
I agree this would be a great addition to the API docs. I guess doing it like the php.net docs where the user contributed examples really help understanding or show various ways to use a function.
I second this approach. I
I second this approach. I find the comments on the php.net docs extremely useful. Just the other day I was reviewing the Drupal API docs and noticed a couple example contributions ( http://api.drupal.org/api/function/theme_item_list/6 ).
Hey Becky, Thanks for your
Hey Becky,
Thanks for your comments - great to keep the debate going.
The point here is that DV will be modular. There will be some beginners' courses which assume very little prerequisite knowledge, but more advanced courses that will require prerequisite knowledge will state what that prerequisite knowledge is. To continue with the comparison of DV to a bricks and mortar university, when you go to choose more advanced courses, many of them have prerequisites: less advanced courses that you will have to have taken to be able to understand the more advanced course. This is how I see DV working: an "Advanced Views" course would have the prerequisite of the "Intermediate Views" course, which would have the prerequisite of the "Introduction to Views" course, etc.
Obviously, Drupalistas who are coming to DV with a bit more knowledge will not be obliged to wade through beginners' and intermediate courses before doing the course they want. In order for someone to work out whether a particular course is too advanced, it would probably be a good idea (in addition to the standard university prerequisite-course thing discussed above) to prefix courses with a few questions of the "Can you do [insert Drupal thing here]" variety. "Can you build a view that lists all the users on your site? Can you build a view that lists all of the nodes created by a specific user? ... [a load more questions] ... if you can answer yes to 85% of these questions then carry on with the Intermediate Views course; otherwise you might like to work through the Beginning Views course first.
Unfortunately, most people don't want to wade through chapter after chapter of difficult introductory information that does not directly impact the task of the moment, so they don't. Instead, they leap into a topical tutorial that matches what they are trying to accomplish, and then complain that it has been written in 'Drupalese'.
I'm not sure that the introductory information has to be difficult. Drupal is a huge framework, granted, but working once it's broken down into little bits none of those bits are too conceptually challenging.
But your point about someone not wanting to deal with material that "does not directly impact the task of the moment" is an interesting one; it's partly clarified for me the purpose of DV within the existing Drupal education projects. I had always intended DV to be for people who were seriously considering Drupal as a career, and were prepared to work through some abstracted (as opposed to abstract) courses rather than just wanting to solve a specific task on a specific site that they had inherited. If someone wants a quick answer to something then they can go to the forums or IRC. If they want to study things in a more systematic way then they can use DV.
I think this raises an interesting question about Drupal itself. I don't want to discourage new Drupalistas (the entire DV project is about providing these guys with a structure that they can work in), but there are far too many people who come to Drupal and think that it's some kind of free Mr Site. Some of the reasons that Drupal isn't this are faults in Drupal's usability and UI (many of which are resolved in D7). But apart from these faults, Drupal just is a pretty deep framework. Some things can be achieved quickly (moving menu links around, creating pages, etc) but other things need, for most of us, more concentrated study. DV can help provide a framework for this study so it's more straightforward.
The problem is not too little documentation, it is too much! Adding more to the pile is unlikely to help.
You are quite right: people are drowning in documenation. I need to be very clear here, though, as we're in danger of re-defining thr project before it has even started:
Drupalversity is not about writing new documentation. It is about organising documentation that already exists in a way that makes it more accessible.
Huge thanks for all your comments on this. Please keep the debate going!
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Ah, I see
You're right, I was confused. My apologies.
Drupalversity is not about writing new documentation. It is about organising documentation that already exists in a way that makes it more accessible.
Have you ever looked at the history of the Reusable Learning Object movement? It is quite interesting. Am planning to add my take on it as a reply to my own comment.
I'm not sure that the introductory information has to be difficult. Drupal is a huge framework, granted, but working once it's broken down into little bits none of those bits are too conceptually challenging.
The problem with small chunks is that they make no sense outside of a larger framework. Breaking things down is not the problem. Building a coherent structure in the mind of the learner is. Until that structure exists, in at least a rudimentary form, students are not going to be able to make meaning out of the pieces.
I had always intended DV to be for people who were seriously considering Drupal as a career, and were prepared to work through some abstracted (as opposed to abstract) courses rather than just wanting to solve a specific task on a specific site that they had inherited.
Not to rain on your parade, but people seriously considering Drupal as a career should be willing to invest some cash on a nice library of books written by people who know how. It's going to be impossible to match the quality of a good book with some linked together free tutorials.
Becky
History of the LO Movement
Here's my take, for what it's worth.
Many years ago, folks in education came up with the notion of a Learning Object (LO). The simplest way to understand the concept of an LO is the Lego analogy. When you want to build something (like a course) you puzzle together LOs the way you would build a castle out of lego bricks. The movement was motivated by the (then) high cost of developing high quality digital content to support learning. It was not unusual to pour several hundred man-hours into an interactive 'brick' students would spend 30 minutes consuming. At the same time, other people might be doing exactly the same thing, targeting almost exactly the same 30 minutes worth of material. It seemed like a no-brainer to look for ways to avoid the duplication of effort.
To that end, significant time and money was spend developing databases of LOs in every subject. Before developing/submitting a new object, you were supposed to search the database(s!), and see if something that meets your needs already existed. Instructors were encouraged to search before putting in a project request for custom development of a new LO, or simply to locate high-quality supplementary materials for their existing textbook-driven courses.
It all sounded great. Grant money was awarded, the databases were put in place. There was no problem getting authors to submit their objects, no problem getting peers to rate the objects, and various foundations were even able to recruit subject-area experts willing to devote some time each week to providing 'expert' ratings, as well as feedback for submitters.
Everything was cooking along just fine until instructors started trying to actually build their castles of knowledge. As it turns out, it is really very difficult to build a course, or even a portion of a course, based on pre-existing materials that have been scrounged from the web. Brick after metaphorical brick is rejected, despite high ratings, because it doesn't quite fit: it contains information or emphasis a given instructor disagrees with, or because it contains too much overlap with pieces of the curriculum that are already in place. Having searched the database, and come up dry, instructors developed, or paid for the development of, their own custom bricks, which were added to the pile, and were themselves rejected by nearly every other instructor. The ratio of submitters to consumers became alarmingly high. The movement, at least in my view, lost momentum, and threatened to die altogether. However, it did not die completely, and a tiny subset of the available bricks started bubbling to the top and getting good use. The question of what makes any given LO truly reusable is of great interest to me, but I'll save my musings on that for another day. The point right now is that the vast majority of material submitted to the databases turns out to lack true re-usability.
So, I guess what I am suggesting is that Drupalversity may (in same ways) be a re-invention of the Learning Object model. If so, I think you should consider taking advantage of the hard-won lessons that have been learned by the original LO movement.
The LO database I use is at Merlot.org. They have an interface for assembling LO's into "collections" and/or "assignments" both of which can be annotated. Recently, they have started looking into tools that can be used to create content from scratch, but which would support the inclusion of some pre-existing chunks. I think that Drupal might well provide a better solution for assembling pieces than anything Merlot is currently offering, but for searching, rating, compiling links and commenting, I think Merlot has done a nice job. Their UI is pretty good, too. Check it out.
Becky
@Lee-vit-Over: Patience, Politness, and Perseverance
Hi Lee-vit-Over,
Firstly, I really hope that you do continue to give Drupal and the community more time and patience, from my experience it is well worth it.
I myself started working with system only a few months ago.
If it wasn't for the #drupal-support, I would have never finished my first site. The people on there are simply incredible. Take into account, most drupal developers are in the middle of work or rest when on IRC yet they take any second they can to answer questions from random people. I often find I ask a question, no one knows, no one answers, I wait an hour re ask, someone knows they answer.
If I know an answer to question, I give it, if I think I know the answer I give it, sometimes I haven't been able to give precisely the right answer but have helped the users get the answers they need by pointing them in the right direction.
While on #drupal, I have been astonished to get advice from some the same people who present at drupalcon and write drupal books. I used to never ask questions on #drupal because it was considered a place to talk about contributing. Over the last few months #drupal has opened up, and created a more open environment for people who have a quick question to ask it without breaking IRC 'rules'.
I don't feel that anyone owes me the time to hold my hand and walk me through my noobie issues. I'm flattered when they do anyway, and have nothing but praise to offer them.
I'm sure there's been people who weren't completely friendly with me on IRC, but I was too busy listening to the people helping me to notice.
Even the people who give advice that didn't work on IRC are awesome. They took the time to consider my issue, gave me their honest opinion on how to fix it. Even if it was a wild goose chase so what. I got where I needed in the end, and learned more about my trade, and the system I use along the way.
http://www.drupalove.com/, http://mustardseedmedia.com/, http://www.drupaldojo.com/, http://learnbythedrop.com/ Are some of the wonderful sites that show you step by step what you need to get your site off the ground check out (http://drupal.org/node/124318) for even more them. Not too mention the videos from the drupalcons (http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=Drupal)
As Jeff Burnz mentioned above you will get out of drupal what you put into it. You can be a catalyst for changing what you have perceived as negative for the next person who stumbles into #drupal or #drupal-support or any other of the drupal channels. You are as much of a community member as Dries.
So here's my challenge to you: Document your journey to understand the system. When you figure something out, take screenshots and make screencasts.
Use that documentation to help others. http://drupal.org/contribute/documentation. Once you start figuring things out, be one of the peopke on IRC who helps out the noobies. http://drupal.org/contribute/support.
To get to know drupal all it takes is a bit of patience, a bit of politeness, and a lot of perseverance. Initiatives like drupalversity and drupal kata, are long term projects that are trying to address these issues, and the best way to insure they succeed is to roll up your sleeves and find something to contribute.
YEAH!
glad I landed on this page!
just joined drupal.org yesterday!
my first post was where do I sign up for drupal 101 or drupal for dummies? lol
had a major drupal project land in my lap and know nothing about it so have much to learn and need to do it as quickly as possible!
if anyone wants to email me: thebluegrasstimes@yahoo.com
if you want to see where I am starting from: thebluegrasstimes.com
thank you! thank you! thank you!
very impressed
Having done free user support for several years on another GNU project, and having worked with and shared many of the same newbies frustrations, I would like to recognize the high quality of this exchange--both the honest newbie frustrations and the sincere efforts to help by those who have been they before.
Poor documentation is a real and valid newbie question that goes to the core of a perennial GNU problem. Every GNU community is still looking for a better solution. I think recognition for document writers/editors similar to the recognition that module maintainers receive would be helpful. Good documentation is hard, boring, repetitive, nit-picking work. It is also essential to the success of Drupal and deserves more credit by the community.
Drupal has some unique challenges. Among website making frameworks, it sits somewhere between the plug-and-play, "you-get-what-you-get" world of Joomla and WordPress, and the more flexible programmer-centric frameworks, such as Typo3 and Ruby on Rails. That's a sweet spot to be in, but it has it's challenges.
To take real advantage of Drupal requires a certain amount of programmer-level knowledge. This includes some understanding of hooks, theme overrides, SQL optimization, etc. These are the very features that make Drupal so awesomely flexible, but they take more time to learn than, say, knowing how to install a Joomla extension. (Not meant as a critique of either system.)
All this is to say that Drupal documentation must meet the needs two very different user groups.
Those with limited or no PHP knowledge, who often need to get a site up on a very small budget. They essentially just need to know what to install and turn on before they move on to other tasks.
Those who want to take advantage of Drupal's flexibility by hacking custom modules, creating unique data types, views, forms, optimizing hand-coded SQL statements, updating multiple sites as once, etc.
Hear hear! I absolutely agree
Hear hear! I absolutely agree with the part about the need to recognize writer/editors.
Strange as it may sound I actually enjoy writing documentation. The only reason I haven't contributed any is that to write good documentation you either need to understand what you're writing about really well or have someone who does available to you to answer questions and comment on the documentation you're producing.
Understandably the people who are experts in some part of Drupal don't usually have the time, or the skill, to write documentation. And unfortunately they usually don't want to be at a techincal writer's someone's beck and call to answer his questions.
Would it be great if we could have a group of technical/documentation writers and each could be assigned to a module maintainer and part of the responsibility of the maintain would be to respond to any question the documentation writer had? If such a system existed I'd be one of the first to ask to be assigned to a module maintainer and be at his beck and call.
there's definitely a need
@totsubo, there are tons of links for helping with documenting core here:
http://drupal.org/contribute/documentation
If you prefer to help document contrib projects, I'd be surprised if any maintainer would turn you down. On any project page, you can click the link to the maintainer's profile - if their contact form is enabled you can get directly in touch. But personally I'd prefer writing an issue in the project's issue queue... this opens the possibility of connecting with other people who may be similarly interested - and keeps the process open :)
WOW - I'm amazed!!!
I am totally amazed at the responses to my comments. First off, let me say "Thank You All" for even taking the time to respond - most don't!!! However, and I hope it's 'safe' to be honest here, without getting my head bitten off...
I mentioned that I'm a Minister (presently unemployed - and for reasons that fit this thread). These responses, though incredible, are again greatly reflecting the reason(s) for my 'attitude'. Some here are extremely understanding and heart-felt, which I greatly appreciate, but if you will be so open-minded to hear me out for a minute; In my "profession", there is a constant need for people to volunteer their time, experience, talents, money, etc. - as the 'homeless' and 'poor' can't "donate" to the cost of helping them - and the residential facility I started and ran for over a decade to help the homeless, was forced to close because of the same problems I propose here - everyone is "too busy" and very few want to 'give' to something/someone which will not "pay-off" for their own benefit. Here's my point... I received about 20 responses, and the closest to actually helping me, was the newbies - not the 'seasoned' Drupalers. One mentioned those who "cry" and want someone to do it for them - I suppose that's aimed at me - but think for a moment, if the same time and effort was spent helping, as was spent writing a response to why you wont help, you would have helped. There were also some who replied with sincere understanding - THANK YOU! But I believe we may have gotten away from the original point that I was trying to make, and that is that the first posting(s) in this thread about the ideas and concept to help people like me learn how to use Drupal, SOME of which may make it a career (I'm a bit old to start a new career in programming, possibly, but that doesn't mean I don't deserve to be 'helped'). Have we, human beings, gotten so incredibly self-centered that we will no longer "help" someone, if it doesn't benefit US? Are we so focused on the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR (or other currency) that we no longer care about anyone else but ourselves and our wallets? -- I spend my life serving others (as my way of serving the God in Whom I believe), but in order to do that, I NEED help from others, too. I might be able to fix a transmission, but I can't build a car alone! How many of you got where you are today ALONE? Did you ever receive help from someone? Was that the only help you ever needed, or did you also get help a time or twenty, along the way? (Homeless people don't start out in life, homeless - and though they got help before, they need it again, and so do I, on occasion).
The original focus in starting this thread was to "help people". That's AWESOME! It seems to have turned into more defense as to why NOT to help people, then it is in actually helping. Why I say this is... out of approximately 20 responses, some heart-felt and understanding, I grant you - not one person said, "I'll help you". I don't want someone to do it for me - shoot, I haven't had an ounce of help doing the siteS I've done, and am doing. I start working on the sites just after dinner (around 7pm) and I work literally until 5am (ALL NIGHT) -- ALONE. I've had, I think it's 17 sites thus far, and had to completely start over from scratch 16 times (just for ONE site I'm trying to build). The last was almost ready to open, until I realized that for some strange reason, regular 'users' couldn't access much of the site - only "user-1". I began contacting everyone I could (after pulling all of my hair out, trying to find out what was wrong ALONE). The last person I contacted, who does a podcast-site teaching Drupal, replied by telling me to give up, and go to something like WordPress or Joomla - HA! - and basically tried to tell me I'd never be able to be successful with Drupal. But NO ANSWERS to my problem! If you want to see what I "CAN'T DO" - I respond(ed) with a loud - WATCH ME!!! I've done many things in life that "everyone" around me said I couldn't do - like house and help over 100 people on a constant basis, without license or funding from any "organization or government" - and I'll do this TOO!!! If no one helps, fine... but I'll be dog-goned if I'll "give up" just because someone ELSE thinks I "can't". -- I was told approximately 20 years ago that I'd never stay away from drugs for more than a week (I'm an X-addict), by some of the most recognized addiction professionals in this country. I showed them - and I've helped literally THOUSANDS of others do the same. I CAN - AND WILL learn Drupal, if not one person ever helps me at all!!! But what about others who 'wander' into Drupal and have to go through the same 'stuff' I have? Did YOU ever struggle with Drupal and couldn't find help? -- One person mentioned that they had to "learn it on their own" -- so does that mean that everyone, from now on, should have to "learn it on their own" TOO? Should the homeless REALLY be expected to get off the streets without any help? -- Doesn't happen, believe me -- and I'll bet my bottom dollar you didn't become seasoned Drupalers ALONE -- but even if you did, does that mean everyone should? -- HOGWASH!
I just 'joined' this group - but believe me, it's not because I see how much it will "help me" -- but how I might be able to "help" -- and this is exactly what I'm attempting to do here at this moment (believe it or not). If I can help raise the awareness of some of you who are "seasoned Drupalers", and possibly even make you angry enough to DO SOMETHING - I will have succeeded! OR (and my preference) -- and this is why I "joined" -- I'd like to offer, for what (I am, and) it's worth, to bring to the table a "newbies" viewpoint, and 'input' to help keep some balance to those of you who are "seasoned", and help keep the "green" in the garden, if you will. Maybe, someday, I'll be able to help someone with Drupal (though at the moment, I doubt even myself - but 20 years ago I doubted I'd ever help an addict stay off drugs, too). So "seasoned Drupalers" -- I'm here to help YOU! I'm not here to GET FREE HELP FROM YOU! My question... if you wont 'give' help - will you be humble enough to accept help yourself? I may not be able to 'help' you with Drupal - but maybe, just maybe, I can help you keep the focus on helping someone else, and that requires remembering what it's like to be a "newbie"!
(Sometimes anger can be a powerful 'tool', if used in the right direction - and if I haven't raised your desire to help ME - I hope I've made you angry, or 'disturbed' you enough to get off your pride and egos, long enough to help someone ELSE!)
To EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has bothered to read, and/or responded to my comments - THANK YOU! for your time, energy and attention. PLEASE direct that same time, energy and attention in HELPING SOMEONE!!! If each of you, just in this one group alone, were to pick ONE PERSON to actually "mentor", and "teach" Drupal to them... that would be at least 20 "newbies" getting help - and we ALL will have succeeded. Besides -- if you REALLY want to keep your self-centeredness -- then think of this truth...
THE GREATEST WAY TO HELP YOURSELF WITH ANYTHING - IS TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE...
If you want to 'learn' something - TEACH IT... if you have a HURT - help someone else who's worse off than yourself!!!
I PROMISE YOU -- you will gain more than you ever 'give'!
I needed to be helped -- so I come here and "join", in hopes to help YOU!
If you're so inclined, you can take a look at the FIASCOS I am working to build - I'll put them "online" for 24 hours...
www.Love.MyGodspace.net
www.MyGodspace.net (my 17th try at this site)
I know neither are very "good" -- but I never claimed to be "good" at Drupal.
God Bless every one of you!
Lee
Lee-vit-Over@hotmail.com
PastorCounselor@hotmail.com
permissions
If only user1 can access your site content, the most likely reason is that you need to visit admin/user/permissions.
Becky
...
I think if you spent the time it took you to write this post helping someone instead, community would be better off.
I checked your tracker, you've never helped a single other Drupaler.
I think that says it all.
Seriously, who needs this crap?
Not Bad
@Lee-vit-Over : your sites aren't bad. If they fulfil their function and cater to your target market then just be happy. The problem you need to fix is definitely permissions. Every module allows you to control who can administer and who can view what parts of it - and you need to set this. It is a common mistake to build a site and think it is working because you only ever access it as user 1. I open a different browser and check the site as a non-authenticated user to prevent this.
You appear to regard the many rebuilds of the same site as a badge of honour. When you are using a decent system such as Drupal, just fix the problems, don't start over every time.
However, on your long rant: please remember that everybody is doing the best they can with the resources available to them. It is a curse being regarded as a computer programmer, because everybody and their aunt brings all their little problems to you. I help much less than before because I also need to survive. I am doing my best not to end up homeless and in need of help, and if this means I help others less then so be it.
Oh, not to mention how often those in need of help rant and rave when the help is not exactly in the format they want it, or who won't spend $15 on a book but will quite happily consume $200 of my time free.
Permissions
Hi Charles,
No Sir, the site with which I had the 'permissions' problem, I gave "authenticated" FULL permissions, and they still couldn't 'see' half of the site. It wasn't anything on the 'Permissions' page. I asked someone who does podcasts teaching Drupal, and he said the same - but then told me to try using WordPress or Joomla. -- The site I have now, the reason you can't see much there, is 'yes', because I have the permissions for authenticated virtually turned off - and will leave it as such (except when I want to see if it's working) until I'm ready to open it up to the public. Thanks for the thought, though!
As for the rest of this 'group', if I could - I'd delete my comments and leave the group - but those 'permissions' are not available to me, so I'll just leave.
God Bless!
Lee
Check the Input Formats
Drupal is a sophisticated system that can get you... I have a growing list here http://valerio.della-porta.com/node/28 ... you might want to take a look.
Even if you have checked the "edit any page content" permission you might not be able to use the input format that the node uses. Check if the user's role can use the page Input format of that particular node in admin/settings/filters
The default input format is "Filtered HTML" and nobody has permission to "Full HTML" by default except user 1 of course that bypasses the permission system entirely. If user 1 has changed the input format of a node to "Full HTML" then no one can edit it with the default settings.
Hi 'valeriod'
Hi 'valeriod',
Thank you for trying to help me out - that's very kind of you! - The problem I had with 'authorized' users seeing the various
areas of the site wasn't anything to do with the permissions page. I could set 'authorized' users with FULL permissions, and they still couldn't see the areas that were the problem. I asked many people - including in IRC and forums (and for some people's info, I have more than one account on Drupal - and do try to help others anywhere/everywhere I go) -- and a couple took a look at the site (with user-1 permission) but no one had any solutions - or at least no one was willing to do more than look. I do appreciate your trying to help. That's 2 people in this 'group' who've actually tried to be helpful, and not criticize. Thank you for being one. I tried to join your site, but there's no 'join')
God Bless!
Lee
(I'm no longer a part of this group)
Please keep On Topic.
This Group is for discussing Drupalvaristy, not a general help forum, there are places for that in D.O. Please take your support issues there. Its important to keep the groups on-topic and not engage in off-topic discussions.
See ya!
Take care, "group". Good luck.
Maybe god can tell you to
Maybe god can tell you to check out "Permissions" !!
A little prayer...
goes a long way...if you don't get the answer you need...pray harder...it's worked for centuries...ask any tele-vangelist..
I've started teaching a
I've started teaching a beginners course at DERI, the research institute where I work (and where scor used to work). I am posting screencasts for each session on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/linwclark).
So far, I've covered:
I've presented, but haven't yet recorded:
In a few weeks, I'll be presenting basic theming using Zen as the starting point.
I would be happy to put these somewhere on drupal.org. I haven't slogged through this whole thread, so I'm not sure whether there is a space to post things for the Beginning Drupal foundation stream, but I would be happy to post them there.
Wow. This is just what we
Wow.
This is just what we need. Are the screencasts already hosted? If so, could you post links on the wiki page at http://groups.drupal.org/node/49778? You can just put the videos into the Resource Dump if you're short on time, but it's cool if you want to put some them in there in some kind of structured way.
Thanks!
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Thanks for the pointer to the
Thanks for the pointer to the page, I placed links to them throughout the suggested courses section.
Many Thanks LinClark/ LincLark (?)....
I'm new2 to these forums also, and just invested a good part of the past hour slogging through the "minister's" long rant hoping that i might find something like this. Having found the content i was searching for, i am going there, now.
As a newb. i might also, very respectfully, suggest a group be formed, listing a series of beginners' tutorials laying out the rote basics of the platform for the benefit of others like (unto) myself and Lee?
Ps: I've 'friended' you on the YouTube community, Lin. Do you have a Drupal for Dummies channel, or some such? :) -the dummie being this correspondent (aren't you propeller-heads glad some of us 'newbs' know how to search out topical info?).
Thanks, I'm glad you found
Thanks, I'm glad you found the videos and that they helped :) Fortunately, it looks like the Drupalversity people are planning on doing exactly what you suggested. On the wiki, there is a list of the topics that beginners need to understand. I've added my screencasts in the appropriate places, hopefully other high quality resources will be added to flesh that out.
These are great!
These are great! We'll definitely add these to DrupalDojo.com when we start aggregating external videos. Better yet, would you like to do a session??
http://groups.drupal.org/node/52023
Gus Austin
I would be happy to do a
I would be happy to do a session. Unfortunately, I'm pretty swamped through DrupalCon, but if there is another set of sessions after that, I'd be available.
Best way to proceed?
By the amount of comments, I think we can safely say there's a need for something like this. Not surprising since there are a lot of overlapping efforts that go towards the larger goal of helping train new talent. Trick is to figure out the best way to move forward and tie in some of these complimentary efforts.
One suggestion is to leverage the Drupal Dojo group in a couple ways:
As an admin of the Dojo group and the newly relaunched http://drupaldojo.com/ (still in unfinished/early stages), I'd be very happy to leverage those groups in a way that would forward this effort and Drupal learning in general.
Thoughts?
Gus Austin
It would be great if there
It would be great if there could be some kind of Dojo/DV crossover, but I do think there are sufficient differences between the projects that it's worthwhile not using DJ infrastructure (such as http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-dojo/tracks) for DV tasks. There's already some confusion further up this thread about what DV actually is, and I don't want the project to lose its identity.
Broadly speaking, I think DJ is a tactical project while DV is a strategic one. Because of this, it's very important to get the initial set-up right. Are you going to be at DrupalconSF? Fancy doing a BoF session on this?
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Same infrastructure
The infrastructure you've referenced (http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-dojo/tracks) is merely a collection of wikis that are posted to relevant groups and appropriately tagged:
Aside from creating a tab on the Drupal Dojo group (mainly for organization), these wikis are can be restructured, augmented, and associated with any group. When compared to the Drupalversity outline here (http://groups.drupal.org/node/49778), there seems to be quite of overlap, so I don't see why these couldn't be reworked to meet the Drupalversity needs.
In terms of the end result, isn't the intent for to better organize documentation on drupal.org? The Drupal Dojo, could be a vehicle to facilitate collaboration and get more people involved in this and other initiatives important to the community (http://groups.drupal.org/node/52473).
Unless I'm still missing something?
Gus Austin
DrupalCon SF
Jim, are you planning to do something at DrupalCon regarding the discussion and outcomes on this? I would be really interested to attend. Let us know! I've been trying to follow the debate mainly via e-mail notifications and will try and put some thing down of my own thoughts but there's nothing like an in-person meet/discussion to understand/contribute!
Operations Director at Consult and Design International
Co-ordinator of Drupal North East
Global Volunteer Co-ordinator for DrupalCon
OK so I just read your last
OK so I just read your last line... oops. Count me in!
Operations Director at Consult and Design International
Co-ordinator of Drupal North East
Global Volunteer Co-ordinator for DrupalCon
Drupalversity BoF session
Haha - brilliant, looks like we've got a BoF session then: http://groups.drupal.org/node/55743.
I'll have to check but it might even be possible for the web dev co-operative I'm working for to provide sponsorship in the form of a couple of cases of beer :).
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
Summer Class for Beginning Developers
I mentioned up above that I am organizing a summer class for beginning developers.
http://www.chachaville.com/content/hot-and-dirty-drupal-developer-summer...
I will definitely make whatever we learn from doing the class/the curriculum publicly available back to this group, and also probably on this website: http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Main_Page
Looking for participants: 'students', mentors and 'project organizers' (if there is interest in doing the class in other cities.) Trying to have a local focus, I would think that having 2-3 local students and 2-3 local mentors would be really great numbers. I estimate 2-8 hours per week between July 1 and September 1, 2010.
I described the prerequisites on the project description page. The audience is people with some professional website building experience. I am specifically focusing on making this an opportunity that would allow newer Drupal people to learn how to contribute to open source by 'actually doing it.' Also, the mentors can be people who know parts of the open source contribution process - but it is not necessary to 'know everything.' (Besides the fact that it is impossible to know everything! :)
What the class is:
The class is for beginning developers. We will aim to learn version control, project communication, some programming/module development, code standards and other things as fitting. We will model the open source development process in the class itself.
The class is project based, we will be building a 'blogging framework' designed for gardeners. It will have some mapping and data sharing features. The idea is to have a project that can continually be added to, with a lot of options for students to connect to. For what we will be learning, it is my opinion that the hands-on approach will benefit the students. Version control takes practice, and working with a codebase that is actually changing provides essential motivation to really learn it.
I expect that as 'project coordinator' I will create a very clear 'specification' for the class after assessing strengths of students and mentors, and then determining what students and mentors would like to, or need to, learn. I would be responsible for scheduling lessons (ex. teach version control first? or introduce a ticketing system?)
Since mentors are all busy, my goal is to have extra mentors. Mentors would help with lessons, by finding existing documentation. Mentors would also meet with students to help with technical difficulties. Meetings can happen in person. Also, I have had some luck recently helping my friend with her PHP homework by doing Skype screenshares. I am sure there are tons of tools to help, and we will make a list of them.
Also, to have a project with some social relevance, in that it can help gardeners (individuals as well as community gardeners) to plan and publicize their work. I already have plans for a winter session. Gratification will be an important motivator. We will form partnerships with local gardeners, get to know what tools will make their lives easier, and test out our 'web application' with real gardens.
Anyways, that is the plan. Please let me know if you are interested in participating. I am accepting applications until May 15, but letting me know sooner is better.
@Becky Kinney... I worked on
@Becky Kinney...
I worked on a gov't LOR project. I like the repository idea, but saw, as you outlined, large funding with little outcome. Later, this gov't project moved from the LO focused programme, to supporting connecting academics through Communities of Practice. I found that an interesting shift. I studied my Msc in Learning & technology from a dept centered on social constructivist models of learning. In the same University, there was another department focusing on learning materials, SCORM, LO's, etc- and the LOR project came out of that. So the fact that they moved over to supporting/creating communities of practice was certainly an interesting shift. And I think we can do the same thing to leverage participant involvement and enthusiasm.
G.d.o, to some extent already does this. The fact that Greg Harvey (above) gets more out of his local IRC channel is example of this in practice.
Anyway! I think there is a middle way possible. There are repositories available to some extent already (drupallove mentioned above). I'm wary of adding yet another idea to the pot without knowing why efforts aren't succeeding.
I hope you'll continue to input though, I really like your perspective.
@chachasikes
That is awesome! I think project based learning is really the way to go. It's one of the best ways to make meaningful learning experiences. I'm going to poke my head in and see what you're working on. We have a DrupalCamp here in Ireland in a few weeks, I'd love to connect people to what you're working on.
Often in Project based learning you'd use a form of portfolio-based assessment. Although you're not likely assessing individuals, you might like to introduce the portfolio idea. The learners can document their own progress. I'd be very interested in mentoring this aspect, if you are interested.
For example, you can introduce learners to making learning material as part of their portfolio. How I did X. The irony of learning material creation is that the people who /create it/ learn more than those who /use it/. You can foster reflection on learning amongst participants if they can document their own learning. The outgoing benefit would result in some learning materials for others following up the learning curve.
I will email this to you in case you don't see this update :)
@everyone & the Lee-vit-Over long threads...
It's a bit saddening to see the amount of time spent on that conversation, and then StevenRush says he slogged through the long posts which veered this conversation off topic. I've used Drupal for 10 years(!) and I've seen the same thing come up before. For reference, if anyone in the future comes across a situation like this, please direct the person to the
- Talk with the community page on the handbook: http://drupal.org/node/314178
- How to enact change http://drupal.org/node/36602
Also, I'd advise you to employ "diminishing replies" to cool down heated discussions. More practical advice here:
http://drupal.org/contribute/support - alot of the info I added to that page came from MeatBall wiki, if you're interested in moderating online communities.
@Drupalversity Looking at this, we seem to have alot of overlapping efforts, and I'm interested in convergence at this stage. I hope to talk to Gus and Jim soon, and see ways I can be of assistance in my role at Acquia.
Drupalversity, now with added simplicity and fewer unicorns
I've re-opened the discussion on Drupalversity at http://groups.drupal.org/node/143704 - please contribute any thoughts you have on the new proposal there :)
--
Jim
codeloom.net
AIM: jim (at) codeloom.net
Twitter: @jim0203
LearnDrupal.org
Anyone interested in this kind of idea should also check out the so-called "Boston initiative" and now at http://learndrupal.org/
Seems to be some more action about this, and people actively making it happen!
Courses
@heather thanks :)
I added a ticket for Course module integration in the Learn distribution queue:
http://drupal.org/node/1513530