I was at the first Melbourne Meetup a few weeks back, where the topic of Drupal Training in Melbourne was briefly discussed. The general consensus is that it would be a "Good Idea".
I'm now wanting to follow up the idea with anybody else at all interested.
I see a role for End-User Training, as is being discussed elsewhere How do you train your Drupal end users?, as well as Developer Training.
Some discussion of Sydney training is going on: See here. I've had a little correspondence with Peter who is running the Sydney training.
I cannot present a training. That is not what I am offering.
I would like to get together a small group (2 to 4) people who would like to work together to 'produce' (ie take responsibility for arranging) a Melbourne Training, or a series of trainings.
I imagine we could find somebody capable of presenting material. I imagine we could, by now, find some sort of curriculum and training materials. There seems to be quite a push in that direction currently. I imagine we could find a venue. I imagine we could find a small nebulus of attendees. I imagine we could organise PR and a coffee urn etc. I imagine we could draw up a financial plan. I imagine we could find some initial funding if that were required. I imagine keeping it very small, just a few people, and letting it grow organically.
I'm interested for myself, from two angles. One is as I said, to help get the thing off the ground. Secondly I would like to attend and receive training. I told Peter I'd be especially interested in a session or set of sessions on building modules. That may be a good place to begin here in Melbourne.
I think for Drupal to happen big in Australia, as anywhere, developers need access to training. And more and more we are seeing that our clients also need access to end-user training.
Melbourne is as good a place as anywhere to energise that.
Feel welcome to comment or to contact me.
Comments
This is something I'm
This is something I'm interested in.
Certainly, the next Melbourne get together, I'm willing to take an informal session afterwards to go over the installation of Drupal. I know a few people in non-profit organisations who might benefit from this. I'm not selling tickets so finding a suitable venue will be important.
But long term it will be a matter of building knowledge, to be sure. And the feedback and resources from overseas events will be crucial.
Sounds good. Let's Action it.
It sounds good to have an informal session after a get together. I'd certainly be interested in reviewing. It sounds to me like it may trigger more interest in training; and begin to build up some sort of critical mass of interest.
I'm hoping that by the Spring we might be able to move further than informal meetings to a series of advertised, promoted, professionally produced sessions. Perhaps beginning with something like "How your organisation would benefit from Drupal", moving along into "Getting Started with Drupal", to Technical issues like installation, and then branching into two streams - "Drupal for People who just want it to work" and "Drupal for people who want other people to pay them to make it work".
I think there must be an enormous market in the corporate and non-profit organisation communities of Melbourne for Drupal Orientation sessions.
The sort of material Greenpeace has just published outlining their reasons for choosing Drupal over other CMS's is the sort of thing that could be delivered. Greenpeace UK CMS Selection
I know this is a bit nebulous as I write it; but my intention is to solidify it over time. Great that you have interest in it also.
I'll think about a suitable venue for what you suggest above. Please let me know if there is anything you think of that I could help with for your session.
John
www.drupal.com.au
Coming in the Spring: www.drupaltraining.com.au
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
I would also be interested
I would also be interested in this.. for both proposed sessions.
@BrianGilbert_
Help make Drupal Melbourne meetups more awesome:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/204518
The best way to grow your local commununity is by participating in it!
Module development training
Hi John/Sime,
I'd be happy to perform some training on module development. I have taught programming stuff at university a few years ago so i'm not afraid to get up and do it. :)
Let me know if you need someone to do it.
Cheers,
--
Sammy Spets
Synerger
http://synerger.com
Yes please.
Sammy
Your response is exactly what I have been fishing for. Consider yourself fished. Yes. We need somebody to do it. (And we need participants; venue; etc, etc, but lets cross one bridge at a time).
I also have taught briefly at tertiary level and unlike you it is not an area I wish to go back into. But who knows; lot's of things change in life, given time.
Sometime I'd like to talk with you on the phone about it. You are in Sydney, right? But for now let's just follow it up here so it is documented.
If you were to give a training in Melbourne on module development, when would you like it to be; and what would you like to get for yourself out of it? (In general or specifically).
Also some more details:
John
www.drupal.com.au
www.drupaltraining.com.au (Coming in the Spring)
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
Wow!
I didn't expect that! Well to answer your questions:
Out of the tutorial I'd like to get loads of praise :) and perhaps a plane ticket for the trip to Melbourne and back. In addition to that i'd like to be able to advertise my company somehow through the event. If we are charging people for the event then some remuneration would be nice. The praise is really important! :)
As for the time/date i'm pretty flexible. It'll depend on venue and number of people no doubt.
Title of your session: Roll your own module (this might be changed)
Short description of content &/or learning outcome: Module development starting with a simple module and then creating a more complex one. Modules will be node based and some module specific theming will probably be necessary. Course will touch on FAPI usage and perhaps creation of custom FAPI types (one of my favourite parts of FAPI). Would be nice to touch on Views and Flexinode/CCK as well.
Optimal number of participants: I can do lecture style (200ish) or tutorial style (15)
Hands-on or theory?: theory
Your qualification to teach this particular topic: BSc (Computer Science) Hons and have worked as Associate Lecturer at UNSW. Entire teaching time spanned 4.5 years. Doesn't quite qualify me for teaching as far as "teaching" is concerned, but I know the subject matter and have communicated it to a "few" students. If you're curious about my Drupal experience. I'm currently one of the core maintainers of e-commerce and have developed a few sites using Drupal with modules ranging from event organisation, event registration, calendaring, membership payment tracking, membership reporting and mail system administration.
Session duration: Depends on the format. Lecture 3hrs max pref. 1-2. Tutorial 2 hrs max
Any other comments about your proposal (optional): I'd like to run the material past a few people and have some assistance coming up with suitable material. Assistance will merely be some ideas.
I haven't prepared any material yet so not certain of the duration. I'll do a dry run with my business partner beforehand to make sure it fits the schedule.
Does all that sound ok?
--
Sammy Spets
Synerger Pty Ltd
http://www.synerger.com
--
Sammy Spets
Synerger
http://synerger.com
10/10. A+. Gold Star.
Lot's of praise to you for solidifyng this project thus far. :-)
But 3 more questions:
We can put me on the confirmed list as a participant.
Thus the state of play is one lecturer confirmed; one participant; one producer. Any other offers?
Ok; I am going to let this fester a bit; see what other interest it elicits on this forum or elsewhere and begin to find a way to make it happen. But right now it is after 2:30 AEST and time for all good oze boys and girrls to go to bed.
John
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
I like gold stars!
Errrr... Are you lurking on this group John? hehe. You responded very quickly after I posted!
Minimal number of participants: I reckon 15.
Favourite month: I suppose December (warm), but to get the ball rolling i'll say August (cold :)
Flight: Return flight on Virgin Blue for August 10-13 is around $222. That would be $15 per person for 15 people if there were no other costs involved with running the session (unlikely this is the case). Absorbing the cost of the ticket is difficult from my empty pocket. Throw some work my way and i'll be able to!
I hope to have a couple beers with Sime and Gordon of e-commerce fame while in Melbourne. Are you guys up for it?
--
Sammy Spets
Synerger
http://synerger.com
Sometimes I am so quick to
Sometimes I am so quick to respond I amaze even myself. Other times the rest of my life gets in the way.
Sammy: What sort of work would you like to have thrown your way?
I think we'd be going to get 15 particpants. I also think a session like what you have begun to document is worth a lot more than $15 per person. What do others think?
I think September is better. More time to plan and PR. Are you available then?
My thought is to take some or all of the financial risk of producing a half day Drupal Event in September in Melbourne. Possibly run the same event in Sydney the week after or before.
Here's an initial sketch:
Drupal CMS Training Australia - Drupal developers meetup with Drupal users
September 2006: Venues and dates to be arranged; Sydney and Melbourne
Schedule:
Details:
Session 1
Session 2
Venues: City hotels function rooms? University function rooms?
P.R. This is the area where it may all fall down. If anybody has skills in this area please offer your advice.
Just a preliminary sketch.
So far not a lot of interest from potential participants on this forum.
Queries:
To continue I'd need some solid support in terms of confirmed pre-bookings. But to get confirmed bookings I realise I'll need to solidify this a bit more. So.. that's the process. Continuing.
John
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
Also interested
Hey,
just read this thread, so i'm a little late to the party but i'm interested in this opportunity. Just to throw in my two cents, I think it would be great to see this type of event proceed. Personally, for an 1.5 hr presentation, I think the $15 amount might be about right. 2 reasons for that - first, an hour and a half is not a lot of time to dig really deep into the topic and secondly, it doesn't give much chance to get any "experience" beyond spending some equivalent time reading the manuals. However, with that in mind i think getting the people together for networking and such is probably what would drive most people to the event (especially in sydney where we haven't organized a meetup yet). I'm not sure what the costs involved are, but this kind of sounds like an ideal thing for a company (or a few) to sponsor the venue & coffee. Would also be good place to get feed back about future training focus points (which many people would be willing to spend $75 - $250 for a few days worth of instruction based on some of the other camps)
--Ryan
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
September is good too
John,
September would be just fine for the session. Hopefully we get enough interest.
Work: I'm keen on getting some development work to build a portfolio.
Cheers,
--
Sammy Spets
Synerger Pty Ltd
http://www.synerger.com
--
Sammy Spets
Synerger
http://synerger.com
This sounds interesting
I would be interested in this although I am on the other side of the country and not quite sure what or how I can contribute.
I have a small web design business and have been working with Drupal for?.....a year and 15 weeks according to Drupal and have worked with Gordon on a few projects.
I am also vocational trainer/assessor so could probably fit into some form of practical application/configuration/themeing training rather than development type stuff.
www.justapickle.com
blogging community for the socially conscious
www.slickfish.com.au
professional, affordable web site design, production and maintenance for small business
www.aussiecarpool.com
share the cost of commuting
www.slickfish.com.au
professional, affordable web site design, production and maintenance for small business
G'day
I guess whatever we do over here in Melbourne &/or Sydney in regard to training could provide some sort of recipe for whatever you do over there; or vice-versa. Are you in a position to advertise and run a small intro to Drupal session; &/or a application/configuration/themeing session? What support would you need?
I lived around Fremantle for 7 years in the eighties and nineties. Tradewinds Hotel, or the Esplanade on Fremantle Esplanade would be good venues. (?)
John
Was doing social distancing before it was cool.
Training
Hi John,
I'm really not sure who to pitch the training to, I was talking to a guy from one of the bigger firms here in Perth (not specifically about Drupal but development in general) and he suggested a local board of developers at www.port80.com.au.
So I took a look at the board and did a search for Drupal and it returned two results, one for hosting that mentioned Drupal and another that asked if anyone had worked with it (that no one responded to).
So I'm starting to think that targeting Not-For-Profits might be a good idea, maybe a "What is Drupal and Why you should use it" presentation.
www.justapickle.com
blogging community for the socially conscious
www.slickfish.com.au
professional, affordable web site design, production and maintenance for small business
www.aussiecarpool.com
share the cost of commuting
www.slickfish.com.au
professional, affordable web site design, production and maintenance for small business
That goes with my impression
That goes with my impression about a lack of "brand footprint" in Australia for putting a high price on training. However, I think with the right advertising you could get 15 in, say, Melbourne.
Personally. I'm interested in what resources we can get from overseas before I know the lay of the land.
I agree with that
Perhaps now that Gordon has been immortalised we may have a bit of an opportunity to hit up the guys from Lullabot for access to some of the resources they have been using for the Drupal Camps.
www.justapickle.com
blogging community for the socially conscious
www.slickfish.com.au
professional, affordable web site design, production and maintenance for small business
www.aussiecarpool.com
share the cost of commuting
www.slickfish.com.au
professional, affordable web site design, production and maintenance for small business
Port80
I once met the group of people that founded and that run Port80 in Perth (by the way, the correct URL is http://www.port80.asn.au/ - port80.com/net.au is some other company). They're really great people, and are at the forefront of the web standards movement in Australia. They regularly hold events such as seminars, workshops, etc. for web designers/developers. If we can sell Drupal to them, we will have tapped into the elite of the Oz web industry.
Jeremy Epstein - GreenAsh
Jeremy Epstein - GreenAsh
Port80
You're right about the URL, force of habit I guess.
I'm happy to get hold of these guys from this end if that is the way to go, they meet regularly at a pub close to me. It looks like their next get together is July 5.
I also just finished listening to Gordon’s Lullabot podcast (well done by the way) and am now more convinced that the Not–For-Profit sector is the place to start promoting Drupal to end users.
www.justapickle.com
blogging community for the socially conscious
www.slickfish.com.au
professional, affordable web site design, production and maintenance for small business
www.aussiecarpool.com
share the cost of commuting
www.slickfish.com.au
professional, affordable web site design, production and maintenance for small business
We should probably decide a
We should probably decide a good way to sweep together a list of organisations. I have contact with a few. And I know a fair few greenies and lefties who might provide more.
We also had a member of indy media at the melbourne meet-up. syawillim, I guess you'd be aware that there is a perth indymedia group as well.
In addition is the untapped status of drupal as the CMS in the running for Greenpeace international website (or did they choose already? - not sure). So there is a lot of potential leverage there from a marketing point of view.
Simon
BTW, I like justapickle.com
npf thread
Rather than hijacking alsojohn's thread. I've created another document for discussion of drupal-using not-for-profits.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/779
Drupal Training
I've been looking around on the net for Drupal training. I do basic websites for NGOs, collectives and enviro groups. I have to say no to people often 'cause I don't have enough time and enough programming skills to do more complicated sites. There is a growing demand for these kinds of sites. I would be into any kind of training that was available, would prefer if it was hands on rather than a seminar. I know other people who would also be interested. Once I had the skills I would be passing them on to other people in the non profit sector (I already train people one on one in web and design applications) so am into the whole idea of skill sharing. The NGO I work for currently is willing to pay for me to learn Drupal, I just can't find any one to teach me! I've had training from a mate before but they were pretty much learning as they went as well. Now an NGO is relying on me I need real professional level training.
tanks
Sarah
sarah.day@eco-shout.org
Hi Sarah I remember looking
Hi Sarah
I remember looking at eco-shout.org when I was adding it to pedalaustralia.org.au links. It's a very cleanly developed site as it is. Are you looking to convert that to Drupal? That would be cool.
You should come along to this tonight.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/1316
Eco-shout
Hi Sim,
I'm looking to make a Drupal website for Ross House at the moment. I had a go building one for Eco-shout, but because of the heirarchy of pages, it turned out better keeping the system we've got.
s
Drupal Training Group
I am interested in discussing this issue further. I can offer a venue in the city at the Sustainable Living Foundation (SLF) for training sessions to take place in with computers and wireless access. I have been redeveloping the SLF site in drupal for quite some time now and have professional experience in both the NGO and Commercial sectors with Drupal website development.
It would be good to schedule a meeting with all those that are willing to provide training to discuss further...
email form this thread was in Arabic
Interesting as I don't read Arabic.
EDMEDiA Australia
Training
I am interested in attending some Drupal training so please keep me posted.
EDMEDiA Australia