Intro to Drupal Camp?

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tom_o_t's picture

While organizing the last DrupalCampNYC the idea was raised of having a dedicated intro to Drupal camp for people new to Drupal. It now seems like a good time to start the ball rolling on this.

The things to consider:

  • Location - NYU Poly (our usual venue), NJIT (an active Drupal community at the school, meetups held there already), or another venue?
  • Dates
  • Cost to attendees - free or paid?
  • Program - Does an unconference offer any benefits here? More likely we want to work with the open curriculum that @winston has been developing
  • Outreach - how do we promote this event to people outside the existing Drupal community in NYC? Ideas so far include contacting all the different tech and non-profit groups on Meetup.com, as well as other local groups nearby on GDO.
  • Cost of putting on the event - do we want to provide food? Do we need sponsorship?
  • Two days or one day? Typically Sundays are expensive because venues have to pay their staff a lot more. I don't see much value in this being a two day event anyway.
  • Volunteers to teach and help out
  • Size of camp - relates to the venue and number of volunteers. Is a class size of 40 reasonable? Should we have several classes of 40 running simultaneously if there's the demand?

We'll probably move detailed discussion to the organizer's list (https://lists.mayfirst.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/drupalcampnyc) later on, but lets get some ideas going here first.

Comments

I have been really excited

robbiethegeek's picture

I have been really excited about this idea for the last 3-4 months, I am totally onboard for this and can't wait to get more people started up the Drupal learning curve. I think that that the discussion should be one of the breakouts at the next Drupal NYC meetup. I think you should tag this article with more then just New York City, please tag with all relevant regions that would attend (NJ, CT & Philly).

I"m the NJIT organizer for the meetup

kaw3939's picture

hi,

Lets discuss...

Sunday would probably be out of the question but Saturday might be reasonable for NJIT. I think we have classes then.

I'm in

hamonwry's picture

This is right up my alley. Please keep me posted; I'd love to help out.

I think a single Saturday session would be great. If we could get sponsors to cover costs, it would be awesome if we could provide for free; I think that would bring more people in that are simply curious about Drupal.

Be great to coordinate with Drupal Camp

mrynearson's picture

I think it be great to do this in coordination with the winter Druplalcamp. You do intro one weekend and then the following weekend drupalcamp. That way newbies can jump into intermediate sessions and beginning drupal instructors can attend sessions at drupal camp as well. Seattle did something similiar.

Drupal

kaw3939's picture

NJIT would probably do it as a sponser, if advertisement for our open curriculum could be done there.

FYI - I'm in the process of having a website created for Drupal open curriculum that I would like to discuss with anyone. I'd like to share the design and talk about the project. I'd like to do this at the NYC meetup and here. Please contact me if your interested in seeing it. I think this is a great project for a variety of reasons and will benefit Drupal community.

You know I'm up for it

winston's picture

;)

Glad someone brought this up. I have the curriculum for a full day hands on pretty much ready. Once there is a date locked in it will be all the prompting I'll need to finish it.

I just posted the course in it's current iteration here on gitorious...

http://gitorious.org/drupal-open-curriculum/drupal_6_site_building

If you know git of course you can just clone it. If you don't know git you can use this link to download it as a .tar.gz file (http://gitorious.org/drupal-open-curriculum/drupal_6_site_building/trees... , then click "Download as a .tar.gz" on the right of the screen). Or if you just want to view it as HTML, click on this link (http://gitorious.org/drupal-open-curriculum/drupal_6_site_building/blobs...).

Unfortunately as far as me teaching it personally on a Saturday, I'm unavailable Saturday mornings till end of December (coaching a middle school age robotics team). I could probably do a Sunday with advance notice or I could do two consecutive Saturdays, or I could teach the second half of the day with someone else doing the first half!

Looking forward to it!

Added to next NYC meetup agenda

winston's picture

Also just added it to the agenda for the next NYC meetup at http://groups.drupal.org/node/90579

never mind, got the files

virginiany's picture

You are very generous to share.

Sitebuilding course editing

winston's picture

Just fyi, I have a sample site up for those who are able to help review the sitebuilding course. If you are qualified and interested in reviewing it as an editor let me know and I'll point you to that site.

SiteBuidling Course Editing

phunster's picture

Hi Peter,

Been out of town but would love to review the course. Please point me to the site.

Scroll up 4 comments

winston's picture

I posted the links to the course on this thread already :)

comment confusion

virginiany's picture

Sorry, I had posted a comment but it didn't post. In any event, I
have the file. Thank you for all your efforts.

Park Slope Food Co-op as possible location

LP's picture

I've spoken to a few people @ the Park Slope Food Co-op, and there's potential for using their general purpose/orientation room. I haven't nailed anything specific down, but I went ahead and sussed out the general availability of the room and receptiveness to the idea.

The room is not huge, maybe 20 people max. Obviously they sell food - something might be worked out in that regard, but I didn't ask. Weekends are best. One day is probably much more likely than two. I can either pass of my contacts or reach out with more specific questions if this of interest.

If it winds up at another location, my co-op could likely help out with food sourcing.

I'm supportive of a one-day

orbgasm's picture

I'm supportive of a one-day camp for sure.

Also, can only do Sundays until November.

Here to help however I can :)

NJIT

kaw3939's picture

Hi,

I will need a saturday date for this event; however, we have excellent facilities and public transportation available. We have kitchen, computer labs, and can handle a 20-25 people per lab and have 3 labs on the same hall + conference room holding another 25 people. We have wifi too.

I would be happy to arrange this event at NJIT. I also think that all of you are going to be interested in the open training initiative we have at NJIT and how it will benefit the Drupal community as a whole and it's individual members. I would love to discuss the open training through email, since certain details are still being worked out. But basically the idea is that NJIT will offer 3 week instructor led training in Drupal, All course materials will be freely available, and anyone qualified from the Drupal community can become an instructor and will share a fixed % of the gross tuition for a class. The economics of this work out to that a training may earn around $100 an hour and have a great opportunity to further the sharing and creation of training materials for Drupal.

Intro Camp - Yeah!

Keithflo's picture

In'm brand new to Drupal ... A Saturday in January would be great for me!

Michelle Lauer of the Drupal

heather's picture

Michelle Lauer of the Drupal group in New Hampshire made a Drupal Camp fully focused to new Drupal users. Their site is no longer online, but you should get in touch with her to find out what the agenda was.

You could find out what worked, what didn't.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/64258

This why camps should not have non GDO sites

mrynearson's picture

"Their site is no longer online, but you should get in touch with her to find out what the agenda was."

Sorry for the double negative

mrynearson's picture

Meant camp sites shouldn't have non GDO sites. It silos info and info possibly isn't archived, such as this case.