Drupal for Beginners

The bullet points

Learn a ton, regardless of your current skill level
Get one-on-one help from a small army of Drupal experts
Benefit from an alternative approach to training
Learn site building, basic programming or theming
Focus on Drupal 6, 7 or even 8
Have an awesome time at one of the highest-rated ever DrupalCon trainings

About this training

The focus of this training is to give you a chance to connect with an army of Drupal experts one-on-one about anything you need help learning or accomplishing in Drupal 6, 7 or even Drupal 8. Having trouble understanding a concept? There will be someone to help explain it in a way you can understand. Suck on a project you’re working on? We’ll have a trainer available to help you figure out how to get past it. Just getting started and feeling overwhelmed? We’ll get you started on the right track and be there to help you along the way.

Video introduction

Here's just a little bit about the training from Chris Shattuck, the creator:

Customized for each student

You and your fellow students will all come to the table with different skill levels and experience. So how is it possible to guarantee that you’ll get the most out of your training even though you may be more or less advanced than other students? Here’s how:

Instead of lecturing to the entire class and assuming everyone is interested in the same material, we instead help you choose a set of video tutorials to focus on. These are the videos you’ll use to get inspired and figure out what you want to focus on. At that point, you’ll be able to enlist any of our numerous trainers (we call the Mentors) to help you out whenever you have questions or run into snags. It’s the best possible learning environment we’ve been able to create. You get to move forward at your own pace, you get lots of one-on-one interaction with trainers who can speed up your progress, and if you’re at a loss for what to do next, we’ll help you get you focused without missing a beat.

Extensively experienced trainers

We’ve used this style of training over the last several years to train thousands of Drupal students, including at the last 2 DrupalCons and dozens of Drupal Camps. Feedback from students at the last DrupalCon placed our training in the top in terms of overall satisfaction and content. If you join us, you won’t be disappointed.

Our training will also be very friendly to groups, so if you have an associate, co-workers or friend that you’d like to bring along, there will be ample room for group collaboration. If you are part of a college or university department adopting Drupal, this can be a great way to immerse your team. If you are a student, you can bring other members of your class to work together. Last year we had a dozen high school students take our course and love it.

Learning objectives and perks

We aim to provide each and every student with a clear path froward to help them make serious progress during the day, regardless of their skill level. We leverage the curriculum from the BuildAModule video series, which can take an absolute beginner through the basics of Drupal, onward through advanced site building and even into programming and theming. Wherever you are at, we’ll help you get to the next level.

As part of the course, we include 4 months of BuildAModule video library access - a $116 value - so you can get started with your learning long before the live training takes place, and have access for months after the training as well to continue your work.

Schedule

Class begins at 9am with a quick orientation to get a feel for how the day will work. At that point, we will help each student get started on a learning track, answer initial questions, and continue working until the course ends at 5. Lunch is officially at 11:45, but you will be free to take breaks whenever your brain needs it throughout the day.

Who this course is for

Almost across the board, students at virtually any skill level will benefit significantly from this course. The combination of a customized curriculum along with access to skilled trainers throughout the day make it an incredibly satisfying experience. If you find yourself dozing off or losing concentration during long lectures, this course will be particularly well suited to you. You’ll also meet a number of people who will become your allies as you continue to learn Drupal, so if you’re coming to DrupalCon to connect with other people doing Drupal, you’ll get a huge opportunity with this training as well.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course, you will be able to leverage whatever existing knowledge you have and develop it further during the course of this training.

Feedback from happy students

"I'm totally happy. I solved a problem I've been working on for months"

"The mentored training was new to me and it was a fun experience. You are a gifted teacher."

"Excellent set of resources, between access to all the videos and the helpful mentors."

" Today's run-through was good for me in several ways. It got me on track to learn what I need to about PHP and some of the other components. Also, I am the sort of person who really likes to hear discussions among people who are more advanced in a subject that I am ...The conversations I was able to listen in on exposed me to facets of the subject I'd never imagined. Thanks to today's work, I have been able to refocus my efforts and know what I need to do … I appreciate all the effort, do keep up the good work."

"It absolutely rocked! Lots of positive feedback. Some of the trainees were doing some amazing things by the end of the day, having started from scratch."

"We had a great time at the TCDrupal Build a Module training yesterday. We had almost 40 attendees and they were *very* engaged. Everyone came back ready to rock after lunch, and we even picked up a few people from the more advanced training. Everyone was so engrossed that we had to drag them away from their laptops when it was time to go!"

"Wow! Really enjoying this. You have done such a good job of explaining this stuff. I'm here at the Drupal Camp in Minneapolis, Minnesota today with all the people doing your training and it seems to be going really well. At lunch we had some good discussions about this."

"Just wanted to follow up to let you know that training on Saturday was a big success. We had about 25 students. We got really positive feedback, and people seemed extremely happy with the day."