OpenSourcery

The session I was most excited to see at this conference happened to be on the very first day, "Training: Boosting our raw capacity to provide Drupal training". It turns out, as OpenSourcery Training and Quality Assurance, I was drawn to pow wow with the presenters after we ran over time.

Barry Madore, Sean Effel, Lee Hunter, and Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg each gave a short talk, followed by panel Q&A, around the different styles of training they employ and their varied methods for improving the trainings through feedback. The training perspectives varied from speakers dealing with training drupal users every single day, to training a drupal development and sales team in how to work well with the drupal community. I will focus more here on the end-user.

One of the more potentially obvious take-aways from the talk was something I've seen folks miss the mark on: know your audience. When we start building tools to be used to understand the product the end-user has, we can lose sight of the user's goals. What is most important to the user of the software is nearly never the shiny piece of code, or a loving explanation of why it is fantastic. The exact function of the code or application may also be missing the mark of what a user really wants to know. They want to know how to use the system everyday. Your users really don't want to know how they can hack the code, but how they can interface with it without fear.

That which we are thinking about as software devs has already been invented and re-invented by teachers. The art is assessing knowledge, and then creating education and curriculum from that assessment. What we need is practice as educators, and the same education principles apply to drupal as apply to any other classroom. How much do they know? What else do they need to know? What might need to be un-learned? Are there different learners in the same group? Those questions get you close to having an assessment on which to found your curriculum.

Again, looking to the educators on curriculum, we should start by covering the concepts in the best logical order. That might not be in numerical sequence, but probably by associated concepts. One of the best parts of creating a plan like this is the exposition of concepts. This can increase confidence in knowing the right answer before a user would need to push a button. The last piece is, of course, cementing the lesson. Repetition is excellent to get you used to a new pattern of thought. Having 2 shorter trainings with time between is more effective than having a single day long training.

My hope is to bring fearlessness to software users through education. With the right tools, the hardest problems look easy. What is the worst we could do, break it? That'd be sweet!

This is a reminder, Opensourcery recently completed a four-part web-based training seminar on Drupal.  If you've come to our site, there's a good chance Drupal is something you'd like to know more about, both how it works and how to get setup and going.

These seminars were done in partnership with NTEN (http://www.nten.org) who recorded them for you to view at a later date.  Here's where to find them:

Drupal 101: Getting Started
Drupal Modules: Community Building
Drupal Modules: Fundraising and eCommerce
Practical Application: How to fund and implement your CMS

Enjoy!

OpenSourcery presents the fourth and final "Drupal for Nonprofit Decision-makers" session on February 10th. Please read about the complete series (which is available for download through the following links) below.

OpenSourcery is excited to present its very first Drupal training webinar in conjunction with our friends at NTEN. It's a four-part series called Drupal for Nonprofit Decision Makers that covers a range of topics intended to teach attendees how to develop a web presence, not just a website, with long-term value.

The series looks like this:

• Drupal 101: Getting Started (1/20/2009)
• Drupal Modules: Community Building (1/27/2009)
• Drupal Modules: Fundraising and eCommerce (2/3/2009)
• Practical Application: How to fund and implement your CMS (2/10/2009)

The event is part of our ongoing commitment to providing nonprofit decision-makers with the information they need to make intelligent technology choices. It's also part of our increased focus on training. We're fortunate to have added Stacy Watts, a training, documentation, and quality assurance pro, to our team. Look for more events and in-house training from OpenSourcery (and, hopefully, a continued relationship with NTEN) in the near future.

Thank you for reading.

OpenSourcery has long respected how our friends at NTEN -- the Nonprofit Technology Network -- help good organizations improve their understanding and use of technology, so you can understand why we're ecstatic to collaborate with them. Our first collective effort will help managers, CEOs, and community organizers get the most from Drupal. In what we hope becomes a long-standing effort, our developers will work with NTEN members to unwrap the many joys of open source applications.

Instead of repeating the webinar details here, I encourage readers to visit the event page on NTEN's website and let us know what you think. You can also learn the benefits of becoming a member of NTEN here.

OpenSourcery thanks Anna, Holly, and the rest of the NTEN team for making this webinar a reality. We look forward to working together.

Thank you for reading.