It seems the Groovy and Grails training services bandwagon is continuing to gain steam, and this time I’m throwing GroovyMag’s hat in to the ring.

Today I announced  upcoming Groovy and Grails classes available through GroovyMag.  There are  four courses to start with:

• Intro to Groovy (6 hours)
• Intro to Grails (6 hours)
• Advanced Groovy (12 hours)
• Advanced Grails (12 hours)

The classes are taught by Robert Fischer of SmokeJumperIT, and have been developed as a joint venture between GroovyMag and SmokeJumperIT.

Web based training

The classes are web-based, meaning you log on to a conference system from your home or office.  No need for convoluted software set ups.  If you’ve got Flash installed (Mac, Windows or Linux!) you can take the class.  Each course is split up in to multiple 2 hour sessions spread out over a few days.  This is intended to give you time between classes to digest what was discussed, play around with it on your own, ask questions between sessions, and then come to the next session ready to build on what you learned before.

Why web-based?

There’s a few factors here: it keeps our costs lower, meaning the expense to you is lower.  We don’t have large conference facilities to pay for, and you don’t have to pay for travel or hotel costs.  It’s usually far easier for people to work training classes around a couple hours for a few days here and there than it is to schedule time off work and family and travel away for several days for more traditional classroom-style hands-on courses.

The decision may appear to be somewhat timely given the sharp economic downturn, but the germ of this idea has been going on since before GroovyMag was launched.  Late last year I had some discussions with SmokeJumperIT about developing some online classes, and we’ve been working on things since then.

Why 2 hour classes?

Back in the early 2000s, I started running PHP training courses.  These were 3-5 days intensive hands-on classroom style courses.  We had multiple instructors when needed, and we gave everything and then some giving people information, exercises and working with people one-on-one.

It was exhausting….

both for us as instructors, and for most of the students.  Of the hundreds of students we taught, I think less than 10% of them maximized their on-site time with us.  Usually by the middle or end of the second day, students were tired and overwhelmed with new information.  They were in a strange city, away from family and work, and were running close to overload.  Also, because they weren’t in their regular environment, there were often situational questions about work projects that they weren’t able to effectively convey to us in the classroom, which sometimes limited the information they could apply to their jobs.

Two hour chunks work well

Over the last year, I’ve been teaching PHP on a remote basis with similar web conferencing software.  For many of the students, it’s a great situation.  They tend to be more relaxed (because they’re at home or work, and not wondering what’s going on ‘back home’) and can absorb enough over 2 hours to keep them busy before the next class.  Students can email more specific questions between classes to get clarification or simply to go a bit deeper than the regular class might take something, but that doesn’t interfere with the pace for the rest of the students.

Certainly, the danger can be that some students don’t pay attention if you’re not physically in front of them.  However, even in face to face classrooms, students can ignore the instructor, or tune them out, or check email, or whatever.  The students that want to learn will pay attention and ask questions, regardless.

GroovyMag web-based classes offers a convenient and cost-effective way to have access to a live instructor who will walk them through real world Groovy and Grails material.

Only training

When I was doing PHP training back in the early 2000s, one of the side-effects of the training was that it led to custom consulting work.  Students would take training classes, then realize they couldn’t do all the work themselves, and then engage us.  It was a nice position to be in, but was one which caused a lack of focus in my business at that time.

GroovyMag’s goal is to be the publisher of record for Groovy and Grails information.  Some of that information will be in the form of GroovyMag magazine (thanks for buying!) and some will be in the form of training services, and some will be in other forms yet to be announced.  We’re not equipped to provide custom consulting services to you after the class, and in fact we do not want to.  We’ll be happy to recommend Groovy and Grails consultants to you from our network of consultants, but custom development is not our business model.

Other options

Still, web-based training isn’t for everyone.  Some people really will learn better and absorb more by being face to face with an instructor for multiple days, eyeball to eyeball in some cases.  And that’s good.  One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that people have different learning styles, and one size does not fit all.  GroovyMag’s classes are one size, and there are other sizes as well.

ThirstyHead.com, Webucator and  SpringSource.com all offer a variety of custom training options to suit your style, and will tailor a training program to fit your exact needs (on-site or off-site, custom topics, etc.).  If you think your needs are unique, or your learning style is best suited to face-to-face classroom style training, contact the above companies to discuss your needs.

If you’re not sure about what sort of training options would work best for you, give me a call at +1-919-827-4724 (or “mgkimsal” on Skype) to discuss what options might work best for you.  If one of our classes would fit the bill, I’ll let you know, and if not, I’ll put you in touch with someone at one of the other companies that would be a better fit.  There’s enough choices out there these days to enable you to find the perfect fit for your training needs.

Have a look at our training classes to read more about the options we currently offer.