The Ultimate Django Tutorial Workshop

That is a big statement to make as a title of a class/workshop blog post. However, in this case I believe I'm fully justified because this is going to be awesome. Here's why:

1. The teachers are beyond incredible

In the course description it says I'm the teacher and I have lab assistants. In retrospect, what I should have said is, "Daniel Greenfeld is organizing a workshop taught by the people he respects and admires".

Think I'm kidding? Look at just some of the names of people I've got lined up to participate:

• Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Benevolent Dictator For Life of Django
• Russell Keith-Magee, President of the Django Software Foundation
• Audrey Roy
• Jacob Burch
• Katharine Jarmul
• Corey Bertram
• Sandy Strong
• Jonas Obrist
• Christine Cheung
• Shimon Rura

Follow those links to their bios or talks and you'll see that they are the people speaking at DjangoCon.  The general idea is to get the people already speaking at DjangoCon or those who are extremely experienced in it to teach the class.

2. The teacher to student ratio is going to be really small

This is not going to be a room with a few instructors and umpteen students in it. If the class size gets big, I'm going to bring in more teachers. I'll cajole, plead, and do whatever I must to get them in the room. I don't want anyone left behind!

I want a ratio of 5 students to each teacher.

3. Class implemented with a lot of lessons learned

I've taught a bunch. So have a number of the instructors I've lined up. We know which parts of the tutorial are important to focus on, and which parts should be visited by students later on their own. This means you learn the critically important parts that get you kick-started as a Django developer.

One thing we'll try to squeeze in is deployment to one of the new Django hosts such as Djangozoom.com, Gondor.io, and ep.io. In fact, Shimon Rura, one of the co-founders of Djangozoom, participating as an instructor.

4. We're all volunteers

All the proceeds earned by the instructors for this course will be going to the Pyladies Sponsorship program. That is important for two reasons:

1. Your attendance will help Pyladies sponsor more women to learn Python in the future.
2. The teachers are doing this because they want to do it. They want you to learn Django.

5. It won't end at 12:30 PM

Officially the tutorial ends at 12:30PM and we should be done. Sometimes though we stumble on things  and we don't finish with the rest of the class (like me in my last C programming class). But after a lunch break I'm planning on grabbing some space and working through the rest of the tutorial with anyone who didn't complete the class.

6. The tutorial opens DjangoCon

The tutorial starts on Monday, September 5, 2011 at 9:30 AM at the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower at 921 SW Sixth Avenue in Portland, Oregon, USA. If you do plan on attending DjangoCon and are new to the framework, what a great way to get started!

7. You don't have to attend DjangoCon itself to take the tutorial

Tickets for the event are being sold separately from the conference. So if you can't take off more than one day of school or work, this is a great way to capitalize on DjangoCon.

Convinced? Here is what you need to know and do to get signed up:

• Get a laptop running Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.5 or higher, or Ubuntu.
• If there is no Python installed, install Python 2.7.1. DO NOT INSTALL PYTHON 3!!!
• Make sure you have a grounding in Python. If you are new to Python you need to have finished at least half the chapters in learnpythonthehardway.org before you attend. If you come to this event with no prior Python experience you will be left behind.
• Buy a ticket!