I’ve been sitting here thinking about the class offerings. So I have some updates, thoughts, and general “here is what is going to happen”. Last month I taught the Intro class and the processing and tools class back to back. That was pretty nice because it gave me a pretty quick look at what worked and what doesn’t and how the two classes line up.
The Good:
- I have a Part 1 (intro) and a Part 2 (intermediate) done now on QGIS.
- In general they matched up well and Part 2 built off Part 1 better than I hoped.
- I didn’t make it too terribly complicated overall
The Bad:
- Things I thought were brilliant didn’t work….i.e. Too Complicated.
- Things I thought were lame went over extremely well.
- SQL is too hard to throw at people the last hour of the last day for part 2.
- Class Names are deceptive: “Intro” is more than intro and “tools and processing” is more than that. So I need to re-name the classes.
- The second class needs to be tightened up.
- There is always room to improve.
There is one more class coming to make three total classes. Think of it as an intro, intermediate, and final…and final may mean advanced or final may mean enterprise. Final may be final as I really don’t want to do any more classes beyond the three as a core offering. I need to start working on that and get a first draft by the end of the year.
Back when I started NRGS I was an ATP…..or CTP….whatever the name I was teaching ESRI classes. So having people not wanting to take an intro class because it’s “intro” isn’t anything new. All that made me really re-think the phrase ‘Introduction” and I will probably rebrand this as “Exploring QGIS”. That way it doesn’t say “intro”.
Anyway – it was nice to finally get 2 classes finished and have it be something I was happy with overall. I just finished up updating the “intro” class and I’m doing that with the second class. Next year will see one class getting taught each month. So all 3 get taught per quarter. That way I know the last week of the month is teaching and the other three I can work.
