What do you need in order to learn web technologies?

If you could design the ideal service to help yourself learn new web technologies what would it be?

We're trying to create something like that for you. So far we have a few guesses.

People want to learn this stuff

The first assumption is that people actually want to learn this stuff. They may have different motivations ranging from job security to entrepreneurship but we are guessing that people want to learn web technologies.

People appreciate guidance

Most persons appreciate a roadmap and guided learning. To put it another way, the shortest path to working knowledge is best. Not that the shortest path is always to quickest way to learn, we don't believe that  learning without understanding is that useful (is that even learning?)

How you can help?

We need your guidance. Tutorate aims to offer "Web Learning for the Impatient", our guesses might be totally wrong or we might be missing something so your ideas and guidance are supremely useful as we move forward.

Web Development IS Design

This presentation from +PJ Onori struck a chord with us. As web developers we sometimes loose sight of the fact that our work contributes significantly to user experiences and that design is more than just a visual thing.

Developers, you're designing experiences (and you didn't even know it) from P.J. Onori

Sometimes the idea of design is relegated to visual design. Design is really about intentionally exerting influence on the experience of something. This could be how a can opener works, the type and visual hierarchy of a website or the way an algorithm works to suggest other products that you may want to buy. In all cases there are aspects of design. To quote PJ Onori from the presentation "Developers are the gatekeepers of experience".

Do we need Facebook?

Now that we've started to promote Tutorate, we're faced with the question, how do we reach our target audience? Will starting a Facebook page help? At this point I'm not sure, in fact I'm inclined to say that it won't help.

We're still in the stage of developing a community, and our best guess is that the more techie and pioneering types are hanging out on Google+ and Twitter. They are not mainstream and they are going to be following hashtags like #HTML5, #Nodejs and #Redis.  To test this hunch the current strategy involves the following approach:

1. Establishing a presence on Twitter and identifying experts who might be candidates for running future workshops
2. Using our blog as a hub, from here we share our ideas to various channels which at this point are primarily Google+ and Twitter (though we do have a mailing list mixed in there). 

Facebook would be one more channel to monitor and manage and we really don't want to go there at this point. Feel free to reach out and tell us if we're going about this in the wrong way.

#DreamTutorate

What would be your dream tutorial?

I just tweeted mine. 60 minutes learning something cool from +Tarek Ziadé

I don't know if this one will happen, but you can always dream. What would be your #dreamtutorial or #dreamtutorate?

Mic Check! Introducing Tutorate.com

Tutorate.com is now live. Consider this a soft launch, this is more about spreading the word among the early adopters. If you're reading this, then consider yourself a candidate for early adopter.

Tutorate.com was created because I have a hunch that there are smart persons out there that appreciate guided and concise learning. I'm stepping up to the plate and offering that using the technologies that make it possible. The second hunch is that there are smart persons out there who know enough to jump start some of our learners and are willing to teach a small online course one off short, live workshop.

Tutorate aims to be the matching service between technology learner and technology teacher.

The idea is simple.

1. Select a tutorial from the schedule
2. Reserve a seat, invite others
3. Learn from an enthusiastic tutor