The Ultimate Drupal Guide, Part 2: Video

I learned how to use Drupal by watching videos. I was linked to [[http://webadmin.unt.edu|UNT's webmaster site]] where I discovered that they offer Drupal training via video screen casts from [[http://store.lullabot.com/|Lullabot]]. I watched them all— Understanding Drupal, Administrating Drupal, and Learning Views— and gained a good understanding of what Drupal was all about. I found out later that each of these series costs money, and I got to use them for free— lucky me (Thanks UNT!). Through these screencasts and since then, I have learned how to site build and configure but also that it is important to contribute to the community and help out fellow Drupalers. So in this post, the second of the series, I will talk about different websites that offer online Drupal training, both free and paid, and discuss some pros of each. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Paid Training If you need to learn the basics of Drupal fast, want complete and organized training and have money to spend, there are many companies and individuals who offer training for a price. I previously mentioned [[http://store.lullabot.com/|Lullabots videos]] and recommend them. They have some of the best trainers in the Drupal community and their series get very thorough. In addition, Lullabot offers their videos on [[http://drupalize.me/videos|Drupalize.me]] for a monthly fee. [[http://www.lynda.com/Drupal-training-tutorials/186-0.html|Lynda.com]], is an online training platform that offers the "Essential training" series for Drupal 6 and 7 which touches all the major bases of developing with Drupal from installation to theming. [[http://buildamodule.com/|Buildamodule]] is a Drupal-specific service that offers extensive and well organized Drupal training. They have a "Core Concepts" series, "Build your first Drupal 7 site" series, "Theming essentials" and more. If you choose the pay-for-training route and are unsure of which service to choose, watch a couple sample videos from each vendor and decide which one suits you best. Obviously, prices will vary from vendor to vendor too, so some of you may want to take that into consideration. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Free Training ...But you don't have to pay for training! There are plenty of free video training resources available to you. Firstly, try [[http://www.tutr.tv|Tutr.tv]]. I, along with my fellow LevelTen-ers, have been working hard to bring free Drupal training of all kinds to you, in a nice, organized fashion. It has hundred of Drupal-specific tutorials on it, tagged and broken down into many categories like tutorial type, level, platform, discipline, module, and more. Looking for something specific? Choose multiple fields and filter to get the most relevant tutorial. We're working on organizing videos and actively scouring the internet for the newest, latest and greatest tutorials to add. One of our main goals is to cater to the Drupal community, so create an account, watch some videos and rate, save and suggest! Other Drupal-focused video aggregators include [[http://yadadrop.com/|Yadadrop]] and [[http://www.drupalove.com/drupal-videos|Drupalove.]] Can't find what you're looking for? There are countless individual bloggers and companies out there uploading screen casts, teaching all things Drupal, all for free. [[http://www.mustardseedmedia.com/podcast|Mustardseed Media]] offers a diverse, ongoing series (since 2008) with configuration and recipe screen casts. Lullabot has a some free tutorials on their [[http://drupalize.me/videos/popular|Drupalize.me]] site too, in addition to their paid services. They recently posted a free series on the [[http://drupalize.me/videos/overview-learning-views|Views module]]. [[http://learnbythedrop.com/|LearnByTheDrop]] is another site that offers various free Drupal screencasts, along with their paid premium service. Check out their [[http://learnbythedrop.com/archives|archive page]] for a full list. Also, Tom McCracken's [[http://www.leveltendesign.com/tutorial/course/getting-started-drupal-7|"Getting started with Drupal 7"]] series is a great place to start with Drupal. These are some of the more popular sites, but there are countless out there on the Web. I'll list more below. Still can't find it?! I suggest visiting general video sites and seaching, refining and re-searching to see what's out there. [[http://youtube.com|YouTube]], [[http://vimeo.com|Vimeo]], and [[http://blip.tv|Blip.tv]] are good video repositories filled with Drupal tutorials. Just use the search (or advanced search) features. If I have forgotten a link or you would like to add one, please comment and list them below. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Aggregators http://tutr.tv http://yadadrop.com/drupal-video http://www.drupalove.com/drupal-videos Free: http://drupal.org/videocasts http://www.leveltendesign.com/tutorial/course/getting-started-drupal-7 http://www.mustardseedmedia.com/podcast http://www.lullabot.com/ideas/videos http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/drupal-videos/id291391221 http://drupaldojo.com/ http://learnbythedrop.com Buy: http://www.lynda.com/Drupal-training-tutorials/186-0.html http://www.acquia.com/resources/tv http://store.lullabot.com/collections/video-bundles http://drupalize.me/ http://learnbythedrop.com/premium-videos Photo credit: Colin Alsheimer