[Update: The curriculum is ready to be adopted. We already have various colleges/universities adopting it. You also stand a chance to win an iPad from Adobe if you can help ensure your local college/university adopts this new curriculum. Even something as simple as a contact in the local college/university can be a great start.]
We have made significant progress from the time we announced the education initiative for ColdFusion. A full-fledged curriculum titled Introduction to Web Development is being developed and we are looking to work with the colleges starting this fall semester. The course will be made available for free with enough focus on web application design, client side and server side development in an effort to give the students a holistic view to web programming.
Here’s the link to the presentation that highlights our goals, approach and the next steps to make the initiative successful.
The ask now from all the ColdFusion enthusiasts is to help promote this new course offering. It could be a promotion by you at your local college or it could be any contact at a college that you would like Adobe to reach out to.
You can either use the slide deck to present about the initiative or use the content as talking points to promote the curriculum.
Please reach out to me if you have any questions/concerns or contacts that Adobe can reach out to : rakshith@adobe.com
Staff
109 posts
Does anyone know whether anything more happened with this, since the last comments in 2014?
@VolumeTwo:
CF 11 is a free download, and the developer edition is a *limited -but fully functional* version of CF-11.
It is intended for Development Purposes.
Please make the CF 11 Enteprise edition free for students to develop with. They will then take these skills into the job market and influence their employers to adopt ColdFusion like I do.
We in South Florida just heard about this at our Latest CFUG with Elishia!
We’re all interested! any additional information would be awesome!
I have looked over the initial lessons of this courseware, and it offers a great foundation for someone new to the web who is learning about dynamic websites. I have not had a chance to look over the ColdFusion code as I am not there yet, but so far I am excited about this curriculum.
ColdFusion needs a big push to get back into the University/College curriculum. I look forward to viewing the remaining lessons.
Adam, is there anything I should watch for or any specific lesson I should focus on or look at with reference to the issues you mention above?
I would like to hear a bit more about the issues in the code you mention above. I have not had a chance to look over any ColdFusion code yet within this curriculum, and will be doing so over the next 10 days or so.
I am not using this curriculum as I am an ACI and teach at the corporate training level. I do know of schools that used to teach ColdFusion that I would like to approach and introduce this curriculum, but my time is limited. It would save me time if I could be in touch with you Adam. I can be reached via linked in.
> I would rather hear from you on what those high level quality issues in the code are and get them fixed
Yup. I made sure you had those in your in box the same evening.
> Such blanket statements about the quality of the code does not help the cause.
The problem here isn’t the blanket statements, Rakshith. The problem is the code. And the tone of the statements reflect how seriously you need to treat the issue.
It’s a significant issue, so these things need to be stated clearly so people (such as Candyce, who is using the material) know to what degree they need to tread with caution.
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Adam
@Adam: Such blanket statements about the quality of the code does not help the cause. I would rather hear from you on what those high level quality issues in the code are and get them fixed. I saw a few emails from you regarding the issues, so I think that is right step to take. I will work on implementing the feedback that you offer.
@Candyce: It is really not difficult to get involved. I am sending you an email right now. I have also reached out to everyone who has offered to be of help. If I have missed out anyone, then it is clearly my oversight and not because we do not want everyone to be involved. I look forward to having an engaging discussion with you about the curriculum.
@Adam, thanks for the update. I have never seen nor been involved in this courseware, which is why I am trying to see it myself. I am not teaching this course, I use the official Adobe curriculum for Training Partners for my corpoorate training classes.
If the code is of poor quality, it is worse than not providing it at all since this will be everyone’s first exposure to Adobe curriculum & ColdFusion.
I am very interested in helping with this project, but it seems difficult to become involved. I will continue to try. It would be in Adobe’s best interest to utilize people to assist with this project.
I have video courses at Lynda.com & others on ColdFusion, so I am familiar with creating curriculum in addition to working in ColdFusion. There are many of us such as those commenting in this forum who are also willing to work on this project.
Please Adobe, let us help you make this project a great one so ColdFusion can expand. Just my 2 cents.
Hi Candyce, yes I had a superficial look at it, and I’m afraid I have some grave concerns about the quality of the code you are teaching. If I can be brutally honest, the person who wrote the code (and sorry if it was you, but so be it) is more the sort of person who should be a STUDENT on a “Learn CFML” course, not be writing the course material.
I am not quibbling over situations like flooding newbies with complicated “best practices” when they need to focus on the basics, it’s just the code is of a poor level, and doesn’t need to demonstrate basically *worst* practices where a coupla tweaks could demonstrate adequate practices.
But I will emphatically say that in some areas Adobe would be being professionally irresponsible to teach some of that course material.
I mean to send some notes back at some point, but I am very busy with other things @ the moment, and don’t have the time to dedicate to it.
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Adam
How can we get a copy of the curriculum? I have educational contacts but want to look over the courseware first. Please let me know how I can view it so I can contact some people about this once I do. I would like to assist with this project.
@Adam, did you get to view the curriculum yet?
@Alex, I did not get your email. I have now sent you an email.
@Jakelin: Take a look the latest version which is out in public beta right now. The documentation for this version details out all the security enhancements in the latest version. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusion/
Hi Rakshith, did you get my email?
As we know ColdFusion has high performance inbuilt architecture that includes database pooling, page caching, and byte code caching, load balancing and server clustering. But what about security? Which version of coldfusion is more secure? How it would be implemented?
Can I get access to view the curriculum?
I am an Adobe Certified Instructor in ColdFusion, and am very interested in viewing the curriculum. I would love to promote this course, and look at the material for use in the classes I teach.
How can I get a copy of the curriculum to look over? I reached out to Elishia Dvorak via Twitter but she is not very active on that.
Anything to promote ColdFusion is a good thing. It needs promoting at the college level and I would love to help.
Brian, yes. I have responded to your email.
Hi Rakshith, did you get my email?
@Adam: Sure. I will have the curriculum shared with you.
Hi Rakshith
Yeah, I can’t help you with contacts in education: I don’t have any. But I can proof-read and sanity check at least the CFML section of it. And I might learn something from the rest of it!
What I can also do is blog about it, and that might have slightly different reach than your own channels do, so that might help with contacts?
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Adam
@Adam: More than a review, we really need contacts where we can promote the curriculum. If you are still keen on reviewing the material and I can pass it to you. But do remember is a generic web application development course with the server side aspects coming from ColdFusion.
@Lance and Brian: I will send you an email about this.
We’re taking on an apprentice and would love to have this curriculum to help in their training.
Can I get access to view the curriculum?
Thanks for the update, Rakshith! I am a manager in IT for a community college and have been trying to get the door opened on this since I started last July. There are some blockers (aversion to CF, etc.), but I am going to be doing what I can to try and make this a reality here. My team is almost exclusively a CF shop, but the CIS department has not taught CF for over 10 years.
OK, so weren’t you gonna contact Shawn & meself to give it a “once over” once it was available? Still happy to do so.
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Adam
The curriculum is ready for adoption. We already have more than ten different colleges/universities adopting it.
I was going to ask the same thing. What is the status of this?
Is this curriculum still coming?
Flex is still the best thing out there guys. Get back with the program. Silverlight, dead. HTML 5, stillborn.
Flex, alive well and thriving. Looks like you may be missing your own boat. Just because the kid has left home, doesn’t mean you should cut all contact…
ColdFusion Education is a great idea to introduce Web Development technique to college students by Adobe.
Great news from adobe. Education initiative could be helpful for other student as well as ColdFusion learners.
@Zad: This is an interesting idea. Once the initiative matures, we can have a section within the ColdFusion community portal at http://coldfusion.adobe.com where can connect colleges/students with various resources.
@Phillip: Well, that was not what I intended in my response. I am sorry if that is how you perceived it.
Yes, we can work together here. The curriculum will have test questions as a part of the content. The instructor is free to use these or create his own set of questions.
Having a platform where the instructor can post his test questions will be additional value to the instructors.
Let us connect over email and see how we can take this forward!
Rakshith,
I did read your comment as “Gee, that’s great. If there’s anything you want to add about what we’re talking about though, be sure to let me know”.
I think we’re close in what each of us is trying to do – really close.
You mentioned a full-fledged curriculum. It would be nice to plug students into a multiple choice exam, a true/false exam, fill-in-the-blank exercises, matching and any other types of assignments where the grading can be automated.
I would think that a ColdFusion course would include something like that. In fact, studying how the Learning Management System was put together might be a good example for the students to learn by. And if those students were in fact teachers, then they could ultimately be included in the development of the Learning Management System.
It would be very helpful for Adobe to designate a site where students and teachers alike can find like-minded individuals with the same goals involving their academia and/or career focus. Just to throw an example – The site would have a search function where students could find ColdFusion instructors in their area, it could have a link to the Adobe CF development forums for support, and other educational resources to engage more of the development community into the language itself.
@Adam: If there is an ask associated with what Phillip mentioned, I would love to jump in and offer any input or assistance possible. And it doesn’t sound like he was seeking any input or assistance. So really not sure what made you say this. Just so that you know, I do get involved if someone does seek or need any assistance.
@Phillip: Now that Adam made it sound like I do not care about what you are trying to build, I want to clarify that if you need any sort of inputs or assistance to make your initiative successful, just drop me a line and we can discuss how we can work together in your initiative that seem to be very useful for teachers.
@Rakshith
How about *you* reach out to *Phillip* and assist him with his endeavours?
It doesn’t need to just be the community donating their time to you: it can actually work the other way too.
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Adam
@Phillip: I am very excited hearing about what you are planning to build. It will be valuable for the teachers.
Do reach out to me any at point (rakshith@adobe.com) if you have any inputs for the education initiative.
Rakshith,
For my classroom, I developed a learning management system because I didn’t like the options that were available with the one my school uses.
I have multiple choice assignments, along with true/false, completion, and matching. I also have some other programs like how to calculate Miles-Per-Gallon and a typeset tutor. Not only are they graded automatically, but some are kind of fun – the completion assignment was inspired by Wheel of Fortune.
This summer I’ve been rewriting my course into a jQuery Mobile look.
Teachers are being tasked to put their classes online, but they don’t have the tools necessary to do so. For a teacher that is used to grading by hand, the thought of having a class in the cloud with students on their smart phones is so foreign that they can’t even imagine it.
I would like to build an education site that allows teachers to pour their content into it and point their students to it for testing, sharing, uploading, conferencing, everything. Assignments that need to be graded manually can benefit by having any repetitive feedback from the teacher automated. Feedback like “you spelled this word wrong”.
@Shawn: Although the review will help, at this point we really need contacts where we can promote the curriculum. Any support there will be valuable.
I’m with Adam. I’d love to help with this any way I can. Anything to bring more devs back into ColdFusion.
Shawn
@Adam: Sure! That will help. I will pass the material to you for feedback as they become available. Thanks!
G’day Rakshith:
I don’t have any contacts in education, but kind love to volunteer to proofread your curriculum, and feed-back on it.
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Adam
Thanks to all of you who have got in touch with me indicating how you can promote the curriculum or introduced me to various contacts. Keep them coming!
@Sami: Thanks! I will post more updates as it happens. Do let us know if you have any contacts who we can approach.
@Lance: Thanks Lance. There is no maybe involved in this initiative as you can see the progress happening. We do know that the results of this initiative will take a few years before it begins to make a difference, but we want to take those positive steps for the future.
This is fantastic news! Really looking forward to Adobe (maybe) finally taking this seriously.
This is something I am very interested in. I taught CF over a decade ago, and have always felt students can benefit from a formal curriculum. I look forward to hearing more.
@Anastassios: We realize the issue with documentation. Rather than taking the extreme step of rewriting content, we will soon be launching an program where the documentation will be available on a wiki and anyone from the community can register to make changes to the documentation. Stay tuned for the announcement about this.
@Tom: I see that. I have updated the two bullet points.
Not to gripe, but the last two bullet points on the 2nd slide read horribly.
Dear Rakshith,
this Education Initiative is very important and I wish to have great success,
but
please let me mention that the base, or the starting point, of any kind of educational initiative is the Coldfusion Documentation !!!! which today is a mess… and has to be re-written from the scratch.
The present docs are a shame and don’t seem to be docs of a mature 17 years old product. I have written about it in other forums and gave specific proofs of what I am saying. I guess you agree that if we really love CF and want to see it better and better we have to say the truth about it. The CF docs are written by people who don’t seem to know CF… they are not web developers, and in addition they have no idea about teaching… But I have to admit that they really know HTML very well…
Have a nice day
Anastassios
Coldfusion web developer (16 years)
Greece
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