So - lemme guess.  You’ve bought books, you’ve watched screencasts, you’ve read support forums - and yet you still aren’t where you want to be with ExpressionEngine.  That stuff is all great - but for you, spending a few concentrated days in traditional classroom-style training is flat-out more effective and efficient.

Or at least it can be, if you can tolerate being holed up in a national chain hotel spending your days in a generic mauve conference room.  Then, after the day’s training is over, it’s either explore a big city on your own or trudge upstairs to while away the evening hours watching TV in a cookie cutter room.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

I’m pleased to now be able to offer quality classroom training in a hip hotel located in a vacation destination.  You’ll spend four days learning ExpressionEngine, and three evenings enjoying the local surroundings with your instructor and classmates.

Sound better than your average training?  Read on for the details....

The Instructor
The class will be instructed by yours truly, Michael Boyink.  I run Boyink Interactive, am the author of the Building an ExpressionEngine Site book and other EE learning resources available here on Train-ee.com.

I’m collaborating with CollectiveIdea, another West Michigan-based software company, to ensure a high-quality training experience for students.  Collective Idea offers Ruby on Rails training via the their Sessions offering (note that the Train-ee ExpressionEngine class is also promoted on the Sessions site - it’s the same class and it makes no difference what site you use for registration).

The Location
I’m really happy to be offering this class in my hometown of Holland, Michigan, USA.  While being best-known for the annual Tulip Time Festival, Holland is nicely situated on Lake Macatawa, which connects to Lake Michigan.

Beautiful sunsets, clean sandy beaches, lighthouses, historic shopping districts, microbreweries, coffeehouses, bikepaths—there are tons of reasons to love Holland and I’m going to do my best to get you out of the hotel and enjoy it with some after-hours activities.

Getting here is easy— you can fly into the Gerald R. Ford International Airport (a free shuttle is available), grab one of the daily Amtrak trains from Chicago (the Holland terminal is 2 blocks from the hotel) or drive from either Chicago or Detroit in less than 3 hours.

The Venue
The class will be held at the new CityFlats hotel.  CityFlats is one of those fun, funky spaces that will really inspire your creative side - I’ve never stayed at a hotel quite like it.

CityFlats is a “green hotel” - it plans on being one of the first hotels in the United States to attain LEED certification.

CityFlats is offering a great rate of $109/night, discounted from $189, for the training. Mention “Train-ee” when you make your reservation. 

There are other local options as well.

The Training
We’ll have four days in the classroom - and the scheduled training will run from 9:00am to 4:00pm (breakfast and lunch will be provided).  From 4-5pm you can ask questions, get feedback on your own EE project, or bail early to go catch up on email before heading out again.

Specifically we’ll cover the following:

• Installing ExpressionEngine
• System Overview
• Control Panel
• Loading an existing design template into EE
• Chunking the visual design into parent and embedded templates
• Passing variables to embedded templates
• Designing an ExpressionEngine architecture to power the visual design
• Implementing EE weblogs, custom fields and categories to hold content
• Building dynamic navigation menus
• Building page titles and setting navigation states dynamically
• Creating content relationships
• Using EE conditionals
• Using plug-ins
• Implementing a Contact Form
• Implementing the EE search engine
• Implementing an different content types (TBD)
• Setting up the site for client access

The Students
This class is geared towards the working web professional who is new to ExpressionEngine.  Students are expected to be fluent in XHTML/CSS.  No prior knowledge of EE is necessary.  Students will be expected to be able to come equipped with a laptop configured to install ExpressionEngine locally (so running a WAMP/LAMP/MAMP setup).

The Schedule
The next class will be held September 9 - 12, 2008.

The Cost
$1495.

The Signup Form
You may register for the training by filling out and submitting this form.