Treehouse Learning

[joshuanhibbert]

One that hasn’t been mentioned yet, that is absolutely fantastic: http://www.codeschool.com/

[xefned]

Institutions like codeschool and treehouse need defined learning outcomes and some kind of recognized credentialing system for their badges to have value in the job marketplace. What’s their plan? Their sites do not say.

[chrisburton]

@xefned They do. Companies like Facebook will be using the Treehouse badges to recruit for internships and jobs.

Ryan Carson (founder): “We’ve done partnerships with Facebook, WordPress and LivingSocial,” Mr. Carson said. “They’re going to start recruiting people who’ve unlocked our badges for internships and jobs.”

– New York Times

[nickpettit]

Hi everyone,

It’s exciting to see everyone talking about Treehouse! Let me see if I can answer some of your questions.

Our product team, video teams, and teaching teams are now up to a total of 24 full-time people. At the end of 2010 it was just 3. :) Needless to say, we’re ramping up quickly, so any gaps that still exist in our library are going to be filled in with new badges very soon. Each badge includes an average of 5 videos, a quiz, and an unlockable badge that is displayed on your public profile after you’ve passed the quiz. We also have interactive code challenges for HTML and CSS. Very soon we’ll be adding code challenges for CSS, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, Objective-C, and more. Our teachers make themselves very available via our official Facebook Group, Twitter, and email if you ever have any questions.

We also have many exciting partners including Automattic (creators of WordPress), LivingSocial, Facebook, and more. These will be hand picking members for internships and job opportunities based on what badges they have unlocked. So, not only are we teaching, we’re also trying to get people hired. Woohoo! :)

I hope that helps. If you have any questions you want to ask me directly, I’d be happy to answer them! I’m @nickrp on Twitter if you’d like to reach me that way.

Cheers,
Nick Pettit
Teaching Lead
Treehouse

[webdev]

Not sure how you justify $25 to $50 for the content that you have now. If you are growing then why not discount your membership till you have the content that supports the price of a membership. Just saying.

[dfogge]

personally, i love treehouse! ive been a member for almost a year (back then they were think vitamin) and my skills have more than doubled since joining.

[ljp99]

What I’d like to know is what happens to your “badges” when you discontinue your subscription to Treehouse? You wouldn’t have an account anymore, so I’d assume it all goes away. While I have watched several of their tutorials via a sample disc that was in .net magazine, and I really think they do a good job, I guess I’d like to have something that I can put on a resume. After taking the time to learn, I want something that is recognized by others, not just some badge I get from a website, you know? It’s one reason that I’ve been looking at things like O’Reilly Schools rather than Treehouse.

[dfogge]

from my experience employers/clients dont know/dont care about any of that…
over all they want to see a solid portfolio.

[chrisburton]

@ljp99 Have you read the above? Companies like Facebook will use those badges to recruit people.

[tobeeornot]

I just want to clarify a few issues raised above. I have spoke to customer support quite extensively at Treehouse and they have made it abundantly clear that you are entitled to download all the titles you want within the subscription period. You can then keep those downloads without breaching any terms provided you don’t share them.

Furthermore, you are not bound to complete the badges or complete the exercises in any sequence either. It is purely optional. Hope that helps.

[tobeeornot]

Just a quick note: I used Treehouse on a Gold membership for a month and their tutorials were very good, especially the master classes, one of which details the full project lifecycle between designer and developer on a mock project using an Agile PM methodology. The customer service is also very helpful. You can download all the videos and project files to keep on the Gold membership but they are producing new ones all the time. Well worth my $50.

[tobeeornot]

@krysak4ever I think Gold membership entitles you to download all the videos for all subjects while silver only allows you to view for the period of your membership. There are a lot of exercise files, such as master classes and archived topics, that are not immediately viewable but are there when you get used to the navigation…a slight drawback to the site IMO. Gold membership also gets you access to some seminar talks but I had to contact TH customer service direct to get the login & password. I got a lot out of the month when I used the service, mainly because I downloaded all the available vids and files in that time.

[ferrari_boy]

I’ve tried treehouse and I cancelled. Sorry, but their videos are not that extensive. I feel that $50 is way too much. I’ve used Lynda.com and she has way more videos, but to the point that it’s overwhelming and it’s hard to make out what you should learn first. There are so many services out there. For a web designer, I had good luck with http://www.trainsimple.com – they have a membership site, but I buy their apps for my iPad for $10. http://www.pluralsight.com is ok too, but pricer like treehouse. $50 is too much for what treehouse offers.

[ptibbetts]

@tobeeornot, CodeAcademy is great for beginners or brushing up , but I don’t think it’s extensive enough for learning ‘cutting edge new’ stuff.

The site currently offers Javascript, HTML and some CSS and has just introduced Python. It’s great for an introduction, which I’m planning to do with Python.

Try it out, it’s free (for now, not sure if there’s plans on monetizing it, it’s had some investment from the sound of it)

*Massive Edit*
Apoligies, I was writing about codeacademy.com, not .org.
.org seems to be what you were on about. Struggling to find a difference, they both seem to have the same twitter but offer different things?

[Sammyc]

ptibbetts, thanks for that link!
I think that team treehouse is pumped up with money and really good marketing. They have a google guy a twitter guy a bunch of other guys who could sell bridges to bankers. But they have almost no content and a nonsense badge system.

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