Last Updated: October 12, 2015 3

Rails for Zombies – Fun Way to Learn the Ruby of Rails Computer Programming Language

Found In: Education

The education system world wide is slowly but surely changing the way things are done; migrating away from the traditional classroom environment where students take pot luck on whether or not they end up with a competent teacher who engages, captures and holds the studentís attention aiding them to digest the subject matter. This traditional teaching structure means that ten per cent of students are lucky and get a very competent teacher; another ten per cent are stuck with an idiot teacher who do4s not want to be there at all; leaving eighty per cent of the student population to muddle through with only an adequate but not special teacher. And so the world is migrating towards a distance learning model using video course materials, rather than books which are static and require a disciplined approach to wade through them. These video materials need only be compiled one time and are useful for as many years as the course is relevant to people; and the presenter in the video material can be hand picked to be the best and most interesting in their field. And with video materials, they can be presented in such a way as to be interactive; not simply a one way information flow.

Video presentations leading to Practical Exercises at Every Step of the Way

Ruby on Rails is an open-source web site development framework or computer programming language created by 37 Signals for their in house web application development needs, and such products like Write Board, Back Pack and Base Camp are just a few of them. Eventually 37 Signals released the source code for Ruby on Rails to the wider public as an open source programming platform that allows developers to quickly create maintainable web applications. By leveraging the ease of use and the power of the Ruby language, web application developers found they were able to rapidly deploy very functional web sites in less time. Since then, the ground swell of interest in the programming language has spawned various courses to teach the source code; one such course being referred to as Rails for Zombies. Typically, the training is by means of video tutorials available online which take students through five levels of course materials to develop considerable proficiency and skill with the code. Attempting to learn this programming language from a book is likely to be a heart breaking affair; whereas the Rails for Zombies approach takes people in a fun way from complete novice through to competent user and coder at their own pace.

Small Coding Tests at Every Level Burn the Coding Skills into the Strudent’s Brain Very Effectively

The course materials involve all aspects of installing the software, through to developing a specific project which is based on the real life phenomenon found in many American cities where people meet in costume to do Zombie walks. That is, during your progress through the five levels of video training, you will be building a web site application to support such a zombie walk social networking web site. Signing up is free and simple to do, and you will also need to set up an account with Code School to progress your way through the materials. When you have signed up, you will see a number of videos to watch, each of which break you in gently on your learning curve. OF course you can watch each of them as many times as you wish, and you can also access other resources include slide materials. When you have watched the videos and feel ready, you will then be directed to write your first lines of code for the first level, and when you have done it correctly, the Rails for Zombies web site will credit you with a pass for that level and lead you onto the next level in Lab one. And by these means of small lesson chunks, with video and other resources for each level, students progress one Lab level at a time until they accumulate knowledge and know how about how to code with real skills learned from interacting with the video materials.

Rails for Zombies is an Example of the Way of the Future for Our Educational System

This approach to learning and teaching has proven to be revolutionary and a vastly superior system to the traditional teaching methods of the classroom. That is, because anyone and everyone gets access to the same video materials all of which are in the public domain, the quality of videos are of the highest standard and quality. Compare this to the classroom environment where the teacher can hide their disinterest and or incompetence hidden from view by the classroom walls and without anything the students can do about less than great skills of the teacher. Rails for Zombies is a prime example of how to implement a high degree of teaching standards, especially true because normally programming languages are notoriously dry and difficult to learn. Yet with this system and the standard they have achieved, very young children can master complex computer programming quickly and easily without ever getting bored or lost in the process. And because the Rails for Zombies school is open every day of the year, and that students progress at the own speed and pace when their interest levels are at their highest, Rails for Zombies solves the transport problem of getting to a classroom on a time table that often does not suit peoples other needs and time constraints. Students study when they feel like it, when they have time and are in the mood to learn the course materials. And they are learning it from the highest caliber of teaching staff with the identical instructions for all people; no one being disappointed by the usual run of the mill of average or less than average teaching faculty. Only by this style of teaching system can all students be judged on their true merits because they all digested the same materials when it all suited them to do so.