Drupal Workshop At Calabar High School Jamaica

GCI • Jan 14, 2017

THIS WAS DONE AS A TASK FOR THE ANNUAL COMPETITION CALLED GOOGLE CODE IN. THIS IS A COMPETITION IN WHICH PRE-UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AGES 13 TO 17 ARE INVITED TO TAKE PART IN GOOGLE CODE-IN, OUR CONTEST INTRODUCING YOUNG MINDS TO THE WORLD OF OPEN SOURCE. WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF BITE-SIZED TASKS, IT’S EASY FOR BEGINNERS TO JUMP IN AND GET STARTED NO MATTER WHAT SKILLS THEY HAVE. MENTORS FROM PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS ARE AVAILABLE TO LEND A HELPING HAND AS YOU LEARN WHAT IT’S LIKE TO WORK ON AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT.

Hello, today I will be talking about the workshop i hosted at my school.

[caption id="attachment_893" align="alignleft" width="197"]

Me Starting workshop[/caption]

I organized a Drupal workshop at my school (Calabar High) on January 12, 2017. The workshop began at 3:00 pm and proceed for about a hour. Due to issues which i will discuss further in this post the workshop continued over into January 13, 2017 where it last for about 30 minutes beginning at 4:00 pm. It was held in the Information Technology room at the time for the "Teens For Technology" club.I had an audience of 16 persons with only three having their personal laptop. The workshop flowed with this order as I planned :

The first thing I told them before I start the workshop was that I did the workshop as a task for Google code in. I also told them it was available for anyone of them to participate in next year and a great organization to submit tasks for is Drupal.
An explanation of what Drupal is. This was done starting off with a short video, I continued on with a presentation explaining what Drupal is using the dictionary definition and a much simple and easy to understand definition. I also discussed on how Drupal works and contributing to Drupal.
A presentation on why and when should someone use Drupal, also i discussed when someone shouldn't use Drupal. In this presentation I explained to my audience the reasons why people use Drupal for example security, flexibility and strength. I continued after telling them why and when they should use Drupal into telling them when they should not use the software for example if they need something quick and if they just want to create a fast simple website for themselves.[caption id="attachment_894" align="alignright" width="225"]

Presenting to students[/caption]

A presentation on who uses Drupal and why. This was the shortest of the topics as I only gave examples of persons who use Drupal as their content management system. Some of the examples i gave was loop, Caribbean Examination Council (once before if they don't change as yet) and Jamaica open data portal.
Showing them how to install Drupal and the uses of each feature in Drupal. This session lasted the longest for about 35 minutes. During this period I had a little technical difficulties where I asked the students to download the latest version of Drupal on their PC or one of the available computers in the lab, I also asked them to create a free web hosting account for their site. When i was ready for them to extract and upload there site to the online server I was stunned to know that the internet was behaving slow and Drupal was not finish downloading. In an attempt for a successful workshop I turned to plan B where I send the students which had their own laptops a version of Xampp installer file and Drupal 8 zip file which i downloaded before at home.The computers in the lab doesn't have admin privileges to install applications so the students could not use them. I made one of the students use my laptop and the other three with their own while the others watch the screen on what is being done . After I guided them through the steps of installing their server and choosing the right server and how to install Drupal on their system. When they successfully created their Drupal site i showed them the uses of each tab for editing their site and creating a successful site from the Menu to admin bar.Finally I let them create their first content on their site and promote it to their front page.[caption id="attachment_media-6" align="alignleft" width="223"]

Showing then how to install Drupal[/caption]

Then finally a question and answer session. This finally session was the most hilarious of them all when I heared some of the questions which were asked. Questions which were asked are "Can I use Drupal to create something like Facebook ?" , "Can I use Drupal to create an online Game ?" and "Have anyone hack a Drupal site?"and "Can I make a Drupal site if i don't know what i want ?". I answered these questions with the best of my ability and knowledge of Drupal, I also checked on feasibility of my answer when the workshop was done by researching on google to ensure i don't pass wrong information. At the end I told them that i will continue the workshop on January 13, 2017 in the physics lab where there is better internet so that they can put their sites online.
On the 13th of January I only got 6 persons which came down by the physics lab with only 1 with his own laptop.[caption id="attachment_media-7" align="alignright" width="357"]

Student working on his site[/caption]

I assisted one of them by letting him use my laptop. I then told them to use Acquia to host their Drupal sites instead of the free web hosting server which i wanted them to use before because I realize it was having some ftp error when trying to upload my files. After they signed up I was surprise to see how easy they ran through the Drupal installation process with little help from me. Two Students were able to host their site on Acquia due to how the 3 others didn't have a laptop to use and they left early.

It was a great experience for me to see that they are interested in Drupal . Although I was a little nervous and may encounter into a little challenges it still went okay and persons learn how to use Drupal and create sites with it . One student was most convincing when he told me that he think he might use Drupal to create a website. The websites which were created and uploaded where pretty good for beginners and they creators seem to be interested in using it. The Websites Which they created Can be found at :

This was a great workshop and i think i will continue in keeping them updated on Drupal during club sessions. Drupal is the best CMS i know and as my school motto says "The Utmost For The Highest", I shall continue helping them with the best keeping the highest standards of website creation and the building of Drupal and the knowledge of Drupal not just in my school but in the Island. Further Pictures which was taken at the event can be downloaded from my drive.

Phillip Llewellyn

I am an enthusistic person about robotics and Artificial Intelligence. I try to see the beauty and apply technologies to improve the quality of our life. I try to share my the knowledge I gain widley.