Drills

Thanks, looks like a great resource but I'm talking about projects related to specific Treehouse lessons. Code Academy does something like that but Treehouse has a more active community and I think it can be improved upon. It'd be helpful to apply what you learned on an actual project.

Oh, and just so I'm actually contributing...

I also echo derekverrilli's opinion here. Would love if there was a whole separate section of full-on real coding projects that you can partake in once you're done with a full course or track. They used to have the weekly forum contests and that was great and all, but a lot of that stuff seemed to be too advanced for some people and a lot of folks just didn't or weren't able to participate. Having advanced stuff is all well and good. There's no reason that more advanced folks should miss out on skill building projects in deference to the lower level folks, but neither should the opposite be true.

In fact, there could be a way to do that and leave it open for every possible skill level without putting any extra on the designers, devs and teachers beyond the initial implementation as well.

Here's what I would propose.

Have a separate section of the site or forums or integrate it into the library content portals (i.e. iOS, JavaScript, CSS, etc..) that are for projects only. Perhaps even only have the advanced projects area only accessible to those that have completed a track since those advanced projects would involve multiple things such as build a mockup & wireframe, create a logo, develop a 5 page site, etc....

There could be two separate categories of projects and here's where it would get really cool.

• Official Teacher/Site Developed: This is where any number of 'Open Projects' could be posted in a skill level grouped fashion. Let's say there's 10 beginner projects, 7 intermediate, 5 advanced and one or two 'omgyougeniusyou!' level projects.

These could be set as a "do whatever you like" kind of mode where you could do just 3 of the projects in the beginner and then move on to the intermediate or frankly whatever you like, or it could be set up in a manner where you have to submit one project to unlock the next. Either or would be fine.

Each Open Project could have its own little sub-forum just like each video has, where each user can submit their completed project(project submissions) and other students as well as teachers could comment and critique. No questions about how to do something. That's what the other forums are for. These sub forums would be ONLY for submission of finalized projects that would then get critiqued.

• Student developed: Here's where the teachers and devs get let off the hook for having to constantly come up with new projects or evaluate or whatever. The devs can make their initial group of Open Projects they would think are cool and worthy projects to reinforce and build the skills that the students have learned and then after that, it's all on the users to carry the concept further...

So here, in my mind, students that are over a certain level in points within a certain topic can create their own Open Projects that are listed in the Project Portal under "student submitted". Like the teacher projects, the student submitted Open Project would have a difficulty level set by the submitter, a description of the task (i.e. "design a vertical navigation using xyz color scheme" "Design a tabbed based 1 page site with only CSS." "Create a detailed form for a dating site using xyz specifications." "Design an entire site, 4 pages, for a pet store." etc..). And any specific instructions. If the project is of a larger scale like an app or if it's a multi-page site (or even a one page site) the project would have details like what the "client" is looking for, what style they want (elegant, modern, old fashioned, ocean based theme, 'fluffy', 'silly' etc...), what kind of color scheme (warm? vibrant? earthy? calm? etc...) and then students if they so choose can work on that project.

Open Projects could be voted up based on popularity(or not) & you could have a leader board of the top Open Projects. Open Projects that get completed by other students are then submitted for others to check out and critique.

There would be points and achievements of course and students that create Open Projects for others to complete and submit would get additional points and, you know, badges all around for both project completion and Open Project creation. first project badge, first project creation badge, top project submission & creation badges, 5 projects/submissions, 10, etc... sky's the limit here.

This would provide a great opportunity for the community to strengthen and learn from each other as well as really provide an encouraging and judgmental free environment for everyone to hone their skills & get feedback in a still somewhat realistic client-developer type simulation. (new idea. Create a deadline on all projects. Once you sign up to a project that's your official "I have accepted this job" and you're given a deadline. Don't meet the deadline? You're fired and you have to either start all over or you're locked out of submitted your completed project for a week... I dunno, just brainstorming here.)

Wow, ok... once again I've gone on and on. I'll shut-up now. But anyway, devs, think about it! :)