Treehouse Launch
I can’t deny for a second that I am a Carsonified fanboy. However, the reason that I am such a fan is that they continually do great things. On top of being a fan of Carsonified, I’m a fan of the initial duo of instructors: Nick and Jim.
They are Florida-based and are a great example of what happens when you dive into your work and share with the community. I have been anxiously waiting for the launch of Treehouse, which is their service for educating would-be web workers. Tonight, I sat down and gave it a whirl.
It’s Mo Betta
It is a HUGE improvement over the previous membership.thinkvitamin version and that was already pretty cool. The badging system is really addictive. I would actually like to be going through the CSS quizzes at the moment to add that one to my profile. The general flow is that you watch videos on a subject and then take a quiz on it. You earn your badge on that subject by answering 5 questions in a row correctly or completing a series of code challenges. You don’t have to actually watch the videos, though, if you’re sure you know your stuff.
I did a mix of both. I started off with some courses that would have some details that I hadn’t learned yet. There are some media query details and CSS animation items that I hadn’t fully explored yet, even though I may have used them already. So, I went through and earned the Responsive Web Design badge. It felt cool to complete one, so I went a little in reverse and knocked out the basic HTML course.
It Will Get Even Better
This is the beginning, where the prior members switch over to the new and improved system. However, the team didn’t crank out all of this just for that. The new Treehouse is intended to appeal to the enterprise-level companies for training and I believe that it will. Regardless of the fact that you could game the system and look up the answers on Google, the fact remains that you will have to answer the questions correctly in order to achieve a badge. Or, someone will anyways. This will provide a status level for companies to rate their employees and potential hires. (I already feel better about listing my skills, having justified my knowledge by earning the badges.)
The Future Challenges
The biggest challenge that I see for the long-term is, well, challenging the users. Setting up the quest for completion also creates the need for new conquests. I will likely tear through all of the courses related to my job as a front-end dev soon. After that, though, I’m not sure that I will want to tackle the iOS path. So, there will need to be other related courses for me to conquer. It’s weird, but with the former version, I wasn’t overly concerned with the frequency of videos or related videos. However, once my desired badges all have green checkmarks, I imagine that I will be. The key in retention will be figuring out how to really push the education to advanced levels. The Carsonified team and the new investors are insanely smart and talented, so I’m 110% sure that I’m not saying anything that they don’t already have a plan for.
Check it Out
So, head on over and see what they’ve done at TeamTreehouse.com and if you want to see where I’m at in my badge quest: http://teamtreehouse.com/dandenney.
Comments (4)
Hey Dan,
Thanks for the article, and the feedback, and the thoughts… and everything! I’m so glad you’re a Member
~ Fabi
Anytime! I know you and the team work hard and it’s a great product. I’m having fun with frontenddevign, it’s good to keep track of a lot of the things that I use regularly.
Btw, I’m digging frontenddevign.com
Great article! I’m also a huge fan of Carsonified and am constantly blown away by their quality products. It’s great to see a great team of people doing great things. I do wish they offered some sort of a freemium version where users can try out the site and get addicted to the badges before putting any credit card info. Though I’m well aware of the value they’re offering. I’m excited to see what else they come up with (Code Racer is uh-some!)