Almost exactly one year ago on March 28. the Ionic Academy opened doors for the first time and has ever since been the coding school for all Ionic interested developers (and those who want to become Ionic Developers).
Now it’s time to reflect on the first year of this project to give you a better idea what it is all about, why it exists and what you can expect from the Ionic Academy in 2018.
Stay with me till the end of the article for a special One Year Ionic Academy Gift!
A Tough But Good Start
The initial interest even before the project started was huge. More than 500 people were on the waiting list and over 100 joined already in the first week last year. This response completely blew my mind, but there were also critics.
Max from Ionic posted about the launch of the new Ionic Academy and the comments on that article were by no means encouraging and sometimes even a bit offending.
Truth is those comments got me thinking about the whole project, but I never questioned the mission of this endeavour.
To some degree I could understand a few comments as the initial starting page was by no means a good-looking page. But people even questioned the content without having seen any of the courses inside, which seemed kinda rude to me at that time.
Since then I’ve reworked the initial page many times to make it more “friendly” and less “sleezy”, to offer more information about what to expect and what’s inside. Also, there’s a clear refund policy and while not many make use of it, I’ll always stick to my words there.
Finally, the process is never finished. Right now I’m working on allowing free preview of some courses and videos so people can anticipate even better upfront if the Ionic Academy is right for them.
No project will make everyone comfortable, and I understand that the Ionic Academy might not be for everyone.
But I’ll continue to focus on helping developers to learn everything Ionic as fast as possible, which is the main purpose of the Ionic Academy.
Questions & Answers
Over the year I’ve monitored mentions of the Ionic Academy inside the official Ionic forum, on Twitter and wherever possible. Also, I got countless emails with questions so I’ll try to answer a few of the ones that stuck with me.
Is the Ionic Academy created by the official Ionic Company?
No. I (Simon) am the creator of the Ionic Academy and I don’t receive any money from the official Ionic team. The only connection we have is the constant exchange of information and I try to keep Max updated about the progress of the Ionic Academy as it’s of course also in their interest that this learning platform grows.
Is the Ionic Academy free?
No. All the material on this blog, my YouTube channel and the other places I hang around is free but the Ionic Academy is a paid membership site. The reason is simply the higher form of engagement and time needed to create the content, the best possible experience for new Ionic developers and also the support effort on the members only forum.
Is the Ionic Academy worth it?
Well this one depends on your and your needs and financial situation. It is definitely not for everyone but the feedback I’ve gotten over the year is that the content and courses have helped countless people to get started with Ionic a lot faster and build their own apps in no time, even without prior knowledge.
I have basic Programming knowledge, can I join the Ionic Academy?
Yes! The courses start at zero, even with an Angular introduction so if you have seen HTML, CSS and perhaps JavaScript or at least know how to write functions and what coding is about, I’m pretty sure you can follow the basic material and then work your way up.
Ionic Academy 2018 Roadmap
At the end of 2017 I created a post on the Ionic Academy 2017 in Numbers and in terms of numbers, there are currently over 30 courses inside the library.
This number will of course grow again this year, especially with Ionic 4 coming, support for different frameworks, Capacitor, Stencil, PWAs… There is so much to talk about!
Another change already happening is the option for Ionic Academy Business Accounts. Now you can directly provide your team of developers with accounts, managed from one master account.
For 2 months there was an additional challenge which was designed to get people to code something new and then review the results together. This has not worked well, simply because people just don’t have that much spare time.
I still enjoy the idea of these small quizzes, perhaps we’ll see a relaunch in a different form this year.
Finally, a recent conversation on Twitter got me thinking about creating a dedicated app (of course with Ionic) for the Ionic Academy so members could download their courses and watch them on their commute. This is definitely a high priority task and something you can expect later this year!
Not yet a Member?
If you’re not yet a member of the Ionic Academy this week could be your week. To celebrate the first birthday, you can join the Ionic Academy and lock in a reduced fee!
If you want to stick around longer you can save even more with the annual package of the Ionic Academy!
Simply use the links above to get to the registration for the packages directly. This offer is only valid this week until Friday, 30. March!
I’ll see you inside the Ionic Academy for some months or a year.
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