Later this month, Jason Helmick will be offering a revised "PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking" course at Interface Technical Training in Phoenix. This new course carries the Microsoft Courseware Marketplace number 55039 - that's right, this is an official, unofficial course that will be available to all Microsoft training partners!
(Courseware Marketplace offerings are not written or endorsed by Microsoft, but they are equivalent to Official Curriculum in many ways, including being eligible for Software Assurance voucher programs. Marketplace offerings supplement Official offerings by providing courses that Microsoft doesn't have the time or resources to generate themselves.)
This course is based directly on Learn PowerShell Toolmaking in a Month of Lunches, and incorporates much of that book's actual text (in fact, a portion of the course's sale price goes to the book publisher, with a portion of that going to the book authors as royalties). That's combined with a full slide deck, some awesome brand-new labs, lab answer key, "starting points" (for lab students who fall behind), and a complete inventory of demo scripts for the instructor to use. It walks through a quick PowerShell review, and moves all the way through creating modules, advanced functions, custom views, and much more. It's a pretty handy course, and even dives into creating "controller" scripts, such as scripts that automate processes or generate HTML reports. We provide a complete 3-VM build guide, and a simple ISO image containing all of the instructor and student files. Students are even welcome to download that ISO themselves for later reference! That URL will be provided in the student manual.
I'm especially proud of the labs, and thankful to Mike Robbins and Jason Helmick for debugging them for me. Through the main part of the course, students have three lab tracks (A, B, and C) to choose from - and overachievers can work on more than one track. Through each module, the labs gradually build from a basic command to a complete, fleshed-out "script cmdlet" packaged in a module, with a custom view and more. It's extremely realistic, and it means much of the classroom time is spent on hands-on labs, where students will get the most value for their money.
This course is designed to complement Microsoft's official 10961 course, which covers substantially the same material as Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches, meaning 55039 is kind of a "sequel" course. Training centers are welcome to offer a 5-day accelerated class that combines both courses; that's pretty much the class I teach myself. I don't personally categorize 55039 as "advanced;" rather, it's more of a specific application of PowerShell - building reusable tools. I do offer an advanced course of my own, and there's a chance for that to become a packaged course in the future.
After the beta is complete, the course will be orderable in the Marketplace with a suggested price of $150 per student. It's a full 5-day course, with multiple lab tracks per module, so I felt that was a pretty fair price, especially since students basically get the Toolmaking book "included" in their manual!
If any other trainers would like to know more about the course, they're welcome to contact me. We will be selling it directly as well, for trainers who can't access the Marketplace.
Download the table of contents:Â 55039-TOC
