I remember when I was first getting into professional programming in college, I thought it would be so cool that I would always have something new to learn, no matter how far along I’d get in this work. Yet here I am, 10 or so years into doing this, and that’s not how I always feel. I often wish that I could get on with the real work, and forget about learning the latest new thing.

Our Android Fundamentals class has always had that goal in mind: get on with the real work, regardless of what the latest new thing is. We keep course materials up-to-date, but they are meant to serve students well in the long run through teaching the fundamentals, not just the latest and greatest. Many developers have built whole new phases of their careers from what we teach in that class. Our new Advanced Android course goes into more depth, but it’s a similar idea: a deeper dive on ideas and tools that will be of long-term use.

Introducing the Big Nerd Ranch Android Roadshow

But sooner or later, you do need to focus on the shiniest new stuff. We’ve been in search of the right way to drill down on the shiny new stuff, so we’re rolling out something new this year that we hope you will dig. Here’s the idea:

1. Two back-to-back one-day classes for experienced Android developers.
2. We take it on the road, to cities across the United States.
3. Brand new stuff every year.

The idea is to have focused annual professional development that you can fit into your budget and schedule. You’ll expand your existing Android knowledge in two days. Instead of diving down into underlying concepts, you get hands-on practice with strictly new stuff. And since we’ll have a variety of dates across the country, you’re more likely to find something close to you that’s running at a convenient time.

The classes themselves will be similar to our current courses, but looser and broader. Expect to have lots of hands-on time with one of our expert instructors, someone who helped write some of the material you’ll be working on. You can either work one of the independent study exercises we provide, or you can try to integrate new ideas into your own code in the provided workshop periods.

Is it like a conference? Sort of, yeah. Except with a lot more focus. Here are the two courses we’re writing:

Day one: Android Platform Features

The first course is all about the Android Platform. This includes new tools from the support libraries, but also includes new features in the standard libraries, and Android Marshmallow. Expect to learn more about:

• CoordinatorLayout
• Doze
• The new permissions system
• App linking
• Direct share
• Chrome custom tabs
• Design support library
• Annotations support library
• GCM network manager

Get more info and sign up for our One-Day Android Platform Features class.

Day two: Community Tools

The second course focuses on community tools and libraries. This day has fewer topics, but a lot more work on each topic. On this day, you’ll cover:

• Dagger 2
• Retrofit 2
• Kotlin
• RxJava on Android
• DataBinding

Get more info and sign up for our One-Day Android Community Tools class.

See you there!

We’re pretty excited about this. Our Android team has done some amazing work with these materials, and we know you’ll be blown away. We’re starting with Atlanta and San Francisco for now, but we’ll expand to more cities in the future. Let us know in the comments where you’d like to see us!

Oh yeah, one last thing: signing up! Check out our class schedule for info. Classes are just $700 each. Sign up for both classes, and you’ll get $200 off. Which is exactly the same as us giving you $200 for free. (Not really. But it’s still pretty nice.)