Greetings everyone...

I'm looking to develop an in-house Powershell training course for my fellow IT workers - most of them have no scripting experience.  I've dabbled with PowerShell myself as I'm trying to get myself up to speed with my cmd/bat/vbs/wmi scripting experiences in the past.  So hopefully the resources I've pulled together will help to "train the trainer" and prepare some decent material as I facilitate their learning.

To that end, I would very much appreciate recommendations ofresources to help me in my quest to help my fellow IT teammates.  I've done a decent bit of searching on the web for resources, but would like to hear from those who have extensively used Powershell in their jobs for resources that have been the most valuable to them.

Many thanks for your time and responses.  I'm submitting what I've scoured from the 'Net thus far in hopes it will help others out there looking to do the same. 

Many thanks and kindest regards,

Yazik

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Books:

Windows PowerShell™ v2.0: TFM® 3rd Edition - Pre-Release 
http://www.sapienpress.com/powershell3.asp

 

Windows PowerShell in Action by Bruce Payette
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-PowerShell-Action-Bruce-Payette/dp/1932394907/

 

Webcasts/Videos:

Powershell Introduced by Jason Fossen (SANS Instructor): 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVSEUVqE2s

TechNet Webcast: The Windows PowerShell Scripting Crash Course (Level 200)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032321618&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

TechNet Webcast: Functions, Filters, and Efficiency in Windows PowerShell (Level 200)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032321620&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

TechNet Webcast: Mastering the Windows PowerShell Pipeline (Level 200)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032321616&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

 

Sample Scripts or Tools

http://www.windowspowershelltraining.com/downloads/scripts.zip

CodePlex script sharing project: http://www.codeplex.com/PsObject

 

Self-Paced Training/Tutorials/Guides/Help

Powershell Toolbox (where a lot of these other links came from) 
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/winpsh/toolbox.mspx

Powershell Owner's Manual
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/winpsh/manual/default.mspx

http://www.scriptinganswers.com/training/selfpaced/psh101.asp

http://www.powergadgets.com/tutorials/powershellTutorial.aspx

Windows PowerShell Programmer's Guide
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms714674.aspx

microsoft . public . windows . powershell  newsgroup (via Google Groups) http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.powershell/topics

PowerShell Graphical Help File
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3B3F7CE4-43EA-4A21-90CC-966A7FC6C6E8&displaylang=en

 

Here's a great intro presentation on PowerShell made by a colleague of mine:

http://www.slideshare.net/dalelane/an-introduction-to-windows-powershell/

I would skip PS Step by Step for anyone who has done any coding before.  Lots of typing and not a big bang for your buck.

I went through the original Powershell week Webcasts and thought days 1-3 were good at giving you a good overview.  I didn't think days 4 and 5 were as useful and the first Labcast a little basic.  However, I didn't do the labcast until after I'd written a moderately involved script so it would have been more meaninful taking the labcast first.  One note, the labcast would not play from work.  Must be in the firewall since it works fine from home.

Mastering Powershell in your Lunch Break articles are basic and good.  Sooner or later I'll get to the ADSI and WMI parts, but no access at work and no time at home.

www.scriptinganswers.com/training/courseware. Or you can contact training@sapien.com. It's packaged courseware that trainers can purchase - it's the same stuff I use in my public and private classes and it is based on "Windows PowerShell: TFM (2nd Edition)". You should be aware that the 3rd edition (which you note above) is SPECIFICALLY for the v2.0 CTP of PowerShell - not what you'd probably be using in production.

We're also producing a new 3-level series of self-paced training videos. Should see the "Fundamentals" one out in March sometime, I hope. They'll basically be self-paced versions of the public classes I do. Same materials, same labs, same course outline basically.

I went to college in the 1980s. Generally speaking as students of that day, we had to learn about five different high-level programming languages plus we also had to learn a lower-level assembly language as well.

Typically a teacher would teach the algorithm he/she wanted you to implement in that particular class's programming language. I learned Powershell by looking at the "Windows PowerShell Language Quick Reference" card and then using this I tried to write a few of the old college standard algorithms such as the "Bubble Sort" and the "Binary Search" using Powershell as my programming language. There are a million different algorithms that could be used. Reference the book "Fundamental Algorithms", by Donald E. Knuth, for this purpose.

Anyway you might want them to learn how to pass objects through a pipe. Or you might want them to write a function, or shift a variable. You might want to explaing Dot Sourcing and go over best practices. Arrays are cool and so are hash tables too. The difference between For & Foreach (scripting) where the test is at the top of the loop, and Continue (scripting using the "while") where the test is at the bottom of the loop. And then have them do someing in a loop such as manipulating the variables from a .CSV file you previously imported into an array. Go over when to use "Function Scripting" and when to use "script blocks". How do you call a script block? With the &$ or the .$. Well that depends on your dot sourcing lecture. Hehe the sky's the limit.

I would start with teaching the syntax of the language and then have them implement a few fundamental allgorithms of your choice in that language. The buble sort is a classic algorithm that can be implemented in any language.

Have fun.

A quote from Christian Borgs at Microsoft's new research lab called "Microsoft Research New England".

Borgs: "Our initial goals can be described on two levels. One is to interact with the local university community and with our local product groups. The other is to advance the state of the art in these joint areas of algorithms and social sciences."

Hehe, what's old is now new again :)