Aquent Gymnasium Launches "Gym Shorts" Series - New One-Hour MOOC Courses

BOSTON, June 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Aquent, the leading global staffing organization dedicated to marketing, creative, and digital professionals, has launched a new series of short-format courses as part of Aquent Gymnasium, a revolutionary MOOC (massive open online course) initiative aimed at closing the skills gap faced by creative organizations worldwide. The series, entitled "Gym Shorts," kicks off with three new courses aimed at front-end developers and web project managers, each of which can be completed in about an hour. These shorter courses will supplement the longer courses Aquent Gymnasium already offers. Over 28,000 students have enrolled in Aquent Gymnasium since its launch in July of 2013.

Beginning today, those interested can enroll in "Introducing Node.js," "Grid Layout in Bootstrap 3.0," and "Defeating Busy," free online courses designed for web professionals. Participants will learn the following in each course:

• Introducing Node.js – How to build a "social profile" form using Node.js.
• Grid Layout in Bootstrap 3.0 – How to get up and running with Bootstrap 3.0 and build a responsive layout that looks great on multiple screen sizes and devices.
• Defeating Busy – How to estimate, plan, track, and manage time in order to complete projects.

The Gym Shorts courses will be taught by experienced instructors, including Jeremy Osborn, Jason Hargrove, and Brett Harned, all of whom combine the real-world insights of seasoned professionals with a passionate devotion to teaching the industry's most in-demand skills.

Asked about the selection of course topics, Jeremy Osborn, Academic Director for Aquent Gymnasium, said, "Node.js is shifting the way websites and web apps are being built, allowing front-end developers to build fast and scalable sites without knowing complex technologies like Java. Meanwhile, Bootstrap is one of the most popular frameworks in use today and now features a responsive mobile-first layout – perfect for businesses looking to capitalize on reaching audiences in an ever growing mobile market."   

"The Gym Shorts format is ideal for students who want to learn something really useful in the course of a lunch break," added Andrew Miller, Program Director for Aquent Gymnasium. "From our perspective, we like that we can create these in a fraction of the time it takes for us to develop one of our full courses, so we can deliver specific and essential instruction very quickly. We can also transform the content from a Gym Short into chapters for one of our full courses."

To learn more about this series of courses and future MOOC offerings from Aquent Gymnasium please visit http://gymnasium.aquent.com/ or email [email protected].

About Aquent
Aquent offers a broad range of staffing services to help global companies add technical expertise to their marketing and creative departments, increase the bandwidth of their in-house teams, and do better creative work. With a notable client list, generous benefits, and training opportunities, Aquent attracts and places thousands of in-demand talent worldwide. To learn more about Aquent's full range of services, please visit: http://aquent.com/.

About Aquent Gymnasium
Aquent Gymnasium offers free, online courses that teach professional designers and front-end developers the skills most sought after by today's leading companies. Our highly practical courses focus on topics such as HTML and CSS, responsive web design, UX design, and an array of front-end development tools. Taught by experienced practitioners with a passion for teaching, we emphasize the real-world application of knowledge and our courses feature assignments that allow students to create portfolio-ready work. To learn more about, please visit: http://gymnasium.aquent.com/

Contact Information:
Dave Heffernan
SHIFT Communications
[email protected] 
(617) 779-1839

SOURCE Aquent