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Toronto offers numerous digital education learning opportunities–through leading edge courses, workshops and seminars—all designed to provide you with immediate relevancy and hands on digital skills.
Today, we’ve been in touch with some of the leading learning providers in the city. With summer just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to get your digital skills into high gear. From sheer beginner to ‘pro’ education, onsite and online, here’s a run-down of the options around the corner from where you live, work and play.
Toronto’s Coding & Startup Marketing Bootcamps:
Ladies Learning Code!
Location: Downtown Toronto + Liberty Village
Courses: WordPress, Javascript, Responsive Design, Data Visualization, Digital Literacy
Website: ladieslearningcode.com
Q: What kind of courses do you offer? Full time? Part-time? Weekends?
LLC: We offer beginner friendly 6 hour workshops in two formats, full day on the weekends and over the course of two evenings on weeknights. We also offer child and youth programming including workshops, PA Day workshops and various camps.
Q: How long do the courses run for? Are they varying lengths?
LLC: Our adult programming is 6 hours long. Our child and youth programming runs for 3 hours. Our camps have varying lengths.
Q: Where do the courses take place? What neighbourhood of Toronto are you located in?
LLC: Our adult programming primarily takes place in downtown Toronto with occasional workshops in Liberty Village. Our child and youth programming takes place in downtown Toronto, Scarborough and North York. Our programs are continually growing and we are expanding our venue network all the time.
Q: What is the culture like at your organization? What is the cultural experience that students have?
LLC: Our culture is one where we encourage learning in a beginner friendly nonjudgemental space. We are platform and language agnostic— we love all forms of technology! Our students experience new technologies in a welcoming space with lots of support from our dedicated volunteer community.
Braincubator
Location: Downtown Toronto Community Spaces
Courses: Robotics – Game Programming – Web Programming
Website: braincubator.ca
Q: What kind of courses do you offer? Full time? Part-time? Weekends?
BC: We offer a variety of formats for our courses depending on the month. Between July to August we offer full time week long courses. For the rest of the year we offer weekend programs and after school programs. Through these formats, we are currently offering workshops relating to robotics, game programming and web programming using industry standard tools.
Q: How long do the courses run for? Are they varying lengths?
BC: The majority of our summer programs are full day week long programs starting at 9:00 AM and ending at 3:30 PM. Our weekend programs are typically 3 hours a piece and after school programs are approximately 90 minutes.
Q: Where do the courses take place? What neighbourhood of Toronto are you located in?
BC: We work out of community spaces such as libraries, classrooms, community centres. We are always expanding our network and so we hope to host workshops in a neighbourhood centre near you!
Through this relaxed environment we hope to foster creativity in such a way that allows everyone to be excited about what they do and learn.
Q: What is the culture like at your organization? What is the cultural experience that students have?
BC: We foster a creative environment and culture at Braincubator, from within our administrative teams right into the classroom. Our teams who support our workshops by developing software and instructional curriculum work in a space that is filled with gaming systems, music, and fun. Our students get to experience exciting workshop activities in a safe environment stimulating curiosity and question asking. Through this relaxed environment we hope to foster creativity in such a way that allows everyone to be excited about what they do and learn.
HackerYou
Location: Queen & Spadina, downtown Toronto
Courses: Web Development Immersive Bookcamp – UX Design – WordPress+ Specialized workshops
Website: HackerYou.com
Q: What kind of courses do you offer? Full time? Part-time? Weekends?
HY: We offer a wide variety of part-time courses, including Web Development, JavaScript, UX Design, SEO, Digital Design, Full-Stack Web Application Development, and WordPress. We also run ongoing workshops that are more specialized. Topics range from Sketch, Shopify theme development, advanced JavaScript, Google Analytics, React, and more.
Q. How long do the courses run for? Are they varying lengths?
HY: Our Intro & Advanced Web Development courses are offered on Saturdays, once a week and twice weekly in the evenings. We have added Intro & Advanced JavaScript and jQuery on Saturdays for the Fall. All of our courses run for twelve weeks, and students get six hours of instruction weekly. We offer one full-time program, our Web Development Immersive Bootcamp, which is a certificate program under Ontario’s Private Career College system.
Q. Where do the courses take place? What neighbourhood of Toronto are you located in?
HY: We’re located at Queen & Spadina – we have two buildings that are about 12,000 sq feet between them. We have four classrooms, a co-working space, and community rooms and spaces. We recently introduced a Privacy Room where students can breastfeed, use for prayer, etc.
Q. What is the culture like at your organization? What is the cultural experience that students have?
HY: We endeavour to provide a welcoming space for students of all types. No matter how you learn, there’s something for you. We focus on project-based learning that gives you real industry skills. In each of our courses students will work with an instructor and mentor team who all work in their fields. Our instructors work at places like Shopify, Huge, Nascent Digital, or are powerhouse independent developers with massive online
followings, like the one and only Wes Bos. You can get a good sense of what makes us stand out from other coding schools by reading our Bootcamp and part-time courses landing pages (ex. course sizes, projects, instructor bios).
As our CEO is also the founder of Ladies Learning Code, we’re committed to ensuring better representation in tech. We’re the only coding school in Toronto with a female CEO, and our boot camp usually sits at 60-65% female-identifying students. That’s a majorly important aspect of our culture, and it’s what sets us apart from our competitors.
Lighthouse Labs
Location: 46 Spadina Avenue, south of King Street.
Courses: Web Development Intro & Bootcamp – iOS Development Intro & Bootcamp – Free Coding Workshops
Website: lighthouselabs.ca
Q: What kind of courses do you offer? Full time? Part-time? Weekends?
LL: At Lighthouse Labs, our goal is to find the best ways to train the next generation of Developers. We offer two full-time programs, our Web Development Bootcamp and our iOS Development Bootcamp, which can take a student from zero coding experience to professional Developer in 8 weeks with an over 95% employment rate for our job-seeking students.
In addition to our full-time Bootcamps, we offer 6-week courses: Intro to iOS Development and Intro to Web Development. These courses are made to introduce you to the fundamentals of programming, whether to assist in your current career or to learn the basics of building your own webpages.
Q: How long do the courses run for? Are they varying lengths?
LL: Our immersive Web & iOS DevelopmentBootcamps consist of 40-60 hours’ worth of remote prep work and 8 weeks in the classroom. Students spend upwards of 12 hours a day on campus over the 8 weeks, completing projects and assignments with mentorship from real-world Developers.
Our Intro to Web & iOS Development courses take place twice a week from 6pm-9pm for six weeks. We also often host free coding workshops on weekends and evenings!
Q: Where do the courses take place? What neighbourhood of Toronto are you located in?
LL: All of our classes are located at our office at 46 Spadina Ave (south of King, on Spadina).
Q: What is the culture like at your organization? What is the cultural experience that students have?
LL: We are an incredibly unique, weird place to learn and work. Culture fit is one of the most important qualities that we look for in new staff members, mentors, and for potential students coming into the space. The staff at Lighthouse Labs are highly engaged, and we all care to an almost unhealthy degree about our students, our community and each other.
The culture at Lighthouse hits you like a ton of bricks as soon as you enter the space; it’s always overflowing with people coding, working, laughing and chasing dogs.
The culture at Lighthouse hits you like a ton of bricks as soon as you enter the space; it’s always overflowing with people coding, working, laughing and chasing dogs. Every day, there are unique rituals and quirky traditions that contribute to the environment we’re all lucky enough to enjoy.
For future students, the learning environment at Lighthouse Labs is an intense, immersive learning environment with endless support. They’ll be surrounded by passionate and driven people, who have one goal in mind: to become amazing developers.
BrainStation
Location: King and Spadina
Courses: Digital Design, Development, Product and Marketing Training
Website: Brainstation.io/Toronto
Q: What kind of courses do you offer? Full time? Part-time? Weekends?
BStn: BrainStation teaches topics in design, development, product and marketing, taught through part-time evening courses, part-time weekend courses, and full-time programs. We also offer full-day workshops that are offered during the week and on weekends, which dive into the topics taught in our courses.
Q: How long do the courses run for? Are they varying lengths?
BStn: Part-time evening and weekend courses run for 10 weeks, 3 hours a week for a total of 30 hours of in-person learning. Our full-time programs are 10 weeks long and run Monday-Friday, 10:00am-6:00pm with over 400 hours of learning. These full-time programs can be taken in-person or online.
Q: Where do the courses take place? What neighbourhood of Toronto are you located in?
BStn: Our in-person offerings run at our state-of-the-art campus located at 460 King Street West, the heart of Toronto’s tech industry at King & Spadina. We also offer in-person courses in Vancouver.
Q. What is the culture like at your organization? What is the cultural experience that students have?
BStn: The BrainStation learning experience is unlike any other; every campus is buzzing with students who are passionate about building their digital skills, creating an atmosphere where people want to learn – the energy is fantastic. Our brick and beam campuses boast student lounges, stocked kitchens, a beautiful classroom space, and our very own cafe, Quantum Coffee. Our students embody a work hard, play hard attitude; we create content that challenges students to think differently, and mastering course content requires dedication and focus. Whether students are learning in class with us or learning online from the comfort of their home, our Educators and Success Teams are dedicated to helping them succeed and achieve their digital goals.
We completed a Creative Cultures Blog on BrainStation a few month’s ago. Please click here to read the full story:
RED Academy
Location: 462 Wellington Street West
Courses: Digital Marketing, U/X, UI, AR/VR
Website: redacademy.com
[Photos coming shortly from RED Academy.]
Q: What kind of courses do you offer? Full time? Part-time? Weekends?
RA: We offer 12 week full-time programs which run Monday-Friday from 9-5pm. Students can also enrol in double degree programs where they can mix and match the four accredited programs (Digital Marketing, UI & Communication Design, UX Designer, and Web Developer) to further develop their skills to stand out in the competitive market.
RED Academy also offers 10 week, 60 hour part-time courses weeknights in Digital Marketing, UI & Communication Design, UX, Web Development, and AR/VR. Digital Marketing and UX Design part-time courses are also offered on Saturdays.
Q: How long do the courses run for? Are they varying lengths?
RA: Full-time courses at RED Academy run for 12 weeks and can be combined for 24 weeks of education. Part-time courses run for 10 weeks, six hours a week.
Q: Where do the courses take place? What neighbourhood of Toronto are you located in?
RA: Courses take place at RED Academy’s Toronto campus at 101-462 Wellington St W, in the heart of King West and the city, surrounded by busy start-ups and world-class agencies.
Q: What is the culture like at your organization? What is the cultural experience that students have?
RA: The culture at RED Academy really emulates a home away from home. Staff and students spend so much time on campus and time with each other that everyone becomes part of the extended RED Academy family. With RED’s small class size and focus on student experience and outcomes, we are able to create a strong sense of community where students feel it’s safe to learn, grow and master their new skills for the tech industry. While working on real-world projects to build their portfolio, instructors take a very hands-off approach to encourage students to self-learn, be leaders, and take control over their future.
Not Available for Interview
The following two educational centres were not available for comment, however, both are worth checking out:
Camp Tech
Camp Tech offers a range of beginner and advanced courses including introductory Social Media, understanding Facebook ads, WordPress and Instagram. Courses are offered at their location at 455 Spadina Avenue. Visit their website at Camptech.ca
Bitmaker
Bitmaker describes themselves as Canada’s leading ‘tech skills accelerator’ having helped a very high percentage of their grads launch a new career in tech. They offer full and part-time courses in Web Development, Design and and Digital Marketing. They are located near King St West and Simcoe St. Visit their website at bitmaker.co