Bill Fitzgerald was born in 1968, and worked as a teacher for 16 years. During that time, he taught English and history, and worked as a Technology Director at the K12 level. Bill began using technology in his own teaching in the early '90s; from there, he moved on to database design and systems administration. During that time, Bill began developing strategies to support technology integration in 1:1 laptop systems, and in desktop computing environments.
In 2003, Bill and Marc Poris founded FunnyMonkey, a Drupal development shop working primarily within the education industry. Bill started, and manages the Drupal in Education group on http://groups.drupal.org, and is active in various educational and open source communities. Bill blogs about education and technology at http://funnymonkey.com/blog.
When Bill is not staring deeply into computer screens, he can be found riding his fixed gear bicycle through Portland, OR, or spending far too much time drinking coffee.
This book took nearly six months to write, and I would not have been able to complete it without the support of numerous people. First, my wife Isabelle gave unending support and understanding throughout the entire process—when I was stressed, she helped me laugh, and that was a gift beyond words.
Additionally, Marc Poris and Jeff Graham, compatriots at FunnyMonkey, provided support of a different kind: when I was stressed, they wrote code, and their snippets and modules grace the pages of this text.
Finally, the team of people I worked with at Packt provided a great blend of guidance and support. David Barnes, Brinell Lewis, and Swapna Verlekar all worked with me to keep the project on track, and I thank them for the opportunity to write this book.