Topics covered will depend on your goals, your team's current skills, and time engaged. This list will give you an idea of what's available. If there's a topic or skill you don't see here and would like covered, please ask!

• Ruby's syntax, object model, and major built-in classes
  • Basic object-orientation principles
  • Program design with Ruby
  • The use of Ruby as a "scripting" tool for administrative tasks
  • Testing basics and Ruby testing facilities
• Basic Ruby concepts and features
  • "Everything's an object"
  • Local variables and assignment
  • Top-level method definitions
  • Arithmetic and logical operators
  • Global variables
  • The default object (self)
• Object orientation in Ruby
  • Messages and methods
  • Ruby's class model
  • Inheritance
  • The object method lookup-path
• Classes and modules
  • Class methods
  • Constants
  • Module "mix-ins" in classes
  • Modules as namespaces
  • Instance method definition syntax
  • Reopening class and module definitions
  • Overriding methods
• Instances and attributes
  • Instance variables
  • Attribute setter and getter techniques
  • Ruby and the "Equal Access Principle"
• Strings, symbols, and regular expressions
  • Basic string manipulation and indexing
  • Symbols and the symbol table
  • Regular expression syntax
  • Pattern-matching with scan, sub, and match
• Collection objects and iterators
  • Array, Hash, and Range classes
  • Code blocks and iteration
  • Creating iterators with the Enumerable module
  • Collection filtering, selecting, and transforming
  • Enumerators and external iteration
• Object dynamism
  • Adding singleton methods to objects
  • Modular extension of per-object behavior
  • Singleton classes
  • Extending existing classes
• Threads
  • Starting, running, stopping threads
  • Threads and variable scope
  • Thread-safety considerations
• Lambdas and function objects
  • Creating first-class functions
  • Lambda argument semantics
  • Variable scope and closures
  • Block, Proc, lambda interaction
• Metaprogramming
  • The eval family of methods
  • Programmatic method creation
  • Runtime reflection on objects
  • Traversing ObjectSpace
  • method_missing and other hooks and callbacks
• Exception handling
  • The Exception class hierarchy
  • Raising exceptions
  • Rescue and ensure clauses
  • Writing your own exception classes
• File and I/O operations
  • Keyboard input and screen output
  • Basic file reading and writing
  • File handles as iterators
  • Low-level I/O techniques
• Date, time, and numeric types
  • Date, Time, and DateTime classes
  • Date calculation and parsing
  • Integers and floating-point numbers
• The standard library
  • StringIO hybrid objects
  • Struct and OpenStruct
  • Math extensions
  • FileUtils and Pathname
  • Socket and network programming facilities
  • Administrative and system libraries
• Testing in Ruby
  • Unit testing principles
  • The MiniTest and TestUnit libraries
• Ruby tools
  • Interactive Ruby (irb)
  • Embedded Ruby (erb)
  • The RubyGems packaging system
  • Rake task management utility
• Rails Fundamentals
  • Rails overview and walkthrough
  • The Model-View-Controller framework architecture
  • Creating a new Rails application
  • Rails request-handling and URL parsing
  • Development-mode deployment
  • Generating models and controllers
• Database Creation and Configuration
  • Basic MySQL creation commands
  • Configuring database.yml
  • Automatically-generated migrations
  • Custom migrations
• Working with ActiveRecord
  • Modeling a domain
  • ActiveRecord models and Ruby classes
  • ActiveRecord associations
  • Writing Rails-friendly SQL
  • Data validation techniques
• ActionView Essentials
  • RHTML templates
  • Embedded Ruby (ERb)
  • Partial templates
  • Built-in and custom helper methods
  • Layouts
• Using ActionController
  • The session and flash facilities
  • Planning and writing actions
  • Controller/view communication via instance variables
  • The special params hash
  • Filter methods for specific actions
  • Redirecting actions
  • Explicit rendering commands
• Working with Forms in Rails
  • ActionPack form helper methods
  • "Magic" form-field population
  • Processing forms
  • Hash-based batch processing of CGI data
• Routing and REST
  • The routes.rb file
  • Simple route customization
  • Named routes
  • Resource mapping
  • Default REST action names
• Session management and security
  • The session hash
  • Password deployment and encryption
  • Avoiding SQL injection
• Deployment
  • Distributed deployment with Capistrano
  • Mongrel and mongrel_cluster
  • Load-balancing with Apache and nginx
• Testing in Rails
  • Writing fixtures
  • Unit tests
  • Functional tests
  • Integration tests
• AJAX, JavaScript, and RJS
  • JavaScript facilities and support in Rails
  • Basic DOM updating with AJAX calls
  • RJS templates
  • Graceful degradation of AJAX
• Reflective Rails
  • The Rails application console
  • Examining the Rails source code tree
  • The API docs