PROPOSAL: Ensuring high-quality video contributions to Learn WordPress

The Training Team is incredibly grateful to everyone who helped to launch Learn WordPress and has contributed valuable and solid content. Not least because Learn WordPress is going to be the first place that many people encounter in the WordPress project. Indeed, it may be the only part of the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ network that they ever engage with. This is due to the fact that many users will come looking for training on how to do something with WordPress and won’t have any interest in the community beyond that. If people come to Learn WordPress without any knowledge of how the WordPress community works as an open-source project, they will be expecting to find videos that match the quality they could find elsewhere.

A proposal

Learn WordPress content needs to be of high quality, but most people don’t have access to expensive recording equipment and it’s unrealistic to expect everyone to match the video quality of those who do. Production quality must not be a blocker for people contributing their skills and knowledge to the platform, so what can be done about it?

After thinking about this for a while, I have a proposal for how we can proceed that involves two areas of focus:

Distinguish between video types

The idea would be to distinguish between the highly produced videos and the community contributed ones in a similar way to how TED and TEDx talks are different from each other. This would mean there would be a separate taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. that clearly identifies which videos are produced with high-quality equipment and which ones are not. The visual distinction here would need to be discussed before we move forward with anything. My initial thinking is that there would be a section titled “Community Content” or similar that would feature the videos contributed by the community that are not of the production quality standards that are set. These production standards would need to be discussed and finalised before we implement anything here.

Collaborate on planning, but limit who can produce

The other area of focus to complement the separate video types would be to allow anyone to get involved in planning and scripting videos, but only allow approved people to actually record/produce the ones that are not included in the “Community Content” section. In practice, this could look something like this:

  1. Certain people are selected (through a public application process that anyone can submit themselves) to be approved as presenters & producers – this would have a few requirements along the lines of having access to high-quality recording equipment, being able to present well, etc. – this would need to be clearly defined and formalised with a vetting process for new applications. There would be a strong focus on building up a diverse set of voices for this group.
  2. Multiple people collaborate on outlining a video and writing a script for it – this would include anyone who would like to be involved.
  3. The finished outline and script is given to one of the approved presenters to record – this could be one of the people who wrote the script or it could be someone else.
  4. If the video is a screencast with a voiceover, we could even have a subject matter expert record the screencast and one of the approved presenters record the voiceover in order to ensure content can be written to cater to all skillsets.

The advantage of this is that anyone can get involved in creating content, even if they aren’t able (or don’t want to!) actually present/produce it, with the end result being that we have high-quality content produced to a high standard. All contributors would still be credited on the workshop video page regardless of their role in creating the video.

Feedback

Please provide feedback along the following lines:

  • Do you feel this proposal is a good way to ensure that Learn WordPress videos remain high-quality while also encouraging contributors to get involved?
  • Is there anything you would change about this proposal?
  • Do you have a different proposal to suggest?

This discussion on this post will be open until the end of the day on Wedensday, 6 October and then the comments will be summarised with a decision being made based on what is discussed.

#learn-wordpress, #proposal, #videos

WordPress 101: Microcourses Proposal

To further develop Learn for everyone, there are a few problems I’d like to see the training team solve through structured Microcourses. These microcourses will be “choose your own adventure” style. Before enrolling in a microcourse, learners will be prompted to assess their own existing knowledge and use their own interest to guide their course choices. 

Microcourses will be:

  • Largely text-and-image based (with a few short videos thrown in for variety) for accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)
  • Bite-sized; every lesson (currently known as a “workshop”) should be able to be completed quickly, within 5-10 minutes
  • Self-paced; unlike with longer videos, Learners can set down this learning and pick it back up as their schedule allows.
  • Leveled based on pre-existing knowledge (101/102? We would need to name each level and provide guidance on what someone would be expected to know at each level.)
  • Interactive; each course will prompt users to do something with their knowledge.

This benefits all learners because it creates…

  1. A shorter period of ramp-up time for the basics (from 4.5 hours to 1 hour or less for the basic WordPress 101 course, preferably)
  2. Personalized learning experiences based on need & interest
  3. Self-Paced learning with deliberate scaffolds in place for neurodiverse learners

Eventually, I would love for each course to be recommended based on how people answer certain questions. For now, however, each microcourse page will include “suggested prerequisites” — in other words, skills and knowledge people will need to have in order to best work through a new microcourse. 


Here is a potential structure for a Basic WordPress 101 Microcourse:

Setting Up WordPress

Prerequisites: None!

Take this course if…

  • You are getting started for the first time with WordPress;
  • You haven’t decided on a host yet;
  • You haven’t picked a domain name yet;
  • You haven’t set up WordPress in any way yet.

By the end of this unit, you will be able to… (Quiz questions will be based on these statements–you’ll notice these are very action-based)

  • Describe difference between a host and a domain name
  • Determine which kind of hosting may be best for your website development needs
  • Set up WordPress on a host or on a server of your own
  • Navigate WordPress’ unique dashboard

    Do you know this information already? Take the quiz and earn a badge!

Modules within a Microcourse: Modules/lessons would explore those objectives bit by bit in a fraction of the existing course time. Structured, carefully crafted formative assessments would exist throughout the course (partially to give us feedback on our own instruction). This would ultimately culminate in a summative assessment (quiz for now, complete with action tasks) at the end of the course.


Course Complete!

When someone completes a microcourse, it would be useful to provide suggestions for the next most useful microcourses they might take depending on their goals. 

For example, on a “Course Complete!” page, learners might see something like this:

Congratulations! You’ve finished the course, “Setting Up WordPress”. To decide what you’d like to learn next, let’s find out: Which of these is closest to your goal?

  1. Design a WordPress website with pages that does not have a blog.
  2. Design a WordPress website with pages that also has a blog.
  3. Set up a WordPress blog–no need for additional pages.
  4. Something more advanced (eCommerce website, etc.)

Potential Personalization: Depending on functionality, ideally, each of these options might take learners to a slightly different grouping of microcourses . 

For example, a single lesson for setting up a blog page wouldn’t be toggled on for a course if someone didn’t want a blog on their website. 


To find the proposed course outline (tentative), please click here to be taken to the public GoogleDoc. You are welcome to comment upon that document as well. I would like to begin work on this by Monday, the 16th of August.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Is there a topic I am missing from the original course outline? 

Drop your ideas in the comments! 

#course-outline, #microcourses, #new-course, #training

PROPOSAL: Learner achievements on profiles

A planned feature for Learn is integration with WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ profiles. There’s already an open issue on GitHub for recognising contributors with badges, so I’d like to nail down what kind of thing we would like to see regarding recognising learner achievements on profiles.

Here’s my proposal:

  • An activity stream entry whenever a learner completes a full course.
  • A persistent line showing the learner’s average grade on Learn WordPress – I envision this in the top right info blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. above the social links, but happy to be shown otherwise.
  • A new tab under ‘Activity’ called ‘Learning’ (or similar) that shows all of the courses they have completed along with their average grade for the course and what date they completed it on. This could also show individual lessons completed along with the relevant grades, or any other learning data that we have, but I think that courses will be the primary thing here.
  • A ‘Learner’ badge for everyone who has completed at least one course. This badge could use the same icon as the Training Team badge, but in a different colour.

One caveat is that we don’t have a lot of courses on the site at this stage, but that is changing as we develop new content so my hope is that we will have these rewards in place now and as content is created the rewards will flow naturally.

The goal here is twofold:

  1. To surface learning data as a way to make Learn WordPress more valuable to people, not to mention more prominent and visible
  2. To provide motivation for people to take courses

Is there anything else we could do on profiles to recognise learner achievements? Once we have agreement on this proposal it can be moved over to GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ for implementation.

Who can Learn help?

Defining who the Learn WordPress website is for is rather vast. Then again, so is 42% of the internet using WordPress.

Below is an evolving list of types of users for WordPress. This list will continue to evolve.

Interests

See Care and influence: a theory about the WordPress community

WordPress user types

  • Website Visitors
  • Subscriber
  • Content Contributor
  • Content Author
  • Content Editor
  • Website Administrator
  • MultisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. Super Administrator

Extenders

  • Freelancer, Solorpreneur, Botique Agency
  • Hobbyist, Side Hustlers
  • Support
  • Quality Assurance
  • Designer
  • Developer
  • Engineer
  • Project Manager
  • Product Owner/Product Manager
  • Marketing
  • Dev Ops
  • Podcasters with a WordPress-related topic
  • Vloggers with a WordPress-related topic
  • Newsletters with a WordPress-related topic
  • Bloggers with a WordPress-related topic
  • WordPress-adjacent events
  • Trainers/tutorials with a WordPress-related topic

Contributors

  • Make teams and related WordPress project contirbutors
  • MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. Organizers
  • WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Organizers
  • Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. Contributors

Leaders

  • Release squads
  • Make team roles
  • Executive Director
  • Project Lead

Experience

Skills progression

  • Entry level
  • Mid level
  • Specializing between front/back end
  • Senior level
  • Career advancement
  • Ongoing professional development

Learning Styles

See The 8 Learning Styles

  • Visual (spatial) Learners.
  • Aural (audio) Learners.
  • Physical (tactile) Learners.
  • Verbal Learners (aka Linguistic Learners)
  • Logical (analytical) Learners.
  • Social Learners (aka Linguistic Learners)
  • Solo Learners.
  • Natural/ Nature Learners.

Considerations

  • AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)
  • Internationalization
  • Bandwidth consumption
  • Content for WordCamp Youth programs
  • Lowering barriers to entry

PROPOSAL: An Audit Tool for Learn

As Learn grows, the need for maintaining content in step with WordPress releases also grows. We would like to implement a content audit tool. This will keep the tasks of auditing and then revising content much more manageable.

The Training Team has sought a content audit tool for a number of years. Many of the same requests are still wanted.

With the current workflow of Learn, we’ve revised the list of what would help keep content up to date.

The current workflow:

We are using Edit Flow, which may still be the solution with some enhancements or additional features. Our general content revision process has looked like this:

  • Many users with Editor user role permission to have login-access to content on Learn. 
  • When WordPress has an update, and when the team has the capacity, contributors will manually review each piece of content on the site.
  • Users check a series of Edit Flow Custom MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. Fields to indicate what needs to be updated and another unchecks the box when it is done 
  • Users cannot view all posts that have the same checkmark ticked (like the functionality of viewing all posts with the same tag). 
  • Custom meta is related to the entire post, not noting specific elements such as several screenshots
  • Users with Editor access for auditing have created their own content, not following the lesson plan templates, and published. The team process is to use a template for the content and undergo several reviews before publishing. 
  • Due to the complexity of this process, the team has not made much progress in staying current with feature changes.

Proposed workflow:

  • More specific uses of user permissions, per https://make.wordpress.org/training/2021/05/27/proposal-adding-custom-user-roles-to-learn-wordpress/.
  • Each screenshot, video, and article could have a taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. indicating 
    • The version of WordPress
    • Option of the user interface (show all posts that have the blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. selector, or some part of the admin dashboard)
    • A way to note if the outdated content is preserved for historical purposes (not to be updated)
    • Taxonomy would be viewable like tags, allowing an editor to see a listing of all content types of that notation
    • Apply this taxonomy to lessons, workshops, and courses
  • A checklist before publishing that indicates various stages of review and can be modified by admins in an ongoing way without coding
    • Pending Review
    • Spelling/grammar review
    • Technical review
    • SEO review
    • Require that posts are approved by users in a specific role (editors can review updates, admins can review new content to be published)
    • The ability to assign a lesson plan to a “Content Owner” who is different than the author. It can help identify who is currently responsible for that lesson plan.
  • An expiration date. Any content that should be reviewed on a regular basis can have an expiration date that will provide automatic reminders that eyeballs are needed on that content piece. In the Content Audit pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party this can also include email reminders being sent to the Content Owner. It also displays messages on the front end for logged-in users with the proper permissions.
  • Columns are added to the All Posts screen that indicates the Content Owner, Content Status, Notes, and Expiration date. This makes for a very quick overview that contributors could use to identify the highest priority (or low-hanging fruit) from the list of things to be done. Use the review status in the Learn admin dashboard to show stats of lessons needing review, flagged for updates, at various stages of completion. https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2021/02/26/would-stats-dashboards-help-your-team/
  • Nice to have
    • Require featured imageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts. (and how to set a featured image on lesson plans)
    • Require ALT Text descriptions
    • Check for any broken and external links (outside WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/)
    • An SEO plugin that will assist with the tone of voice and complexity of reading

Those who have done considerable content auditing, what tools or features have you used? What would make a tool like this easier to implement across several WordPress teams?

A big thank you to @juliekuehl (original audit request), @azhiyadev, and @evarlese for helping to write this proposal.

Leave your ideas below!

#content-audit

Proposal: Adding custom user roles to Learn WordPress

There are many ways to contribute to Learn WordPress. Folks can join via contributing lesson plans to the Training team, organizing workshop-based discussion groups through local meetups, or submitting their own video workshop or course idea.

Some of these efforts happen outside the Learn WordPress website itself – like organizing a discussion group or using a lesson plan with a local meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area.. For the most part, Learn WordPress contributors share a common home in learn.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/

A flowchat of some common ways to contribute to Learn WordPress, including creating workshops, writing and reviewing lesson plans, and leading or attending discussion groups.

Adding a big asterisk that this is by far from a definitive list of ways to contribute, but just some common pathways!

The current set-up

Currently, when someone contributes to Learn WordPress, they’re added to the Learn WordPress site using one of the standard user roles:

  • Administrator
  • Editor
  • Author

Author is primarily used for workshop contributors (i.e., folks who’ve recorded a workshop) and new Training team contributors helping with a specific lesson plan. Administrators are reserved for Training team representatives and Community deputies who need to add new users to the site. Folks organizing contributors days have also been given temporary Administrator access to help with onboarding new contributors.

For everyone else – and for most folks with access to Learn WordPress – Editor permissions are the most common. This is particularly important for Training team contributors, where folks need access to multiple lesson plans to draft, review, and copy edit content

The Learn WordPress Dashboard is robust. There are many options available on the backend for setting up lesson plans, workshops, quizzes, courses, and so on. Many similarly-named things (Lessons and Lesson Plans being one!) can make starting more challenging. Likewise, the Editor role provides a lot of control over the site from the get-go, which can be problematic from a security perspective in the long term.

Proposed new user roles

With all that in mind, I would like to propose two new custom user roles to better fit Learn’s functionality and structure.

Workshop Reviewers: When reviewing Meetup and WordCamp applications, Community Deputies have a custom metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. box to share vetting notes. Sometimes this information is confidential, especially when a proposed application/applicant may not meet the program guidelines. The current workflow for evaluating workshop submissions is very similar to this process, and the Learn siteLearn site The Training Team publishes its completed lesson plans at https://learn.wordpress.org/ which is often referred to as the "Learn" site. would benefit from a role for workshop reviewers to have access to a confidential meta box for communicating review notes with one another.

Lesson Plan Editors: By default, lesson plans are developed with a series of checks and reviews to help ensure instructional design quality. This means that Training team contributors, including new contributors, need to access and edit multiple lesson plans. This includes folks like Subject Matter Experts, Copy Editors, and Testers. For folks volunteering to draft or review lesson plans, access to the other post types on Learn WordPress is not relevant or needed, but edit access to all lesson plans is.

Feedback needed

In the end, the proposed user roles would look like:

User rolePermissions
AuthorEdit access to specific Workshops
Edit access to specific Lesson Plans
Lesson Plan EditorsEdit access to all Lesson Plans
EditorsEdit access to all Lesson Plans
Edit access to all Workshops
Edit access to course functionality
Workshop ReviewersEdit access to all content types, plus
Deputy-level access to meta field for application vetting
Ability to add new users to the site
AdministratorsFull site access and permissions

It would be really helpful to get feedback on the following specifically: 

  • How does this make contributing easier?
  • How does it make contributing more difficult?
  • Is there a simpler way to achieve the same goals?
  • Do we need to consider where learners/people using the Learn site might fit into these roles?

Big thank you to @courane01 and @azhiyadev for helping to write this proposal, and @hlashbrooke for reviewing.

Proposal to expand the mission of the Training team

When the Training team got started in 2013, it was invited to help WordPress education grow at scale, by creating and distributing world-class lesson plans that anyone could use to teach WordPress and WordPress-related skills. 

Since that beginning, lots of great work has been done. The result is an impressive repository of lesson plans and the site learn.wordpress.org itself. Those lesson plans provide an empowering framework for educating others in live settings — and even help new contributors develop their voice and expertise through workshops, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. events, and other opportunities for speaking. The team has a lot to be proud of, and a bright future ahead. 

When the team started, the mission was defined this way:

The WordPress training team creates downloadable lesson plans and related materials for instructors to use in live environments.

Learn WordPress has grown considerably since launch, and is well-positioned to accelerate the growth of WordPress by helping people learn to use, extend, and contribute to our open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. CMS. In that same time, the Training team has also grown and adapted.

To expand and improve the instructional content for all users of WordPress, learn.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ needs contributors with experience in (or passion for) instructional design, discussion group facilitation, learning assessment, and many other aspects of learning or training. 

I propose expanding the mission of the Training Team to include more of that work, focused on the effort to make learn.wordpress.org a high quality, up-to-date WordPress learning platform — much of which the team has already been doing. 

The new mission statement could be something like:

The WordPress training team helps people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through synchronous and asynchronous learning as well as downloadable lesson plans for instructors to use in live environments, via learn.wordpress.org.

Feedback?

I’d love to know your thoughts or concerns about this proposed expansion in scope; please share in the comments below!

Deep thanks to @courane01, @evarlese, and @hlashbrooke for their feedback on, and edits to, this proposal.

High-Level Roadmap to Learning WordPress Development

Things I’ve heard recently:

  • How do you learn WordPress? In what order should I learn things?
  • Learning WordPress is easy, there are so many resources.
  • Why can’t these senior ReactReact React is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces. https://reactjs.org/. front-end devs understand WordPress?

WordPress is versatile and open, as in open-source, and also as in jump in where you want and go as far as you’d like.

When we say “learn WordPress”, that can mean many things:

  • Learn to write a post/page?
  • Learn to manage a site?
  • Learn to create a child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/.?
  • Learn to customize with pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party overrides or using plugins to achieve customization?
  • Learn to make a theme from scratch?
  • Learn to make a plugin?
  • Learn to make a blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.?
  • Learn to use APIs for a decoupled approach?

When we think about building a website, there are skillsets around

  • Content
  • Design/UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it./UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing.
  • Development (with code)
  • Quality Assurance
  • Front end
  • Back end
  • Full stack
  • DevOps
  • Translation
  • AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)

At 41% of the internet and growing, there really is a lot to learn. Where you start, and what your own outcomes are can vary. We progress from being a website visitor to using the software and some of us even go on to write code that makes the software. There are so many skills to acquire in that journey.

My favorite myth to dispel is that teaching or learning is easy. Like a final release, things should be free of bugs and intuitively work well. Behind the scenes, a great deal of work happens to provide the user or student with a cohesive learning experience. Likewise, without a roadmap or guidance on what to learn next, you can get lost in a sea of resources.

I’ve had the honor of teaching WordPress in a development bootcamp environment this past year with a focus on front-end development. While getting a good look around at the bootcamp and non-WordPress (or even non-CMS) web developer ecosystem, I frequently encountered roadmaps to learning. Think of the map as a syllabus handed to students, sharing where we are starting and what our goals will include. Yet there are few maps that incorporate WordPress or PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. into the web developer’s learning.

Let’s help folks get started at any point on their journey, and discover any gaps in learning, and provide suggestions on what could be learned next.

This map will hopefully help shape the content on https://Learn.WordPress.org and could be implemented in a more visually organized way of navigating lesson plans, courses, and workshops.

Roughly, here is what I have found. The image may be a bit small, so check https://whimsical.com/embed/EG8T9S7zddbSVhnm85MmDf.

High Level Roadmap to learning WordPress development

I am attempting to get these details and sequences out of my head and into something presentable for others. I welcome feedback, collaboration, and input on these.

Certainly far more can be included into this roadmap that encompasses more details. However, I wanted to pause here to avoid overwhelming folks with too many specifics.

I have incorporated @chanthaboune WordPress Contributor Team Structure and @mapk’s Care and influence: a theory about the WordPress community into the overview.

What’s Missing?

Leave your feedback below

  • Employers, what do you look for in new-hires?
  • Experienced developers, what do you wish you had more guidance around? What is new or emerging that should be included?
  • Aspiring developers, what have you discovered so far?

Learn WordPress Working Group – Call for Handbook Volunteers

Whether you’re a first-time blogger or a seasoned developer, there’s always more to learn.

That’s how start the Learn WordPress site which encourages visitors to take a workshop and learn, or use a lesson plan to share WordPress with others. The one huge thing we’re missing on the Learn siteLearn site The Training Team publishes its completed lesson plans at https://learn.wordpress.org/ which is often referred to as the "Learn" site. is the documentation to help people who want to share WordPress with others create the very video workshops we’re sharing. It’s time to fix that with a brand new handbook!

Some documentation was written up as we built the workshop portion of Learn but it’s incomplete and unpublished. I’d like to change that by the end of February 2021 by publishing a handbook for contributing to Learn by creating workshops, leading discussion groups, and vetting workshop applications. 

Since this is a relatively new way to contribute we’ve been making it up as we go along, but now it’s time to get these processes out of our minds and onto the screen.

I’ve put together an outline for the handbook and with the help of @evarlese and Hari Shanker we’ve fleshed out quite a bit of content. But there is still more to add and there is the whole thing to review. 

If you’d like an advance look at the existing documentation, you can view the read only document here. Edit access will be given to contributors next week.

This coming Monday, February 1 at 9:00am PST I’ll host a discussion in the #training channel of WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. to discuss next steps and answer questions for volunteers. If you’re interested in contributing by helping to build this handbook please join me then. If you’re not available at that time feel free to comment here to show interest or ask questions or pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me in slack where my username is camikaos. 

+make.wordpress.org/community/

#learn-wordpress

Updating Sprint ahead of Learn launch

Howdy folx! In order to get some momentum in updating the lesson plans on Learn WordPress prior to the upcoming launch we’re hosting two updating sprints!

What?

  • Updating and checking images in the lesson plans on Learn WordPress to ensure that the images are: all images are stored in the Learn Media Library, missing images are replaced, and all images contain alt text. (Instructions are here.)
  • Reviewing code snippets in lesson plans. (Instructions are here.)
  • Completing lessons that are “Almost ready, but already live on Learn” as listed in the Training team TrelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing..
  • Linking slides from GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ into Learn Lesson Plans. (Instructions to come soon.)

You can find more details on our priorities post.

When?

There will be two work sprints on Tuesday, December 1, 2020:

Where?

We’ll be congregating in #training on community SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/..

Questions?

If you have any questions or need guidance during the sprints, Slack will be the best place to go. If you have questions in advance, or need access to the Learn siteLearn site The Training Team publishes its completed lesson plans at https://learn.wordpress.org/ which is often referred to as the "Learn" site. to help with updates, please comment here.

If neither of these times work for you and you’d like to host a sprint at another time, please let me know!

#learn-wordpress