This post marks the kickoff of a new WordPress contributor group, aimed at the creation of standardized WordPress training courses. The idea is that we should have curriculums on 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/ that meetups or individuals can download and use to run local trainings (like new user workshops), and/or that can be used with online courseware to help people self-teach.

This group’s work will overlap somewhat with the Support group (especially where documentation is concerned) and the Events group (especially around training events), but the creation of curriculums is specific enough that it deserves to be a standalone project — especially since we’ve been talking about it for years!

Here’s the mission:

• Reach out to the community and find out what kind of training is going on already (workshops, college courses, etc), and who among these teachers is willing to share their curriculum/teaching materials.
• Collect and collate donated curriculums.
• Identify the first round of courses that should be created. This should be a list with short descriptions including experience level/prerequisite knowledge. Eventually, we’ll ideally have beginner, intermediate, and advanced courses (plus additional special topics) around each of the areas of WordPress knowledge: using the application, administering a site, managing a 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. installation, theme development, 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 development, coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. contribution, translation, etc. Basically every topic that gets a handbook should probably have a round of courses for hands-on learning in that area. For the first phase, let’s start with one.
• Use the best material from the donated curriculums as a starting point for officially approved courses, and create the first course (a new user workshop will probably have the most to work with and allow all contributors to participate).
• Do some testing of the curriculum with live audiences, revise as needed.
• Publish the curriculum on wordpress.org!
• Post-mortem to identify ways of improving the process.
• Branch out and tackle additional courses.

This is a starting point, so once there’s an active group of contributors working on the project, if this plan needs to be revised, that’s fine, of course. It is important, however, to start with a small scope for the sake of getting something completed that can be used as a case study before taking on bigger projects in this area.

Christine Rondeau and Lisa Sabin-Wilson have both had experience providing WordPress training and have both offered to help get this project started, so I’m making them both admins on this blog. They can give people posting privileges as it becomes clear who is going to be involved with this group as an active contributor.

To get started, if you have conducted WordPress training or classes and would be willing to contribute your existing curriculum, or if you have experience in Instructional Design and want to help with the design of courses, or if you just want to be part of this and are willing to do grunt work like following up on emails and taking care of spreadsheets and the like, introduce yourself in a comment on this post! Helpful info to include in your comment: Your level of experience with WordPress in general, training specifically, local WP events (meetups/WordCamps/workshops), and what you are interested in helping with.

In December, all the contributor groups will be voting for team reps, and this group will be included in that. In the meantime, Christine and Lisa will take care of posting updates to the rest of the contributor groups to keep people up to date with your efforts here.

I’m so excited to see what you all create! I can’t wait to be able to point people to wordpress.org for courses they can teach in their communities. This is going to be huge. Thank you in advance to everyone who’s about to pitch in. 🙂

#procedures