Recap for the Learn Working Group meeting – January 7, 2020

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Attendees: @camikaos, @courane01, @azhiyadev, @jessplease, @webcommsat, @meher, @nalinininstopnewsuk, @carike, @paaljoachim, @evarlese

Upcoming team meetings

Meeting Recap

Reflections on 2020

Overall, we’re excited to have officially launched the Learn WordPress resource in December and for all the hard work that went into it from a variety of contributors and teams. In particular, it was really rewarding to see an idea that started way back in 2013 get put to good use, especially during a year like 2020.

There were also some ideas to share stats and a recap post-launch, especially to highlight some good news after all the hard work that was put into it, and to consider some revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. to how we approach communications and emails from 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. in particular.

Brainstorming for 2021

We had a really productive discussion around ideas and priorities for 2021. The relatively recent Learn WordPress: Blue sky thinking post allowed us to collect some ideas for the future, and in our discussion we highlighted a number of both long-term and intermediate goals to consider, including:

  • Building out documentation to help encourage new contributors to get involved, and to help new workshop presenters and discussion group leaders navigate the application process.
    • Additionally, developing guidelines around pedagogical principles or curriculum design.
  • Creating parity between lesson plans and workshop videos, as well as working to coordinate both into larger-scale courses and course material.
  • Developing a process around coordinating new content to coincide with major releases.
  • Exploring 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. improvements to the site, including things like how lesson plans are displayed and integrating related content, such as embedding video or related links into lesson plans and workshops.
  • Translating Learn WordPress, both including content like videos and lesson plans, as well as the site itself (i.e. using a 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 or GlotPress).
  • Exploring ways to make video more accessible, especially for viewers with limited bandwidth, i.e. being able to download subtitles/scripts for a video or including “learning hours” for each workshop or course. Likewise, making sure everything can be downloaded for those who are teaching offline or who have limited bandwidth.

Meeting times

Based on the previous Doodle, the proposed meeting times are the first Thursday of every month at 15:00 UTC and the third Thursday of every month at 19:00 UTC.

We will host our second meeting of the month on January 21st at 15:00 UTC since the first was at 19:00 UTC. In other words, the meeting times will be flipped for January, but we’ll move into the regular proposed schedule in February.

Action items/Get involved

@carike posted a proposal for COPPA compliance on Learn WordPress that could use some additional feedback and comments.

If you’re interested in helping to manage the HelpScout queue for Learn WordPress, reviewing discussion group leader applications, and workshops – or if you would like to submit a workshop – you can get involved any time in the #training channel in Slack.

Likewise, for anyone who attended the meeting, please feel free to add anything that I might have missed in the notes. Everyone is welcome to continue to share input and feedback on what was discussed in the comments, as well!

#learnwg