Discussion: Tracking Social Learning Spaces

As we get more comfortable settling our content into our team GithubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that 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/, I thought it might be time to start tracking our social learning space topics. Another facilitator and I recently very nearly scheduled the same topic for a social learning space–simply knowing where to look to see if another similar topic was in the works would have immediately fixed this situation for us.

So, how should we track Social Learning Space topics?

How do we all feel about creating a Github template with the title and description that would appear on 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. (similar but not as extensive as a lesson plan) for social learning space ideas?

To be clear, this would not replace Meetup, but it would allow us to see which spaces are in progress and which have already been created to avoid an unfortunate overlap. Adding these as issues/tasks in GitHub also allows us to better track team contributions and award badges.

Some thoughts:

  1. Some social learning spaces occur more than once (they can be repeated!), so I’m not sure the best way to track them. 
  2. It may help to have a “Planned” column, “Scheduled” column, and “Past SLS” column where frequent or semi-frequent contributors can move issues from one stage to the next… would it be okay if they moved back into “scheduled” if they’re a repeat topic?
  3. Once an SLS is complete, It would help to provide links to the recording of the SLS in this same space.

Important: It’s important to note that just because a social learning space has been taught online before, doesn’t mean it cannot be repeated for a new audience, or that a new facilitator cannot run the same social learning space on the same topic. New facilitators bring new knowledge, new audiences bring their own unique perspectives and experiences. Especially as these spaces become more and more interactive, each discussion will shed new light, attendees will build their own projects, and it will allow us to stay current with the most recent WordPress developments.

The ask: Is Github the right place to track social learning space topics? 

What is a useful way to track it–what I described, or something else? 

Please leave your thoughts in the comments. We would appreciate them!

#learn-wordpress, #social-learning, #training-team