Triage Squad GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ triage: Biweekly on Thursdays 07:00 UTC
For those who are new here, the WordPress Training Team helps people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through educational content hosted on Learn.WordPress.org.
Meeting recap notes are one of the best ways to get started contributing to a team, and you can find details on how to write notes in this handbook page.
Content Overriding Issue: As mentioned in the Slack channel, original content was overridden by a translated version. Thank you to everyone who communicated and resolved the issue.
Important Reminder: Please DO NOT assign translated lessons to a course. Publish them as standalone lessons.
Updates:@piyopiyofox has updated the handbook page. See the Slack post “Translating and Publishing a Lesson”
Tutorial Deprecation: To reduce content types on the Learn WP site, Tutorials are being deprecated and will be converted into Lessons (Tutorial data migrationMigrationMoving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies.#2393). A note has been added to all Tutorial-related handbook pages. Once the conversion is complete, these pages will be fully retired.
Join us for an opportunity to discuss and collaborate on learning pathway content. Whether you’re working on content or interested in contributing, this is the perfect time to meet, ask questions, and find projects to work on. Meetings alternate between two time zones each month
Come and Contribute
This Week’s Focus: Review 10 issues following the content review guidelines.
Feedback Awaiting Validation: 25 issues need validation. Refer to “Validating and Applying Content Feedback” for guidance.
Topics Awaiting Vetting: 4 issues need vetting. Refer to “Vetting Topic Ideas” for guidance.
Good First Issues for Developers: Currently, no issues require development. Refer to “Developing Learn WordPress” for instructions.
Validated Feedback Awaiting Fix: 20 issues need fixes. Faculty Editors should follow the “Validating and Applying Content Feedback” guide.
Contribution Acknowledgement
Badges Awarded:
At the end of the month
Props:
Special thanks to @devmuhib for uploading many thumbnails and organizing a local Contributor Hour to create more thumbnails.
Any other props for this week? Please add to the thread.
Contributors in the Community:
Check out an interview with content creator @west7 in the recent WP Briefing podcast discussing Learning Pathways and their benefits for WordPress learners.
If you have topics for the meeting, please comment on this issue.
Contributors in the Community:
Check out @zoonini‘s presentation, “Untangling Templates,” from WC Canada. Look for the live stream or replay.
You can see all meetings scheduled on this meeting calendar. If you are new to the Training Team, then come walk through our onboarding program to get to know the team and how we work. And if you have questions, feel free to reach out in the #training Slack channel at any time.
The WordCamp US Contributor Day will be taking place on the 17th of September 2024! In preparation for the day, we’d like you to share ideas of what contributors at the Training Team table can get involved with that day.
You can read our Preparing for a Flagship WordCamp Contributor Day handbook page to learn more about how the Training Team prepares for Flagship WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. Contributor Days.
For those who are new here, the WordPress Training Team helps people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through educational content hosted on Learn.WordPress.org.
Meeting recap notes are one of the best ways to get started contributing to a team, and you can find details on how to write notes in this handbook page.
WordCamp Europe 2024 presentation recap — team repTeam RepA Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts.@bsanevans shared some ideas that folks at WCEU had with us. Let’s review the ideas and leave feedback on this post.
@lada7042 set up a GatherPress test site and needs help testing! Please Click the RSVP button and create a login to test RSVPing to the event
The Training Team 2024 Half Year Review is now up! Please share your feedback on the current progress of our goals. Just 6 more months to go!
Looking for volunteers
We are looking for folks to review tutorials and determine if we keep, update, or deprecate them. Please check the linked spreadsheet and help us review this content.
The Thumbnail Creation Project also requires volunteers to help make thumbnails for the new Learn siteLearn siteThe Training Team publishes its completed lesson plans at https://learn.wordpress.org/ which is often referred to as the "Learn" site.– you could also add that we held an Online Workshop Thumbnail-a-thon to look at the thumbnail-making process together, and the recording is available. All are welcome to watch it and help out: https://wordpress.tv/2024/06/25/thumbnail-a-thon-lets-make-graphics-together-for-the-new-learn-wordpress-org/
Other news
GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ clean up updates – I have gone through our Content Development board and closed issues that are not Lessons, Learning Pathways content or Online Workshops. Some issues flagged as Tutorial remain as we determine whether or not they can be made into Lessons.
This week the dev team shipped a number of templates, a fallback featured imageFeatured imageA 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. (used in the card grids in all archives), and filters on taxonomyTaxonomyA 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. archives. See screenshots in Slack.
The community’s help will be needed when the site is ready for QA.
Work is under way on a video walkthrough, News announcement, and Media Corps briefing – GitHub issue.
We’ll plan an Online Workshop to go through the new site for week after launch so it can be included in News announcement.
An Online Workshop Thumbnail-a-thon was held yesterday to get community help in generating thumbnails. Help is still needed! Watch the recording and check out the resources in the comments, and pingPingThe 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.” in the #training channel in Slack if you have any questions.
Contributor Updates
As noted in last week’s meeting, we are transforming the bi-weekly Faculty Updates into Contributor Updates , and invite everyone in the Training Team to share what they have been working on recently
You can engage in sharing updates:
What have you been working on and how has it been going?
Anything you’ve accomplished since the last meeting?
Do you have any blockers?
Can other Training Team members help you in some way?
Content reviews including videos and scripts. Interim training rep duties. No blockers. We can always use more people reviewing content/tutorials for the new pathways.
I am still trying to find my way around the extensive information provided by the training team. (Sorry for my slowness.)
Creating thumbnails
Talking to the local team about the need for learning path translations
Discussions with MeetupMeetupAll 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. organisers about the possibilities of forming supportive learning groups of participants in learning paths
Wrapping up the second course cohort and preparing recap post
Helping coordinate the Learn remake, including wrangling thumbnail creation and hosting thumbnail-a-thon Online Workshop, and planning community QA/testing
Drafting a proposal for our content migrationMigrationMoving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. project
Preparing Learn Newsletter and Monthly Update I’m also preparing for some AFK next week
Open Discussions
Does anyone have an open discussion topic to bring to the team?
@gusa I have a random question coming out the recent Contributor Working Group chat. In our discussion about potential mentorship projects for the next cohort, the idea of do_action for mentored contributions once again came up. This was also something we’ve on/off discussed with the training team in meetings and related issues (for example). Noticing that issue was closed (yesterday I think?), I was wondering if that means there’s been progress (or possibly because that particular issue hasn’t been active recently).
In addition to creating training materials for do_action, it seems like other potential mentorship projects along with the goal to launch “On Demand Mentorship” would benefit from resources provided by the Training Team.
Curious if there’s been recent cross team/working group discussions on any of the above.
For those who are new here, the WordPress Training Team helps people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through educational content hosted on Learn.WordPress.org.
Meeting recap notes are one of the best ways to get started contributing to a team, and you can find details on how to write notes on this handbook page.
Looking for feedback
@Laura A set up a GatherPress test site and needs help testing! Please Click the RSVP button and create a login to test RSVPing to the event!
We are looking for folks to review tutorials and determine if we keep, update, or deprecate them.
The Thumbnail Creation Project also requires volunteers to help make thumbnails for the new Learn siteLearn siteThe Training Team publishes its completed lesson plans at https://learn.wordpress.org/ which is often referred to as the "Learn" site..
Other News
Translating lesson content: It looks like if translators assign a translated lesson to the original course and module, it replaces that lesson in the course (more information here). We will need to investigate to confirm this, but until we do, it might be useful if translators of lesson content don’t assign the course or module to a translated lesson.
The Thumbnail-a-thon online event on the 26th of June, with 18 participants working on creating thumbnails for the project.
A total of 21 thumbnails were created for the project
@zeelthakkar is interested in creating thumbnails. @west7 suggested reviewing @zoonini‘s online workshop recording for guidance and to reach out to @zoonini with any questions. @jagirbahesh also interested to creating thumbnails.he will check the post. @sumitsingh and @zoonini are available to help with creating thumbnails. Feel free to pingPingThe 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 if you need assistance. @zoonini thanked for pitching in! @piyopiyofox advises that translated lessons should only be created as standalone unless the entire course is fully translated.
@Jamie Madden expressed appreciation for @west7 diligence in updating content based on recent reviews. @Laura A thanked @Jamie Madden for hosting his first Training Team meeting! @jagirbahesh suggested giving props to @zeelthakkar for actively working on meeting recap posts. @zooninisuggested giving props to @laurahartwigdesign for creating 53 thumbnail graphics for lessons on the Learn WP site!
An amazing amount of work has been going into the learning pathways project. Folks are always welcome to volunteer their time to our team projects as well
Heads-up that the site is nearly ready for formal QA/testing, and a post will be going up soon on the Training team p2 with instructions on what to test, and where to report bugs.
What have you been working on and how has it been going?
Anything you’ve accomplished since the last meeting?
Do you have any blockers?
Can other Training Team members help you in some way?
Sure, here’s a rephrased version:
@Jamie Madden has started their role as the training team interim rep. They have been reviewing several advanced tutorials and assisting @west7 with scripts and feedback on a few tutorials. Currently, they have no blockers.
@lada7042 is preparing for her upcoming online workshop after a productive WP fun day exploring new site editor features.
@west7 is currently publishing the Intermediate user learning pathway, updating existing content, and developing new lessons.
@sumitsingh is providing training new WP users, reviewing and translating Hindi content, and planning to create more thumbnails.
@zoonini wrapped up the course cohort, published a recap post, coordinated the thumbnail project, assisted with the Learn WP remake, guided program admin, published the Faculty program retirement plan, and prepared a testing/QA plan for the Learn site.
@Rico creates thumbnails, trains WP users, and organizes local learning groups to go through learning paths together.
@cnormandigital is completing the Intermediate Theme Developer learning pathway.
@devmuhib is publishing thumbnails on Learn WordPress, mentoring in the Guide Program, and assisting with translations.
You can see all meetings scheduled on this meeting calendar. If you are new to the Training Team, then come walk through our onboarding program to get to know the team and how we work. And if you have questions, feel free to reach out in the #training Slack channel at any time.
The new Learn.WordPress.org is launching soon, complete with four courses in the User and Developer Learning Pathways. Your help is needed to QA/test the new site! Please follow these steps and report any bugs you find.
Testing steps
Log into WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/ if you’re not already.
Tutorials archive (not shown in navigation but still reachable until they’re converted to lessons – GitHub) – also spot-check individual tutorials
Also test the search box and filters on this page
Lesson Plans archive (not shown in navigation but still reachable until they’re converted to facilitator notes – GitHub) – also spot-check individual lesson plans
Test any course you like by registering and going through its lessons and quizzes. If you’re short on time, here are a few examples of courses with just two lessons and a couple of quizzes:
If it’s a new report, create a new GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ issue in the Learn repository using the Feedback template.
Mention in your issue that the report is for the new Learn WordPress site.
If you have the ability to assign the issue to a GitHub Project, select “WordPress.org Redesign” project, and if possible, also the “LearnWP Website Development” project. If not, no worries – leave Project blank and it will be assigned for you.
The thumbnail creation process is still ongoing, so some lessons and other content “cards” do not have custom thumbnails yet. You can still help create more thumbnails – get all the details.
While suggestions for future enhancements are also welcome, the priority at the moment is to find urgent bugs that may affect the launch.
The dev team will prioritize bugs that are blockers to launch, with other issues set to be addressed post-launch.
Don’t worry if you’re not sure whether something has already been reported or isn’t actually a bug. Better to report it just in case.
Deadline
Please log all GitHub issues by July 17, if possible.
Thank you in advance for helping make the new Learn WordPress the best it can be!
After discussion, the Training team has decided to go forward with retiring the Faculty Program, in order to streamline processes, help the team run more efficiently, and free up people’s time to focus on higher-impact areas.
The Faculty Program consisted of a group of Training team members who helped establish team processes, catch up on a backlog of tasks, and set up the team for future success. With the team evolving over time, it became evident that many Faculty members were no longer active on the team, many roles were under-used and difficult to recruit for, and the program required time-consuming administrative overhead. In addition, needing to apply to be part of the Faculty program could be seen by contributors as a barrier to doing certain types of work on the team. In addition, the now-established Guide Program serves as a welcoming path for people to get more involved with the team’s activities.
Process
The plan includes:
Adding a new area in the handbook, outlining the history of Learn.WordPress.org and the Training team. This section will include the names of past team reps and Faculty members, so that folks’ contributions are visible and recognized in the context of the Training team’s history.
Shifting the work done by the current Faculty Admin group to a smaller group of administrators, starting with the team reps. Additional admins will be added over time, while the current admin needs of the team are reassessed. We will likely look for Training team members who have made consistent contributions over the last 6-12 months.
Updating the handbook to remove the Faculty Program section.
Below is a detailed schedule outlining the tasks to be performed and target completion dates.
If there are any questions about this process, please feel free to drop them in the comments.
Once again, a big thank you to everyone who has been a part of the Faculty Program over the years. Your invaluable help has made the Training team stronger than ever.
Deadline
Item
Notes
2024-07-18
Access updates
– Update access as needed, including Canvas with login info – Let people know if any access has been changed
2024-08-08
Research & write new handbook page compiling a history of the Training team
– Collect names of all past & current team reps and Faculty program members – Include a general history section – Draft page – Share page with Training team for feedback – Make revisionsRevisionsThe 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. as needed – Publish page
– Determine what Slack changes are needed – Archive current Faculty channel – Review and update Slack bookmarks and pinned channel items in #training and related channels
2024-08-29
Process updates
– Go through all team processes and make a list of what will need updating, in collaboration with team reps
2024-09-12
Handbook updates
– Update old handbook pages as needed, based on discovery above. – Unpublish pages related to the Faculty Program – Keep a log of which pages were unpublished, to be included in final project update
2024-09-12
Help Scout updates
– Go through all Help Scout Saved Replies and update as needed
The Training Team has just facilitated Learn’s second course cohort. We saw great improvement from the first cohort, both in learner engagement and ease of administration. We think this is an effective learning method that can be continued on a regular basis.
Cohort overview
Invitations were sent to the 37 applicants on the waitlist from the first course cohort, and to 2 people who contacted cohort administrators showing interest to join.
Of those, 19 responded (51%) and 17 accepted (46%).
The cohort ran for 6 weeks (May 9th – June 20th) and included 6 calls.
An average of 9.3 participants attended each week’s call.
5 participants completed the course content by the final call.
2 participants did not start on the content.
Changes from the first cohort
The roles of course administration and teaching were split, with @bsanevans and @zoonini serving as administrators, and @psykro as the Subject Matter Expert (SME).
As the waitlist from the last cohort was used, no public call for participants was made.
All communication happened on SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ both prior to and during the cohort.
There was no content drip and participants were given access to all content on the first day.
Feedback survey results
Participants were asked to complete a feedback survey once they had completed the course.
Of 17 participants, 10 filled out the survey (59%).
70% of respondents indicated that the course achieved all of their expected learning outcomes, while 30% said it achieved many of their learning outcomes.
80% of the participants thought there was enough time to complete the course, while another 20% felt that “the course workload was manageable, but external factors kept me from completing the course in time.”
View more survey feedback
Respondents highlighted the following areas as aspects they liked about the way the course content was presented:
The course walked through a pretty clear step-by-step approach with the most important part of each lesson at the beginning, with supplemental information afterward. I also appreciate that there was written content in addition to the video. I personally don’t like learning from videos and much prefer written content, so I don’t think I watched any of the videos, only read the content, which contained everything I needed.
It was very bite-sized. I enjoyed that.
I really liked the way the course was presented.
Live demonstration.
The classes were the fun part. The live coding really helped as did Jonathan’s work to get people to interact in the class.
Clearly outlined / Inclusive of all skill levels / Feedback loops / Code review / Weekly meetings
It was very well structured. It had the feeling of learning, taking stock of where I was and then moving on.
This was my first time doing any course where there was a live and real-time chat component so I did love having that ability to ask questions in realtime! Also, felt Jonathan & team were awesome. Really wanted us to succeed but also was realistic about development too and the issues that pop up. Looking forward to more from the Learn team!
Only one respondent highlighted a missing topic they expected to learn in this course: the REST APIREST APIThe REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”)
https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/ “in detail.” Another respondent added, “BlockBlockBlock 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. creation is quite a vast topic. Considering the regular development going on, it’s difficult to include everything and learn. Any guidance on how to keep up to date with upcoming features is helpful.” One more respondent shared, “The course was well designed and explained. It had some challenges but nothing that was too difficult to overcome with a little work.”
While most of the respondents indicated that the course instructions were clear and easy to follow, one person mentioned that it was hard to see and follow the live coding portions without being zoomed in, while another said that, “Instructions were fairly clear, but I had to ask questions to clarify some details.”
When asked if there was anything that would have made this course more successful, respondents shared the following suggestions:
Bonus quests/jumping off points after lessons, such as, “Try to add XYZ support” or “Take a look at this CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. block [link] and determine how it stores its data and renders it dynamically”
I wonder if it would be worth splitting cohorts by experience level; e.g. one cohort for people who are more experienced developers and one for complete novices.
Links to advanced learning, Any example blocks challenges if we can try etc
I really would have liked some pair programming. This might be something that can be added to the course to have people work together. I think that it would foster a better experience when the meetings happened as it would allow for people to talk about the experiences with the curriculum.
Other feedback and suggestions:
I didn’t get a ton of value from the weekly calls. I think I went into them expecting a deeper dive on the week’s lesson, rather than just a Q&A time. That’s okay though, because other folks seemed to get a lot out of the weekly calls.
Use of git Roadmap for block development
Thank you for the time and effort that has gone into creating and delivering this course; it’s been really useful.
The only feedback I have is that I would have loved to have a lesson/challenge at the end of like, now that you’ve completed this, please try to do X, you will use what you learned and should be able to do this small task of adding this to your block.
Jonathan & Kathryn were helpful. They were patient with our questions and their down to earth approach made me comfortable to ask questions.
Some participants also shared feedback on their blogs and social media:
The aim of this cohort was to build a sustainable program the Training Team can continue to administer for learners on Learn. In that light:
Administrative changes tested this time around all contributed to a more effective cohort management, and have been reflected in the course cohort handbook page.
The drop-off rate of participants throughout the cohort was similar to that of the last cohort. Based on these, inviting around 40 applicants will result in around 10 engaged participants and is a comfortably manageable cohort size.
By reconsidering course cohorts as an extension of Online Workshops, the administration of hosting course cohorts could probably be reduced further.
With the launch of Learning Pathways, the team now has multiple courses that could be used as the subject of course cohorts.
Based on these observations, we propose that the Training Team look to host future course cohorts as a series of Online Workshops that walks participants through Learning Pathways content.
Please comment below with any additional thoughts or questions. Thanks!
This post was written by @bsanevans with additional material by @zoonini.
Project Objective: Create comprehensive and sustainable process for maintaining content on Learn WordPress.
Based on the feedback from Proposal: Learn WordPress Content Maintenance Process, we will align as a team on what our content maintenance priorities are for Learn, research what modern learning sites do with out of date content, utilize data to make informed decisions, and publish documentation on our content maintenance process.
As the Training Team, let’s discuss and align on the follow question: What is Learn WordPress’s north star and content commitments?
For example, we have the WordPress Codex, Documentation, and Developer handbook sites which contain plenty of out of date content for those not on the most recent versions of WordPress. Do we really feel it’s necessary to duplicate this content further on Learn WordPress?
Is Learn WordPress the site where folks come to about the most relevant and up to date content on WordPress? Is it the place where we encourage and guide folks to be at the forefront of the software?
Deadline: September 15, 2024 Completed: August 30, 2024
Outcome: Learn WordPress makes WordPress knowledge accessible to all by empowering individuals around the world to create, contribute, and grow within the WordPress ecosystem.
Research
What do other modern learning sites do with out of date / irrelevant content?
What is the current view rate for Lesson Plans and Tutorials (Document started) on Learn?
Deadline: October 31, 2024
Plan & Document
Develop the deprecation/out of date evaluation framework
Create a data-driven framework and review checklist for content deprecation inclusive of:
Reviewing the view stats of video content marked for deprecation (Ex. If we are seeing low viewership for certain out of date content, then we deem it safe to deprecate)
Have a two review process, with a third review to “tie break” as needed
Research what other modern learning websites (even for certain products) leave deprecated/out of date content up on their Learning sites and how do they maintain that content?
GatherPress “is the collaborative effort to build a compelling event management application using open sourceOpen SourceOpen 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. tools such as WordPress and BuddyPress. We’re creating the very network features we desire to host events and gather well.”
Why the training team is testing?
The training team manages the current Learn WordPress Online Workshops event scheduler. GatherPress would take the place of using the platform and have it “meet the diverse needs of event organizers and members” in the WordPress community.
