Jonathan Bossenger 7:31 am on March 7, 2024  

Discussion: possible collaboration to transform learning pathways to Skill Trees

During the feedback/discussions around Learning Pathways, @skilldisplayflo has offered to help transform our learning pathways to a skill tree format.

The Skill Tree format appears to be something available from the SkillDisplay platform, where they have collaborated with other open-source projects, including TypoCMS.

I would recommend that folks interested in this discussion read the original comment linked above, and the rest of the threaded conversation, to understand the benefits.

The idea here is that the skill tree format could allow teachers to “cherry pick the skills (aka learning path tree nodes) they really need, instantly render their own curriculum for a handout and get matching learning resources that are tailored towards her use case.”

Converting Learning Pathways into Skill Sets would involve using the SkillDisplay tool to create the Skill Set and then hosting the Skill Set somewhere on the 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/ website.

I want to invite anyone interested in this process to read through the suggestions and share their thoughts in the comments on this post.

If this is something we as a team would like to consider, then we might want to decide on:

  • when we want to do this
  • who will be managing the process

Please leave your thoughts in the comments on this post by by Friday 22 March, 2024.

Benjamin Evans 6:45 am on February 20, 2024
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Discussion: Bringing accessibility-first approaches into content development

At 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. US 2023, @jominney, @newcomer22 and team published the Training Team Accessibility Checklist 🎉 I’ve recently been considering how we can bring 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)-first approaches into the team’s content creation/review processes better.

What would it take for the team to be able to say “We’ve given our best effort to ensuring all content on Learn WordPress is accessible” when we relaunch the site with Learning Pathways in July this year? I’ve dropped some thoughts below, but this is just to get the conversation going. Let’s discuss in the comments until March 9th (Friday), and then consider next steps after that.

I noticed the WordPress project’s accessibility statement says:

WordPress aims to make the WordPress Admin and bundled themes fully WCAGWCAG WCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/. 2.0 AA compliant where possible.

  • Question: Is striving for WCAG 2.0 AA compliance a reasonable standard for content on Learn WordPress, too?

The team’s current Accessibility Checklist has some items that go beyond the scope of WCAG 2.0 AA, but is also missing some items within scope. Below is my personal take on what content creators specifically would need to be mindful of in order to create content that is fully WCAG 2.0 AA compliant.

(Note, I’m specifically considering what can be achieved in the content creating process – mostly conducted within the WordPress Editor. There are other coding-related considerations that must be made in the theme etc., which is worth its own separate conversation.)

  • Question: Is the following list an accurate representation of what content creators would need to be mindful of to create WCAG 2.0 AA compliant content?
  1. All non-text content has a text alternative. (Guideline 1.1 – Text Alternatives)
  2. Captions and transcripts are provided for all videos. (Guideline 1.2 – Time-based Media)
  3. Audio description is provided for all prerecorded video content. Or, narration in video content describes all important visual details, including actions, scene changes, and on-screen text. (Guideline 1.2 – Time-based Media)
  4. Instructions do not rely solely on components such as shape, color, size, visual location, orientation, or sound. (Guideline 1.3 – Adaptable)
  5. Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. (Guideline 1.4 – Distinguishable)
  6. Text and images of text have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. (Guideline 1.4 – Distinguishable)
  7. Unless essential, text should be used instead of images of text. (Guideline 1.4 – Distinguishable)
  8. No content flashes more than three times/second. (Guideline 2.3 – Seizures and Physical Reactions)
  9. The purpose of each link can be determined from the link text alone. (Guideline 2.4 – Navigable)
  10. Headings describe topic or purpose. (Guideline 2.4 – Navigable)

Points 3 (audio descriptions for video content) is currently not included in the team’s accessibility checklist.

  • Question: In the context of video content on Learn, what would adding audio description to videos look like? Is it possible to publish videos where all necessary content is included in the narration?

Finally, I think it would be great if we could move the accessibility checklist from being a final check made on content to something embedded in content development and review processes.

  • Question: How can we bring accessibility-first approaches into our content development and review processes?

#accessibility

Wes Theron 9:41 pm on March 19, 2024  

WordCamp Asia 2024 Contributor Day Recap

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. Asia 2024 Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. was held on Thursday, March 7th, in the beautiful city of Taipei. The Training Team shared a large conference hall with most of the other Make Training Teams, which made it slightly challenging to address the entire group. However, it did foster a positive atmosphere enriched by community spirit. 

Our plan for the day was shared in this post: WordCamp Asia 2024 Contributor Day.

This year, we had a total of 15 in-person contributors and 7 online contributors, giving us a total of 22 contributors to the Training Team on Contributor Day!

Kudos to all who were involved:

In-person: @digitalchild, @chetan200891, @kurudrive, @west7, @piyopiyofox, @sara, @gmtan, @alfredkang, @paulluxford, @kuanbro, @h2ham, @megane9988, @pauloeaquino, @eglelak, @soniabajpai    

Online: @lada7042, @bsanevans, @manukk, @devmuhib  

Don’t see your name up here? Message @westnz in the Make 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/. so we can update that – we appreciate your time and want to acknowledge your hard work!

Our accomplishments

  • Onboarded 9+ people to the Training Team
  • 1 intermediate user script was written
  • 1 new topic was submitted for content creation
  • 7 content reviews
  • 2 new Japanese online workshops planned and published 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.
  • 2 translation initiatives kicked off

The Training Team uses GitHub to manage their ongoing content creation work. 

What’s next?

Continue your path to earning a Contributor Badge.

To the folks who joined us for the first time, and even some familiar faces, we encourage you to continue to engage with the team in Slack and within your local WordPress communities. I’d also like to take a moment to share with or remind you that we have Team Profile Badges which you can earn for your contributions.

Keep up the great work to earn your contributor badge! 

Share Feedback about Contributor Day

We’d love to be able to improve and share in anything that went well for our Contributor Days, so please take a moment to fill out this Contributor Day Attendee Feedback Form when you get the chance!

Memories

Laura Adamonis 3:35 pm on February 5, 2024
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Training Team Goals for 2024

You can find our asynchronous discussion on Team Goal Setting for 2024 here.

Vision

In 2024, the Training Team will shift Learn WordPress from theory to outcome/project-based learning, explore new streamlining technologies, improve team processes and increase global community/contributor engagement.

Values

The Training Team’s values are DEIB, Collaborative, Sustainable Growth, Impact, and Empathy. Folks can read more about them on our Team Values handbook page.

Goals to roll over from 2023

Listed below are goals session participants thought would be good to roll over into the 2024 goals.

  • Continue work on Learning Pathways
    • Create a Marketing Campaign for Learning Pathways with Marketing
    • Work with the Community team to promote Learning Pathways
  • Establish monthly recurring onboarding Online Workshops in different time zones for training team roles
  • Continue involvement with the redesign work happening on Learn
  • Audit Handbook

Milestones

The new goals session participants would like to see the Training Team work on this year are listed below. The next step is for folks to volunteer and take ownership.

Q1 – January to March 2024

Q2 – April to June 2024

  • See Learn redesign to completion with Learning Pathways as the focus
  • Create and maintain shared resources that promote the Training Team and Learn
  • Create or update a handbook page that clarifies where people’s contributions to the team will appear/be displayed
  • Any goals rolled over from the previous quarter.

Q3 – July to September 2024

  • Work with the Community team to promote Learning Pathways at Meetups
  • Figure out a method to manage localized content translation
  • Launch Learning Pathways on Learn WordPress
  • Migrate/Deprecate Learn content
  • Run 1-2 outcome/project-based course cohorts
  • Any goals rolled over from previous quarters.

Q4 -October to December 2024

  • Create a system for better surfacing Training Team member’s contributions
  • Audit Handbook
  • Any goals rolled over from previous quarters.

Stretch

Props:

Attendees: Thanks to @bsanevans, @piyopiyofox, @lada7042, @devmuhib, @ardhrubo, @westnz, @sierratr 

Proofreading: Thanks also to @bsanevans and @piyopiyofox for proofreading this summary of the goals for 2024.

#goals, #learn-wordpress, #learnwordpress, #training-team

Hugh Lashbrooke 12:32 am on July 11, 2022  

Exploring WordPress Certifications

Over the years, there have been a few discussions about creating formalised certifications for WordPress, most notably in 2013 as seen on Torque and WP Tavern. While those discussions are nearly 10 years old, they are still relevant and, now that an open learning platform for WordPress exists, this is a good time to revisit those conversations.

Before we get anywhere near implementation, let’s take a step back and gather some initial thoughts on how a WordPress certification should be approached. Certifying open-source software has some inherent challenges, but also some wonderful advantages. With that in mind here is some interesting content to review:

Feedback

Since this is an exploratory post and not a proposal for anything concrete, please comment with your answers to the questions below, as well as any other thoughts you have about this topic:

  • What benefits would certifications provide?
  • What would be some effective ways to use certifications in the WordPress space?
  • What potential pitfalls need to be kept in mind, should we proceed?
Benjamin Evans 12:26 am on February 8, 2024  

Brainstorm: What trends about Learn WordPress leaners do we want to observe?

The Learning Pathways project was kicked off after an extensive survey of WordPress users and their needs. It was a step by the Training Team to pivot towards a more data-informed content planning strategy.

In order for the team to continue a data-informed content planning strategy, let’s brainstorm what learner trends we should start observing in order to best serve their needs. In the comments below, please note the following:

  1. What data would be relevant for the Training Team to surface?
  2. How would surfacing that data better serve our learners, team, and community?
  3. What considerations would be needed in order to surface that data?

We’ll close the initial round of comments on February 25th and consider next-steps.

Destiny Kanno 6:00 am on February 7, 2024  

Discussion: Translation Plugin on Learn

As our work progresses on the Learning Pathways on Learn WordPress project, I’d like to start a discussion to help us address one of our 2024 team goals: Figure out a method to manage localized content translation

While the WordPress project aims to have native multilingual features in Phase 4, with the understanding that this is still a few years away, I’d like to explore interim solutions together to facilitate multilingual management on Learn WordPress.

I understand that numerous plugins are available that could enable us to better handle multilingual functionality, but we need the one that best suits our specific needs. Given our current requirements and Content Translator work, we are more inclined to those plugins that offer effective translation management rather than automatic translation.

To help bring perspective to this conversation, I’d like to invite you to share if you have any experience with such translations plugins on WordPress? If you have, please share your experiences and recommendations. Specifically, we’d like to know:

  1. What 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 did you use?
  2. How user-friendly and efficient it was in managing translations within WordPress?
  3. What notable benefits did it bring to your site?
  4. Were there any drawbacks/limitations?
  5. Are there any other recommendations or considerations you can share?

Your insight will be incredibly valuable in helping us decide the best temporary solution so we can continue our mission to cater to a broader, multilingual audience as soon as possible.

Thank you team in advance for your invaluable help. 🙂

Benjamin Evans 4:28 am on January 22, 2024
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Discussion: Training’s contribution to the 6.5 release (and beyond)

The WordPress 6.5 release squad has been announced. This next release is scheduled for March 26 and now’s a great time for the Training Team to discuss how we’d like to be involved.

Below is my proposal to kick off the discussion. Let’s discuss this in the comments below until February 5th. Team reps will then summarize the discussion by the team meeting that week.

Prioritize Learning Pathways content

The Learning Pathways project is a priority for the Training Team this year, with a scheduled launch for July 2024. Considering the limited number of content creators we have on the team right now, we do not have enough resources to meet that deadline and create a lot of release-related content at the same time.

Proposal around priorities

  • Continue to prioritize developing Learning Pathways content.
  • Identify no more than 3-5 pieces of high-impact content related to the release and clearly list these in the team.
  • Find opportunities to onboard additional content creators who can assist with this content development work.

Modifying 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/ triaging processes

Historically, Training’s focus during releases has included identifying content needing updates as a result of the release. This has been done by reopening GitHub issues and, if the original assignee is unresponsive, re-assigning issues to new assignees.

As the team has started to track and analyze GitHub data (see Training Team 2023 Year In Review), we’re finding this process of reopening issues and changing assignees skews important metrics that represent team health – such as the “time to close” on an issue. To ensure the team can track and report accurate metrics, I propose the following changes.

Proposal around changes to GitHub triage processes

Once again, let’s discuss this in the comments below until February 5th.

#procedures

Wes Theron 7:41 am on October 4, 2023  

Learning Pathway outlines

The Learning Pathways project is gaining momentum!

For those who may not have had the opportunity yet, I would like to direct your attention to the Project Thread: Learning Pathways on Learn WordPress, where you can find information about the project’s goals and strategies. The primary objective of the Learning Pathways project is to develop and launch dynamic, user-centric learning pathways tailored to diverse learner profiles.

We have drafted learning pathway outlines tailored for Users, Designers, and Developers. Our community feedback initiative began on August 24th when we reached out, seeking input through the post titled: Looking for feedback: Learning pathway outlines. The closing date for feedback was on the 15th of September. Following this, we consolidated the feedback received and utilized it to enhance and update the outlines.

Herewith are the proposed learning pathways (please use the tabs below to navigate to the relevant outline):

LEARNING PATHWAY OUTLINES

You are welcome to continue sharing any feedback or ideas to improve the pathways. We will make every effort to incorporate them; however, please understand that once we begin creating content for these pathways, our ability to review feedback might be limited until after the initial launch period. Your understanding and patience during this process are invaluable, and we are committed to considering all input to improve the pathways in subsequent reviews.

aanchals09 5:14 pm on February 5, 2024
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Training Team Meeting Recap – 1st February 2024

This meeting followed this meeting agenda in GitHub. You can see conversations from the meeting in this Slack Log. (If you don’t have a 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/. account, you can set one up.)

Introductions and Welcome

There were 16 attendees: @bsanevans, @sierratr, @courtneypk, @lada7042, @piyopiyofox, @west7, @ardianimaya, @huzaifaalmesbah, @digitalchild (async), @devmuhib (async), @amitpatelmd (async), @cnormandigital (async), @quitevisible (async), @mebo (async), @eboxnet (async), @askdesign (async).

We’ve had some new people join the channel recently.
@saqib59, @linuxplus, @proloybhaduri, @thiarara, @hasanfardous,@jmuiruri, @magork, @missywilliamsdigital, @narolainfotech.

Welcome! Please post in the #training channel or reach out to a team member to help you with contributing. Resources to check out our onboarding program, and our Guide Program.

News

Meeting Note Takers

  • February 8 – @zunaid321
  • February 15 – need volunteer
  • February 22 – need volunteer

We’re looking for volunteers to take notes each week through the rest of February. Would anyone like to volunteer for the team? Please post in the #training channel

Looking for feedback

Looking for volunteers

  • Who would like to facilitate an Online Workshop this year? Come and apply to facilitate. Or if you have any questions about Online Workshops, feel free to reach out to a Faculty member.
  • Call for Mentors and Mentees for the project-wide Mentorship program – Closes on February 7th 2024.
  • Faculty reviewers requested to look at and audit the Handbook pages. Feedback received so far can we viewed and updated in the GitHub project.
  • Looking for Contributor Spotlight authors – Share your availability in thread
  • Looking for any faculty members interested in running the Guide Program – Share your interest in thread

Updates from last week’s dev-squad triage session

Attendees:  @digitalchild, @psykro, @devmuhib, @mebo

  • @digitalchild hosted his first Dev Squad Triage session last week.
  • Reviewed PR – #2172 (Add script to count unique learners in Sensei)
  • No issues waiting to be triaged
  • Closed #832 [Related Course: Create a Custom 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. Theme #1] How Classic and Block Themes Are Developed – Lesson Plan
  • Closed After fixing – #850 [Course Exercise] Creating Template Parts: Headers and Footers

If you’re interested in participating, come visit the #meta-learn Slack channel at 7:00 UTC. You’ll find the time shown in your local timezone on the Training Team’s meeting calendar.

Other News

Come and Contribute

Content ready for review

Feedback awaiting validation

Topics awaiting vetting

Good first issues for developers

Validated feedback awaiting fix

Project Updates

Learning Pathways – Share progress regarding the project in thread

2024 goal planning sessions – Team Reps will be publishing an outline of the team’s goals soon.

  • Once the goals are published, we’ll be looking for folks to lead the different projects through the year. Keep your eyes out for the post coming soon.

Faculty Updates

Faculty members were asked to review and answer the following questions

  • 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 Faculty or Training Team members help you in some way?

Open Discussions

  • Item submitted by @devmuhib was discussed – @bsanevans asked if anyone have comments about how best to move this forward?
  • @courtneypk shared an update with everyone. Starting next week, she will be shifting her focus back to the #community-team and just be less present in Training Team spaces. Folks thanked her for her contributions so far and wished her a great year ahead.

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.

#meeting-recap, #training, #training-team