Our 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/ project boards
This post presents (i) a summary of the findings of and (ii) an analysis of the results of a survey focusing on the needs of individuals when learning about WordPress. It is part of a fuller and evolving Needs Analysis to identify the most useful and high-impact resources and content for Learn.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/. The findings will help guide the future development of this community learning tool.
Preparation for the wider Needs Analysis of WordPress training and skill development began in detail in 2022. It included collaborative sessions to formulate survey questions, developed methodologies to better understand training needs, and ensured surveys were linked to the vision for the free-to-use Learn WordPress.
Key opportunities for the Make WordPress Training team and the implications for cross-working with other teams are highlighted in each of the areas identified in this report. Some of these opportunities will be developed further to identify priorities and time scales, phasing work to optimise the benefit to users and adding value to the project.
Geographic spread
Analytical tools showed that almost all the initial responses to the survey were from the US. To broaden the geographic spread, other regions where content was known to have originated or where interest had been expressed in creating content for Learn WordPress were identified by @webcommsat, @nalininonstopnewsuk and @west7.This data was also matched to locales where there were established links through polyglots and WordPress Translation Day. Requests were submitted directly to individuals and groups in those regions to raise awareness of this survey and to encourage participation and feedback. The returns cut-off date was extended so that it could be presented to attenders at 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. Asia. It was a learning point for the survey team that marketing and awareness raising encompassing a wide range of geographic areas was vital and needed to be done at a much earlier stage in the life-cycle of any subsequent surveys.
The initial target of 300-400 respondents was met and surpassed. A total of 583 participants completed all of the survey. There were a number that did not complete the survey, and steps were taken during the survey’s life to address drop-offs. This learning will also be fed into future surveys.
Respondents by region
Region
# of participants(583)
Africa
28
Asia
106
Australia and Oceania
12
Europe
115
Middle East
17
US and Canada
277
South America
28
Note: if a respondent was using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), the survey may have recorded a different regional allocation. This discrepancy could have contributed to the apparent increased response rate from the US.
In response to the question, what is your primary language, 59 different languages were reported. Thirty-one percent of respondents would value more materials to be made available in their primary language. As Learn WordPress was only first piloted at the end of 2020, its vision is to grow and encourage resources to be available in locales in addition to English.
Opportunities
The survey responses gave some examples of potential Training team follow-ups with the Marketing and Polyglots team, and locales where there may be interest in translating or creating resources in other languages.
The data will help the Training team in prioritizing potential follow-ups to encourage awareness and participation in communities where the survey showed a significant engagement and call for materials in local languages. This will also be added to existing data in the team which shows where there has been engagement and interest in contributing to Learn WordPress.
Familiarity with WordPress
This question was crucial in the survey and will be important in ongoing research as parts of the Needs Analysis. Better understanding how users who were willing to complete the survey describe their knowledge of WordPress is crucial to providing content and links at the most suitable level. This affects type of content, its presentation, its language-usage including technical terms, and more. Though this survey can only give us a snapshot view, its results backed up anecdotal findings, and confirmed that there is a considerable need for outreach and awareness raising of the Learn.WordPress.org provision outside the ‘already aware’ or ‘experienced WordPressers’. From informal research and anecdotes with other teams, it is assumed that there will be some variation between how people might describe their familiarity or skills with using the software with what their knowledge level may be. This is a challenge for a training resource, but supports the need for step by step course structures which can help users measure their own skillsets against and support the creation of a benchmark of learning. This benchmark may in future years lead to certificate levels, but even without that, a well used Learn.WordPress.org which becomes the place for step by step learning and achieving standards or levels in learning has a considerable value and benefit to users and the project as a whole.
A total of 321 people described themselves as ‘somewhat knowledgeable’ or ‘very knowledgeable’ of the WordPress software, which potentially equates to medium of advanced level in how content is being prepared more recently. This compared to a total of 262 who described themselves as ‘unfamiliar’, ‘somewhat familiar’ (potentially equating to a beginner level) or ‘neutral’ which could be seen as an indication of a lack of confidence or being in the early learning stages of the software.
Current WordPress Users:
A breakdown of the current WordPress users based on their experience with the platform is below:
The number of years respondents had used WordPress ranged from 29% for less than one year to 32% for more than 10 years.
Opportunities
This shows there are a number of potential opportunities, including:
to interest and gain following and lifelong learning usage from new users
to produce materials that could be of interest or could be made by users of considerable experience
Roles of WordPress Users
According to the data, the current role of WordPress users, who completed the survey, is mainly as follows. The highest number of responses were from people who described themselves in the categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. of combined group of Freelancer, Solopreneur or Boutique Agency at 33%, followed by the Developer/Engineer category at 19%. Content Creator at 8%, and Hobbyist/Side Project at 8%. Other roles include Project Manager at 2%, User at 2%, and Trainer/Educator at 5%. Additionally, there are smaller percentages of role choices as: Product Owner/Product Manager, Support, Marketing, Designer, WordPress-adjacent events, Quality Assurance, Dev Ops, and Learner.
The number of respondents are listed below:
The ‘Other option’ in the table above relates to where the provided descriptions did not match the respondent’s own perception of their role in WordPress.The team is aware that ‘Side project’ group may also include users who work in WordPress category as developers or freelancers etc, but WordPress may not be their principal work or income-stream.
Opportunities
This data shows a considerable engagement in a detailed survey on Learn WordPress from freelancer, solopreneurs and boutique agencies at 32%.
Current Offerings
It has been observed that 20% of all respondents said they did not currently utilize any of the resources available on the learn.wordpress.org platform. However, among those who do, the most frequently utilized resources in descending order are tutorials, courses, online workshops, and lesson plans.
Opportunities
The data shows a significant number of users are using more than one resource, with 29 per cent using four or more resources on Learn.WordPress.org. This shows there is a potential opportunity that once users are familiar or aware of Learn WordPress, they will use it for multiple training formats. This can help influence the team’s thinking on how resources can fit together into courses, and related materials can be highlighted to increase the time learners are able to use Learn WordPress and to make their learning journey more useful, structured, smooth and seamless.
The current learning methods
Based on the survey responses, the most popular learning method among the respondents is:
web-based learning (410 respondents)
Learn.WordPress.org (290 respondents)
on-the-job training (229 respondents). In the long-term, Learn.WordPress.org could play a big role in this area, and the opportunities for it can be a follow-up for future surveys and discussions/ promotions with organizations and employers who use WordPress.
conferences came in fourth with 115 respondents (this may have included WordCamps too).
The survey did not specifically mention WordPress meetups or WordCamps. Respondents may have also classed these as in-person learning.
Opportunities
Mentoring and coaching can and is likely to have come through local WordPress networks, such as meetups and WordCamps. This combined with anecdotal information from WordCamp Asia 2023 and WordCamp Europe 2021 shows that these granular events can be a powerful way for Learn.WordPress.org to help users improve their knowledge and keep up-to-date with the software and find ways to participate in the community.
Qualifying this data, some respondents referred to self-learning, which could be either web-based or in-person learning, or a mixture of both. The same issue applied for those choosing on the job training and bootcamps. The Individual Learner Survey was a starting point for the research and improvements into Learn.WordPress.org, and these are some of the areas identified for further exploration.
Broadly, the survey responses at face value indicate a clear preference for web-based learning, but also an ongoing significant use of in-person learning. This supports wider research into emerging training practices and preferences outside WordPress. The data analysis context also has a bearing as within the previous 12 months of the survey, online activity may have been the preferred option due to the pandemic and restrictions. It is just under a year since the major WordCamps returned to some form of in-person events and Meetups having a hybrid of online and in-person. The Training team plans to also use the data from this survey as a benchmark which it will compare against in its future surveys and analyses.
The analysis of the data combined with other research suggests that many of the respondents may be already familiar with where to go for training on WordPress rather than relying just on search engine results.
What the survey results show is a strong usage of online learning, and this is a major boost for what Learn.WordPress.org can offer and its potential for the future. The additional benefit of this resource is that it has the potential to offer online resources that people, groups, and training facilitators can all share with in-person learning environments.
Examples of how Learn.WordPress.org can serve the ongoing need for both online and in-person, and group and individual learning, and provide a flexible learning model.
Online workshops which can be paused for live discussions and questions and workshops. Note: Discussions groups have been renamed and repurposed as online workshops, with a Q&A and questions opportunity in the video-conferencing area.
Lesson Plans: instructors can use or adapt lesson plans for in-person or online classrooms, and as part of courses. Some Lesson Plans include screenshots and examples which can be viewed in a group or individual screen setting.
Tutorials: these can be used by individual learners or in group learning. The Training team with the Community, Marketing and Polyglots teams encourage Meetups to use tutorials in-person or online, share the resources for post-event follow-ups, and add interactivity with their group through discussions and questions. There has been about a year to 18 months of this encouragement, and further focus on this may bring in benefits. This is an example of how Learn.WordPress.org is strengthened by cross-collaboration of teams and can add value to both individual and group learning.
Factors in choosing training
The top three factors in choosing training in general are training time, costs, and content delivery. As for other factors in the customer decision making are location of the training, length of the course, pace of the course, connection with the instructor, quality and relative up-to-date information.
Some learners may want videos ranging from 3 -5 minutes. This may not be practical for Tutorial videos as topics can take time to introduce and present. However, within courses, a series of 3-5 minutes videos would make sense, though possibly not to stand alone. A learner would advance in the course to the next video to continue the topic. Current Tutorial videos range from 3 to 15 minutes on average.
Opportunities
Training time data does not necessarily imply that videos or segments on the resource should be very short. Ongoing product research and learning the lessons from major providers of training in the market will help Learn.WordPress.org be aware of the trends in people’s preferences for learning. It is not possible to say how these stats relate to how long people have been using WordPress. The different journeys discussed in the survey planning would have allowed this to be more useful. This will be incorporated into future research.
This also relates to the shortcomings identified in this survey that content was either too basic or too advanced. This can also be because there is no sequence of the lesson plans and tutorials which would help people find the middle ground. This was supported by the comments in the survey. Comments also focused on not knowing where the start was for a particular area. One of the observations in some follow-up questions during promotion of the survey was that the organizational structure for the available resources is of inconsistent quality in multiple languages presented.
The organizational structure in some areas can be based on publication date rather than the natural or learning progression through a subject. This potential issue is something that the Training team can explore further.
High priority/ greatest need in training material
Respondents in choosing training materials prioritized: time, costs, content delivery, accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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), and personal learning style. People also referenced the scalability of using WordPress – the basics, blocks, WooCommerce, searchability for training materials, editing pages, and coding.
The general tone of the comments in the shortcoming section was that the current content available is vastly different, overwhelming, and confusing for the users that filled in this survey. To better understand the survey, in the data analysis responses were divided into subcategories: resources, skill level, content, language, learning style, costs, searchability, outdated content, problems, personal and instructor.
Resources- problems within the available resources. Respondents who completed this section of the survey would like to see different types of resources such as short books, device friendly resources, and clarity of official documents.
Comments on the shortcomings of WordPress training
A note on the data, that the survey specifically requested information on shortcomings of WordPress training in general to help identify any trends or needs where Learn.WordPress.org could add value or prioritze. Questions around the positive usage of materials were not requested in the Individual Learner Survey 2023. Some of this was addressed in the follow-ups accompanying the promotion of the survey and will help identify further questions that could be asked in future parts of the product development research.
Some suggestions for improvement include:
more structured pathways through the learning, including graphical representation
more mobile-friendly
more on new feature/ releases, and tips on the learning steps to take to better understand and use them
signposting and explaining more of concepts and unfamiliar terms to help users learn and understand the framework
avoid using acronyms without giving the full iteration on first use (i.e. do not assume knowledge)
better sequencing and more logical order
The team is planning to focus more on learning pathways and the insight above will add to findings and observations already identified.
Opportunities
Summary of comments received about shortcomings in WordPress learning materials in general
Opportunities for the Training team and/or steps we have already implemented.
A greater distinction in content skill level between beginners, intermediate, and advanced.
Online workshops are labelled in this way. Tutorials, Courses and Lesson Plans are not labelled in this way currently.
The team could explore how this could be expanded and look at examples of how the Developer Blog uses such audience labels.
A mix of responses on the need for more content on advanced features, too much beginner content, content not written for students that are far advanced.
Requests for more step-by-step guides and connecting related or necessary linked topics together.
Less jargon and increased signposting of terms mentioned. Helping people understand the WordPress developer vocabulary rather than assuming it is known by learners on the site.
There seems to be a mixed response on the level of topics covered.
The Training team could rejoin the cross-team discussions on glossary/ vocabulary in WordPress.
Use language that is easier for those reading who are non-native English speakers/ readers, and avoid truncating words and area-specific expressions.
Encourage more translation of content or create more content in different locales.*
A mix of responses on materials not having enough depth, limited range of topics, limited interactivity, some low quality videos compared to materials available elsewhere.
Video quality will differ as the resource is made for the community by the community.
Discussions on ways to support those making videos are continuing, but there will be some external factors of access to equipment and stable services like internet and electricity have an impact. Ways to support contributors from all parts of the globe would help the team reach more places, and further encourage a focus on diversity and inclusion in its efforts.
The need for more localized content to help learners learn about using WordPress in their preferred languages.
* The Training team has made localization a priority and has recently finished the Content Localization Foundations Project. Further areas to explore have been highlighted.
Link to documentation that can explain things in simpler terms for non-developers.
Building on the cross-linking between the Training team and Documentation team will help this, and signposting to a non-developer level glossary.
The team can also request content contributors avoid terms that may be unfamiliar to audiences, and to signpost more details when introducing concepts or terms that a learner could be be less familiar with.
TagTagTag is one of the pre-defined taxonomies in WordPress. Users can add tags to their WordPress posts along with categories. However, while a category may cover a broad range of topics, tags are smaller in scope and focused to specific topics. Think of them as keywords used for topics discussed in a particular post. resources or provide learning pathways to help learners find materials that match their learning style and follow a structured path.
Don’t over-rely on video content as not suited to all learning styles and may be difficult to follow along without having two screens.
The Learning Pathways will help to address much of this. All video tutorials also have a transcript available to aid learners who would prefer a written text to follow.
Most of the Learn.WordPress.org Courses are a mixture of video and/or text.
More hands-on workshops.
Many of Learn.WordPress.org Online Workshops try to be more hands-on and/or focused on demos.
The team could explore if there is a need for greater visibility of this offering, and how to highlight the range of hands-on material available through Marketing and Community teams.
There is also an ongoing collaboration on increasing relevant cross-links from or to Learn.WordPress.org to materials in Documentation, CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and software releases.
Complete learning plans.
The work on Learning Pathways, linked above, will help provide this.
There is an identified need for increased planning and applying a holistic and structured approach to materials on Learn.WordPress.org. Furthering the efforts on this will help address some of the issues.
Other responses showed users may be expecting all resources to be available in the language they select in the filterFilterFilters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. on Learn.WordPress.org.
A short clarifying sentence can be added to Learn WordPress near the filter to highlight that not all items in a course may be available in the language chosen by the learner. Adding a call to action button to help make the resource available in the learners’ preferred language may add value too.
Content needs to be able to refer the audience to how to solve the problems.
The team could explore whether adding search engine descriptions for ‘how to’ tutorials could help learners.
A way to remind or help learners finish courses.
Some other training providers have mechanisms to send gentle encouraging reminders to learners. The team could draw on and consider such examples. A popular language-learning app, for example, sends out reminders to users to complete their daily goal.
A way of making sure that content before it goes live is reviewed in-depth.
A system for labelling content that does not apply to particular versions of WordPress.
The Training Team does have a process for review in place. Content is shared for review in 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/, and a review label is used. The team can consider whether more time needs to be given to preparing the structure and content of material, and for review.
The current filtering system on relevance to WordPress software versions may need some information to help users.
Personal time constraints are challenges many adult learners may face.
The team could explore how to add an idea of the minimum time needed to complete courses.
Confusion on which training to follow and if it is the same, eg WordPress.comWordPress.comAn online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ Learn, materials available on the web in general which use the descriptor ‘Learn WordPress’.
Continue marketing and elevating Learn.WordPress.org on social media, at WordCamps etc.
Suggestions for other formats suggested by participants
Overwhelming respondents asked for:
case studies (44% of responders)
lectures (12% of responders)
guided courses (8% of responders), and
videos (8% of responders).
other suggestions included: discussion forums, e-books, infographics, in-person workshops, content on media platforms (small bite-size content), podcasts, office hours, interactive quizzes, sample codes, and downloadable slides. One respondent suggested content from Learn.WordPress.org could be available additionally through external training platforms.
Training Certification
The question at the end of the survey was: “How interested would you be in the possibility of WordPress training certifications?” Majority of the respondents were interested in a training certification.
More exploration of this area is underway, and could be the focus of future parts of the Needs Analysis.
Props to Abha Thakor (@webcommsat) for leading on the analysis and data, Wes Theron (@west7) for co-ordinating the survey work, Nalini Thakor (@nalininonstopnewsuk) for marketing and diversity and inclusion review, Saloni Patel (@Saloni Patel) for initial statistical reporting. To Courtney Robertson (@courane01), Mark- Andrew Nordstrom (@nomadskateboarding), and Amit Patel (@amitpatelmd) for providing peer comments.
Thank you also to Training team members who contributed comments to the development of the questions, to all those who helped in promoting the survey, and to those who completed it. There will be more opportunities for collaboration in the future.
If you were unable to submit your comments during the survey period or would like to follow-up to help expand content or reach in your locale, do join the Training team meetings on the Make WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. There are lots of ways you can get involved with the efforts of the team and the development of Learn.WordPress.org
(We have alternated our weekly team meetings according to the timezone. This week we are having the Team Meeting in the EMEA timezone, and a Coffee Hour was held in the APAC timezone at 7:00 UTC.)
Do you have any thoughts on the proposed improvements to the Faculty program? Or perhaps you have additional ideas? Please leave any thoughts you have in the comments section of the post. (NOTE: Feedback is welcome from both Faculty and non-Faculty members)
Learning pathways are a structured sequence of educational experiences or courses that are designed to help individuals acquire knowledge and skills in a specific field or discipline. @courane01 is working on it. If you have any thoughts, Please do share your thoughts in the comments.
Jamie produces fantastic content for YouTube, and he’s looking for feedback about whether they’d be a good fit for Learn WordPress, too. Please check out the information in the following 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/ issue, and leave your thoughts as comments there: https://github.com/WordPress/Learn/issues/1439
If you are interested in helping with this, please share your interest in this Slack thread.
Discussion: How can we streamline the meeting agenda/recap posts? Reps have two ideas:
Agenda in GitHub, recap on the blog
Detailed agenda on the blog, and add notable discussions in the comments section.
Please share your thoughts in this Slack thread. Which of the two options do you think is better, and why? Or, do you have other suggestions too?
Project Update News
Until last week, at the end of each meeting, we had a section titled “Other projects” where we would ask project leads for an update. However, some projects move slower than others, and we don’t want to burden folks with excess notifications. The last week, we excluded the on-hold projects from the meeting agenda and add them back when they are resumed. You will find a note about these paused projects on the Team’s Administration GitHub board.
We’re looking for ideas to streamline the process of reviewing subtitle files, as GitHub doesn’t accept .ttml file uploads. Please leave your comments on this Slack thread.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the data analysis publication date has been postponed until further notice. An update will be posted once we have more information.
Other Ways to Contribute
Ready to start contributing? Here are a couple of ways to get involved today!
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.
(We have alternated our weekly team meetings according to the timezone. This week we are having the Team Meeting in the APAC timezone, and a Coffee Hour was held in the Americas/EMEA timezone at Tuesday 17:00 UTC.)
Currently, the team posts very similar content on the meeting agenda and recap posts. Team reps are considering how we can streamline this better.
Here are two ideas we’ve had:
Post an agenda in 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/, and publish a recap as a blog post. (This will reduce the number of posts on the blog, too, potentially making it easier to follow the information that gets published there.).
Publishing a detailed agenda on the blog, and writing notable discussions in the comments of the post.
Regarding the above two options, @webtechpooja, @sumitsingh & @courtneypk voted for option 1(idea 1).
➡️ New team update
Each month, Training Team reps publish an update to the entire WordPress project about the progress the team made in the last month. You can read the most recent update here: What’s new on Learn WordPress in March 2023.
New handbook pages
Team reps and faculty members are always updating the team handbook to document team processes better. This week, these two new pages were published:
This new proposal is looking for your feedback by April 7th. Please leave your comments on the post by the end of the week.
News from other WordPress teams
Last week, a new version of WordPress was released – 6.2
Has everyone updated their sites to 6.2 already? What is your favorite feature from the new release?
The best part for @webtechpooja & @bsanevans was site editor BetaBetaA pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. label removed. @sumitsingh liked the “Meet the reimagined Site Editor” under 6.2 part. @nomadskateboarding mentioned his favourite part as Style Book.
Announcement: Temporarily relocating on-hold projects from the meeting agenda to GitHub
Until last week, at the end of each meeting, we had a section titled “Other projects” where we would ask project leads for an update. However, some projects move slower than others, and we don’t want to burden folks with excess notifications.
From this week, we will exclude the on-hold projects from the meeting agenda and add them back when they are resumed. You will find a note about these paused projects on the Team’s Administration GitHub board.
Contributor badges were awarded last week
Last week, @esratpopy and @karthickmurugan were awarded Training Contributor Badges for their contribution to hosting Online Workshops, and translating content on Learn WordPress.
3. Creating content for the WordPress 6.2 release
WordPress 6.2 was released last week, and we have a few more items we’d like to get published. You can find all content labeled 6.2 on our GitHub project board. Here are some items we’re still looking for volunteers for.
A syllabus was published last week. Please comment on the post with any comments you have. We’re also looking for folks to help build the content for this syllabus
Jamie produces fantastic content for YouTube, and he’s looking for feedback about whether they’d be a good fit for Learn WordPress, too. Please check out the information in the following GitHub issue, and leave your thoughts as comments there https://github.com/WordPress/Learn/issues/1439
I just wanted to mention that next week Tuesday is the next scheduled APAC @faculty-dev-squad triage session, and he will be AFK. If anyone else in the APAC dev squad wants to lead that session, please let him know, so that I can arrange the relevant announce permissions for the #meta-learn channel. he also noticed that from what he can see the AMER dev squad has not yet been able to hold a triage session, so he wanted to check in with them and see if there’s anything he can do to assist.
@digitalchild also shared an interest to hold next weeks session.
8. Other ways to contribute
And as we come to the end of the hour, I wanted to mention a few easier ways folks can contribute to the Training Team.
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.
Learning pathways are a structured sequence of educational experiences or courses that are designed to help individuals acquire knowledge and skills in a specific field or discipline. By creating a series of learning pathways for WordPress, we can provide learners with a comprehensive understanding of the platform and its 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. contribution methods. There are many benefits to using learning pathways to create curriculum, including:
Increased Engagement: Learning pathways provide a clear roadmap for learners, which can help to keep them engaged and motivated throughout the learning process.
Personalization: Learning pathways can be customized to meet the individual needs and interests of learners, which can help to make the learning experience more effective and relevant. (as suggested for future development in Learn WordPress Needs Assessment Results)
Better Outcomes: By providing learners with a structured and comprehensive learning experience, we can help them to achieve their learning goals more efficiently and effectively.
Better Collaboration: Learning pathways can encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing among learners, promoting teamwork and problem-solving skills.
Improved Retention: Learning pathways can help learners retain information better by breaking down complex topics into smaller, manageable sections, making it easier for them to remember what they’ve learned.
Unifying Strategy: By unifying a learner-based strategy around curated content will make Learn.WordPress.org more sustainable and reduce maintenance overload. It will also help enhance and provide additional needed resources for WordPress users, rather than duplicating the efforts of others, including the Documentation team and the Dev CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Blog.
To implement this proposal, we suggest that the WordPress community work together to develop a series of learning pathways for WordPress. These learning pathways could cover topics such as WordPress basics, theme and pluginPluginA 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, and ways to contribute to the WordPress open source project. We will
Establish our baseline audiences
Charter and create their Beginner ➡️ Expert learning journeys.
Example: As a Beginner-level WordPress Frontend Developer, what is the content you need to master to move on to Intermediate competency? What is the content you need to master to move on to Expert competency and so on? If we can break down each audience and outline the core competencies for each level we focus our content creation around that and build out their pathways.
The WordPress Training Team will seek opportunities to collaborate with hiring managers in the WordPress ecosystem, independent freelancers and contractors, as well as educational institutions and other organizations to develop and promote these learning pathways. Next steps might include partnering with educational institutions to that offer WordPress courses or collaborating with industry organizations to create certification programs.
By embracing learning pathways, we can help to create a more structured and effective learning experience for individuals who want to learn about WordPress. We believe that this will benefit both learners and the WordPress community as a whole.
(We have alternated our weekly team meetings according to the timezone. This week we are having the Team Meeting in the APAC timezone, and a Coffee Hour was held in the Americas/EMEA timezone at Tuesday 17:00 UTC.)
We are considering discontinuing async meetings. Please leave your comments on this Slack discussion. (Note: This link will take you away from this meeting flow.)
Daylight Savings Time ends on March 12 for AMER and March 26th for EMEA. And according to the poll, we will run the meeting at 16:00 UTC. We will change the time from the next meeting i.e. March 21.
Would anyone like to co-host the upcoming EMEA/AMER meeting on March 28 with me? Please leave your name in the comments if you want to volunteer.
Please provide your feedback on the proposed learning path. Here I would like to mention @Courtney also shared a draft for learning pathways, just before the meeting started. Here is the link 👇
This post aims to start building the proposed mentorship program using the contributor working group! If you would like to contribute or be a part of this, comment on the post.
Start working on revising and creating content for WP 6.2 on LearnWP
WordPress 6.2 Release CandidateRelease CandidateA beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. 2 will be released today at #core
The following items are other projects that team members have volunteered to take on. Would any of the project owners like to provide the team with an update?
Training Team Site GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ blocks – @Amit Patel
No updates yet, I have drafts in progress and will start sharing those when I have them a bit more finalized. With the release underway, expect a slew of updates a few days after the release.
@psykro mentioned confusion around the process of applying for team badges. @webtechpooja mentioned the team was in the process of updating handbook pages. The 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/ issue in use right now will be closed once those updates have been published.
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.
(We have alternated our weekly team meetings according to the timezone. This week we are having the Team Meeting in the APAC timezone, and a Coffee Hour was held in the Americas/EMEA timezone at Tuesday 17:00 UTC.)
Training Team goals for 2023 have been published. Please check out the team goals for this year. This will help us prioritize different tasks throughout the year.
Meeting Time Update
Daylight Savings Time ends on March 12th at 10:00 UTC and the UK and other parts of Europe change after March 26th. We created a poll for collecting votes and below result we got:
Add your thoughts to this Slack discussion. As to whether we should consistently stick to “Learn” or “Learn WordPress”, or whether both could be used interchangeably, we would be interested to hear the thoughts from the team.
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. Update
Destiny will be away from March 1 – June 1 for a sabbatical. Please continue to lean on @bsanevans and @webtechpooja during this time.
Online Workshops Update
A discussion has started to include Online Workshops in the WordPress admin dashboard widgetWidgetA WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.:: Proposal: Modify the Events and News widget to show topic-based meetups worldwide
We are looking for folks to create content related to the WordPress 6.2 release. You can find content needing creation on this GitHub project board. Here are other useful links:
Training Team Site GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ blocks – @Amit Patel. We had brainstormed on this project’s tasks and discussions on the same. Thanks, @Jamie Madden, @askaryabbas, @Sagar Ladani, @Karthick, and @Mayur Baroliya for participating in the same. We will have a few updates to share by the next team meeting.
@Amit Patel gave an update on the Training team Handbook page – Team Profile Badges. He will publish the updated version this week.
@webtechpooja started the discussion by sharing one of her celebrations’ news Holi – Festival of Colors. Also, @karthickmurugan asked about “6 of my lesson plans and handbook pages Tamil translations are waiting for a reviewer. If we find a Tamil Reviewer for reviewing those, it would be great.” Proper discussion with solutions had been provided.
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.
How shall we refer to the site https://learn.wordpress.org? Add your thoughts to this Slack discussion.
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. Destiny will be away from March 1 – June 1 for a sabbatical.
A discussion has started to include Online Workshops in the WordPress admin dashboard widgetWidgetA WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.: Proposal: Modify the Events and News widget to show topic-based meetups worldwide
Published Content
Tutorial
Lesson Plan
Course
Start working on revising and creating content for WP 6.2 on LearnWP – WordPress 6.2 Beta 1 launched on Feb 7
Training Team Site GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ blocks – @amitpatelmd
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.
Thank you for joining the Training Team for 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. Asia 2023 Contributor DayContributor DayContributor 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/.! We’ve prepared activities for for both new and experienced contributors to join in on the day.
We plan on hosting some online events during Contributor Day, too, so that people who couldn’t attend WordCampAsia can still participate remotely! Please follow this post to receive a notice once these online events are scheduled.
Whether you’re new to the team or an experienced contributor, we’d love for you to answer our Individual Learner Survey. This survey will help us identify the needs of WordPress learners and help shape the goals for the team.
The WordPress training team helps people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through synchronous and asynchronous learning as well as downloadable lesson plans for instructors to use in live environments, via learn.wordpress.org.
I’m new to the Training Team!
Thanks for joining! Please walk through our brand new Onboarding Program. This will give you an overview of the team, help you set up the accounts you need to contribute, and even walk you through your first contribution!
We expect the onboarding program above to take 30-60 minutes. Once you’ve completed onboarding, jump into these other activities to continue contributing!
Review published content and submit feedback
The WordPress software continues to grow and new features get added all the time. Reviewing published content and updating content is important in keeping the Learn WordPress website current. Follow the team guide about reviewing published content to leave feedback about any content below. (Reviewing older content would be helpful!)
Have a look through the Learn WordPress website. Are there any topics you feel would be great to add to the website? Come add your topic ideas to our 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository from the button below:
Thanks for joining! Depending on your interests, there are a few ways you can get involved. For each of the tasks below, the team handbook should help you with process specifics. But if you have any questions, feel free to reach out!
This year, the Training Team identified our shared values. Based on these values, we are now setting goals for the rest of the year.
Join in on the discussions happening on the post Training Team 2023 Goals Setting. Leave any thoughts or comments you might have right there in the post.
We will be publishing a list of finalized goals on March 1st.
Content Creation
Are you interested in creating content? If so, then creating content related to the WordPress 6.1 and WordPress 6.2 releases are our priority today.
Start by searching for a piece of content you’d like to work on in either the 6.1 project board or 6.2 project board. Once found, comment on the GitHub issue so that we can assign it to you.
Content Translation
Are you interested in translating content? If so, then translating content related to the Localization Foundation project is our priority today. Do you speak Spanish, Japanese, German, French, or Italian? Come help us localize content for either these five or our 8 other languages.
Are you interested in editing content? If so, then reviewing content waiting to be published is our priority today.
Start by finding a piece of content to review in our content development board. This GitHub view has filtered all content waiting for reviews before it is published. Follow the team’s Guidelines for reviewing content and leave your reviews right there in GitHub.
Triage Developer Issues
Are you a developer interested in working on issues for the Learn website? If so, then working through our Website Development project board is our priority today.
Start by reviewing issues “In Review”. Any help you can provide issues “In Progress” would be great, too. But in generally, any attention you can give to any issue would be much appreciated.
Please let a 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. know if you’d like to take notes, too!
On January 23rd, the Training Team will be conducting two 2-hour exercises to discover our shared values. These exercises are open to anyone interested in participating, and will be recorded.
Here are the session details:
Monday, 23 January 2023 at 07:00UTC to Monday, 23 January 2023 at 9:00 UTC, facilitated by @bsanevans
Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 19:00UTC to Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 21:00 UTC facilitated by @angelasjin
What you’ll find in here are the links to GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ changelogs. We anticipate Gutenberg versions 14.2 – 15.1 to be merged into WP 6.2. There are links for CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.TracTracTrac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. which would be all things not Gutenberg, or beyond FSE. We expect more yet to come in between now and Feb 7, but ideally on Feb 7 when betaBetaA pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 releases, we can start work on this.
Before we start the work, folks can volunteer for any issues tagged as 6.2. Just hold off on screenshots and videos until then.
This is a new dedicated Slack channel for notifications about Tutorials, Lesson Plans, Online Workshops, and Courses that have been recently published.
This project thread expands upon our Project Proposal: Content Localization and seeks to outline the tasks we aim to complete to accomplish the project’s goals to increase and expand availability of content on Learn WordPress to a variety of non-English locales.
Project members have been added as Contributors to the Learn siteLearn siteThe Training Team publishes its completed lesson plans at https://learn.wordpress.org/ which is often referred to as the "Learn" site. so that they can create and edit their translated content directly on the site prior to publication.
@piyopiyofox is working on a guide outlining content translation creation -> publication with videos and will have a draft ready this week.
3 pieces of content have been published! Congratulations @pitamdey and @sagarladani!
There are more published translations to come! @piyopiyofox is reaching out to Local Ambassadors this week to see how we can get other translators in other key languages activated for the project.
We discussed what a good way would be for contributors to add themselves to a list of contributors for each area of contribution. We’ve decided to create a Google Form which would be connected to a Google Spreadsheet team admins can maintain. The form would be embedded into the onboarding docs. Here is how the project is going.
We also discussed what would be good “first contributions” for each of the five onboarding paths. Ideally, these “first contributions” would be things people can complete in 30-60 minutes. We will be creating guides for each process in the Handbook, and linking to them from the onboarding documents. These are the first contributions we decided on.
We are working to create a needs analysis document to help determine the most high-impact resources to provide on Learn WordPress. Please see the post Project Overview: Learning Needs Analysis for a more in-depth background and overview.
The deadline for the survey to be completed is on the 15th of February. The marketing team was briefed by @courane01 at their January 17th meeting of our need to have a marketing push before the cutoff.
Looking For Feedback
@amitpatelmd is looking for feedback on these two handbook pages:
@victorr has forked the original Slides pluginPluginA 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-partyreferenced in this post and is in the process of unit testing and prioritizing Core 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. supports for the plugin.
We attempted to reach out to the original plugin dev but had no responses.
By sourcing this as a custom post typeCustom Post TypeWordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept. on Learn, it will give contributors an interface they are familiar with.
Thank you @victorr and staff have contributed towards the development work, and @meaganhanes for some scoping and testing.
There is a huge checklist for content creation at this time. We are thinking to revise this checklist so new contributors can easily understand the workflow. any suggestions are welcome. Please use these links to see Lesson Plan and Tutorial template issue on 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/.
You are welcome to join the team at any time! If you are new to the Training Team, please introduce yourself in the #training channel before the meeting (or anytime!) and feel free to join us in the meeting and participate as you are able.
Training Team Mission
The WordPress training team helps people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through synchronous and asynchronous learning as well as downloadable lesson plans for instructors to use in live environments, via learn.wordpress.org.
Getting Involved
Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join in, comment on posts, and participate in meetings and on projects.
(Requires SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. login to view. You can set one up if you don’t have a Slack account.)
Please let a 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. know if you’d like to take notes, too!
2022 Year in review / Achievements
The team took some time to recognize our achievements from 2022. (See Training Team Goals for 2022 to see what those goals were.) Here are the achievements we listed:
We move our Project board from TrelloTrelloProject management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. to Github
We increased content in non-English languages
We increased team engagement in the APAC region
Many Online Workshops facilitated each month, including some in non-English languages
Check out the post above to understand the history and progress of the team’s desire to conduct a Needs Analysis. And if you haven’t taken the Individual Learner Survey yet, please do!
Bite-Sized Content on Learn
Conversations have started around creating 1 minute long videos on Learn. (Similar to TikTok videos, but about WordPress and hosted on Learn.) There is interest in collaborating with the Marketing Team on these, too. A blog post on the topic will come soon.
Change considered regarding the Settings icon in the editor sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme.
Discussions are happening around the settings icon seen in the editor. Please contributed directly to this GitHub thread with your thoughts.
The Training Team Onboarding Paths project members have a check in call next Monday. They should have draft onboarding documents ready for the team to review next week.
Open Discussions
Should we move the Learn WordPress feed out of the training Slack channel and into a new channel?
Each time a new piece of content is published on Learn WordPress, there is a notification in the training Slack channel. This was initially set up to notify team members of activity on the site when there wasn’t a lot of activity yet in the channel.
However, now that there is more activity in the Slack channel, and much more content getting published regularly, the idea was raised to remove these notices out of the training channel and into its own new channel.
If you have thoughts about this, please comment below.
You are welcome to join the team at any time! If you are new to the Training Team, please introduce yourself in the #training channel before the meeting (or anytime!) and feel free to join us in the meeting and participate as you are able.
Training Team Mission
The WordPress training team helps people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through synchronous and asynchronous learning as well as downloadable lesson plans for instructors to use in live environments, via learn.wordpress.org.
Getting Involved
Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join in, comment on posts, and participate in meetings and on projects.
New handbook pages
.
