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Welcome!

The WordPress training team creates downloadable lesson plans and related materials for instructors to use in live environments. If you enjoy teaching people how to use and build stuff for WordPress, immediately stop what you’re doing and join our team!

Regardless of your skill set, you can help! We need people to write, copyedit, test, audit, connect, and review our lesson plans. Find out how to get started.

Contact Us

We meet weekly at Friday, September 18, 2020 at 11:00 AM UTC in the #training Slack channel on wordpress.slack.com. Leave a message in Slack any time.

You can also leave a comment on this blog or fill out our contact form and we’ll get back to you.

#meeting-agenda, #wpdiversity

Make WordPress Training

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Agenda for September 11, 2020

Please join us Friday at 11:00 UTC in the #training Slack channel for our weekly meeting!

Today’s Agenda

  1. Call for volunteers
    1. Today’s notetaker & willing to post Recap notes (we have a reusable block for that now)
    2. Welcoming new users to our Slack channel
    3. Alt meeting for Pacific Rim
  2. Recap of Learn site meeting
  3. Update on Lesson Plan audit
  4. Discussion items
    1. Renaming Lesson Plan Workshops (courses?)
    2. Lesson plans that involve brands need to be discussed/considered.
    3. Discussion on where lesson plans live
  5. Open announcements/discussion
    1. Contributor open office hours

Lesson Plan Audit Update

  • See the far right 5 columns on our Trello board.
  • We have notes from @azhiyadev in the comparison category.
  • Lessons in the Almost Ready column are easy lifts to finish. Could we get volunteers to finish those?
  • Speaker Diversity lesson plans from @jillbinder are a priority, and Jill has rewritten a considerable amount as part of the #WPDiversity program.
  • Auditing each lesson on Learn also involves
    • Completing metadata
    • Checking for missing images, replacing as possible
    • Looking for Slides in GitHub repo
    • Grammar/spellcheck
    • Content completion
    • Internal linking within the Learn site (not back to GitHub lesson plans)
    • Updating outdated links to Codex to HelpHub/Developer Docs
    • Callout formatting
  • It’d be super helpful to have a lesson plan reusable block on Learn.
  • Additional help auditing the lesson plans would be most appreciated!

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 creates downloadable lesson plans and related materials for instructors to use in live environments.

Getting Involved

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join in, comment on posts, and participate in meetings and on projects.

Team Links:

#meeting-agenda

Recap for Training Team Meeting September 4, 2020

Attendance: @chetan200891, @courane01, @knilkantha, @chaion07, @thisisyeasin, @webcommsat, @carike, @tikolan, @azhiyadev

Slack timestamp

Introductions were made and then @courane01 revisited the goal of the Training team, creating lesson plans and instructional materials for anyone to use when teaching others WordPress. Plans have been used in Meetups, traditonal classrooms, bootcamps and workshops. The #community-team uses plans in several outreach initiatives as well, particularly around what is open-source. A few people pop into #training asking to be trained.

@courane01 asked for people interested in being the key lead for welcoming new people to the channel, similar approach to how #marketing welcomes new people to their channel.

Training team current priorities

Cross-team collaboration for Learn site.

After years of hard work, Lesson plans are now live on http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200913083702/https://learn.wordpress.org/ However, it is not quite ready to draw attention too yet. Meeting notes for Learn site maintenance meeting held Friday 4 September 2020 in #community-team are now available.

Prioritize lesson plans that are current/hot topics, identify which need just a little push to take live.

The team needs to assess the state of lesson plans that are ready to be visible. @carike has done a great job of finding glitches from syncing from Github and @courane01 has tried to compare this against the team’s Trello board (tracks what is done and ready to be live).

There are a few pull requests in Github that should be reviewed/accepted on lesson plans. @courane01 suggested possibly working on a few lessons plans that are new/hot topics like all the changes to using the block editor brought up in 5.5.

@webcommsat is working with @hlashbrooke in the community on promotions and it will be good to gather some key info regarding lesson plans on Learn when this is ready to be promoted.

Discussion welcome on lesson plans. They have been built in Github and @courane01 would like to revisit if this should continue to be the case. The inital reason for using Github was when they were moved, all lesson plans images were lost from the Training team P2 never to be restored.

Need to consider new lesson plans to be drafted. @courane01 has come up with a few but has not written the content for them yet. @webcommsat and @hlashbrooke have talked about linking these lessons/guides from the Q&As they are working on from the release and marketing. It would be good to look at how they can be aware of when these are ready and cross promote the resources. If anyone would like to write these plans then please contact @chetan200891 or @courane01 for access.

Determine what is an agreeable arrangement with brands on brand-specific mentions for important and unavoidable areas like contact forms.

An appropriate strategy is needed to teach things like contact forms or other areas that many sites need, but core doesn’t include. Later we can explore the lessons around very common plugins.

Plan/document how to partner with brands.

There is a need to think through what an appropriate mention of brands entails or could do.

Sync up with Polyglots for translating lesson plans.

@courane01 mentioned the need to prepare for partnering with #polygots as we get lessons live. The video workshop area is moving towards those needs as well.

Open announcements/discussions

Based on the Doodle poll, team meeting moving forward will be held on Fridays at 11:00 UTC in #training. @courane01 would be delighted to see a second meeting time for PM in the Americas and AM for parts of the pacific rim. A few people have expressed interest in that time slot.

Please feel free to reach out anytime to get connected, account permissions, etc. For getting onboarded and to start contributing please look at the post written by @chetan200891 http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200913083702/https://make.wordpress.org/training/2020/08/21/east-bay-contributor-day-2020/. It also includes video tutorials.

Action Items

  • @azhiyadev to assist @courane01 in reviewing what is on Learn, comparing it to Trello and identifying what should be live on Learn.
  • Discussion welcome on if lesson plans should continue to be built using Github or some other alternative solution.
  • A few pull requests in Github need to be reviewed/accepted on lesson plans
  • Getting Trello/Github PRs current. We can manually move the completed plans over for now. Github Sync to Learn is disabled until bugs have been sorted. Does anyone have any ideas on comparing those?
  • Draft new lesson plans highlighted above.

Agenda for September 4, 2020

Please join us Friday at 11:00 UTC in the #training Slack channel for our weekly meeting!

Today’s Agenda

  1. Current Training team priorities
  2. Open announcements/discussion

Training Team Current Priorities

Our team has been in a state of flux, while all our hard work for creating lesson plans launched live on Learn. Yay! But as a team, we need to get things back on track. Briefly, the priorities below are my suggestions based upon the current state of things. Let’s discuss if this is what we as a team agree upon.

Each of these areas can be worked on in an ongoing manner, and various team members may have interest in volunteering around specific focus points at any given time.

  1. Cross-team collaboration update for Learn site maintenance
  2. Prioritize lesson plans that are current/hot topics, identify which need just a little push to take live.
  3. Determine what is an agreeable arrangement with brands on brand-specific mentions for important and unavoidable areas like contact forms.
  4. Plan/document how to partner with brands
  5. Sync up with Polyglots for translating lesson plans

Contributing to Training:

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 creates downloadable lesson plans and related materials for instructors to use in live environments.

Getting Involved

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join in, comment on posts, and participate in meetings and on projects.

Team Links:

Let’s Meet

Hi folks! Are you interested in contributing? Let us know what time works well for you.

Did you see? The lesson plans are live on the Learn site. The soft launch shipped. There’s a call for those interested in maintaining the Learn site (not the content, but the actual site).

An influx of new people has been streaming into the Training team Slack channel as well.

Last weekend, a Contributor Day reviewed our needs as well.

@jillbinder touched base to get the Diverse Speaker lesson plans reviewed as well.

As you can gather, there’s a big need for the team to start reviewing existing lesson plans, assist with maintaining how those lessons display on Learn, and create quite a few new plans as well.

What time works for you?

East Bay Contributor Day 2020

Hey there East Bay Meetup Group! Welcome to Contributor Day.

Please register for a WordPress.org account.

Create a WordPress Slack Account.

  • Login with your WordPress.org account on this link.
  • Scroll on that page to “Joining WordPress team on Slack” and enter your email address.
  • If you can, make your Slack and WordPress.org Usernames the same.
  • After you sign up for WordPress Slack, the email associated with your Slack username will be [wporgusername]@chat.wordpress.org. This is important if you forget your password.
  • Find the #training channel in Slack and join.
  • Bonus points for uploading a photo so people recognize you 🙂

Our team uses Github to build our lesson plans.

We use Trello to manage tasks and lesson plans.

After joining Github and Trello, Please send your username so we can add you.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join in, comment on posts, and participate in meetings and on projects.

Our Current Priority Lesson Plans:

Getting Started:

#contributor-days

If anyone cares to review existing lesson plans looking at the resource links that go to the old Codex posts and find the appropriate article within http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200913083702/https://wordpress.org/support or http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200913083702/http://developer.wordpress.org, that would also be appreciated. Link to the lesson plan and note the revision needed. Comment below with the link to the lesson plan, what to add/omit.

Where do we go from here?

Hey folks! Wow… things are happening quickly here. That is exciting. I’d really love to hear how you have found the training team, what you want to help with, and your why if you are up for sharing. Swing by our Slack channel to say hello.

Where are we now?

At home most likely. Stay healthy friends. But really, as a team, we are regrouping. We have not had much activity in creating/reviewing lesson plans. We have a backlog of pull requests in our GitHub repo as well.

But – the Learn site is live! It’s been 7 years in production. Yes, 7. Learn has been the destination for our lesson plans. It is a combined contribution of our lesson plan content and theme planning while working with Design, Meta, TV, Community, and more. Talk about cross-team collaboration.

What do we do now?

Well, our lessons are now rather public. This is wonderful and has spurred new contributors to swing into our Slack channel at least. I love reading the passionate contributors’ ideas popping up.

We have a few high priority issues.

  • We’ve taken branded plugins down from the Learn site for now. Historically, the Training team began with generic lessons.
    • Before Customizer included the Additional CSS area, we considered several branded plugin options. We had opted against it for a time, and then opted to include ones that were part of default WordPress installs or provided functionality that Core did not (contact forms, formerly sitemaps) and later to also inform users about the most popular plugins.
    • Let’s revisit if and how we can partner with brand owners (and later potentially themes as well) regarding how to best present lessons that meet the needs of trainers, document any specific needs and workflows for brand owners.
  • Coordinate with Community as we share the Learn site space to move forward.
  • Audit & prioritize the already-live lesson plans for any gaps, content to take down or update.
    • Editor (we only have Classic at a user level, missing Block Editor completely)
    • Default themes mentioned are now out of date
    • Thorough check on branded content in lesson plans

We also have an influx of ideas from new participants. Let’s briefly revisit how and why. We have almost 100 repos.

  • Lesson plans are on GitHub.
  • We have a format for each lesson plan. They can be found in our GitHub repo. Factors that drew us to using this as a repo for the lesson plans before they moved to Learn can be found in the archives here. In short, the team needed a way to take a lesson through its paces on revision, auditing, and more. These plans where originally living in the team Handbook. Drafts are still there, now unpublished. The images in the media library disappeared before the move to GitHub, with much sadness.
  • Slides – we have talked about them for ages. They are useful for instructors. They may or may not hold up well in pre-recorded videos for the Community online workshop route, but can be. I’ve found them rather incomplete.
  • As long as we are using GitHub for our team/project, we need help reviewing PRs. Should we seek out Slack integration?
  • Is GitHub the best repo still for lesson plans? Those less familiar with using GitHub have a barrier to entry in contributing this way. The team does need a strong revision tool, assurance that the media library or other valuable aspects of our content will be backed up. New voices have shared an interest in where we keep those.
  • The Learn site, and any repo or staging for our lesson plans and live video workshops will need auditing as WordPress updates. 5.5 had quite a few updates to the block editor that are substantial enough to warrant revising content. We need to plot a path for reviewing the team Trello to ensure it is current, and tools within the Learn site or lesson repos to audit. @juliekuehl shared a still current and valid option that could work within Learn. (note: We don’t even have using the Block Editor lesson yet.)
  • The Learn site is now a cross-team platform. Let’s get together with a few key players from Community that helped us ship the site. As teams, we need to plot our path forward on maintaining content, interlinking, and more.
  • Workshops per the Training team were intended to be Lesson Plan + Lesson Plan + Lesson Plan = Workshop. We now have video-based workshops. Can we connect them with interlinking?
  • Our team directive was to provide downloadable materials for offline use. Lesson plans, slides, and now videos can all be potentially downloaded in ways that presenters can use offline. Are we still aiming for downloadable content?
    • Note: for slides, that wouldn’t just be a PDF, but also a way to download the related slide deck and display it in a browser, with or without connectivity.
    • @tikolan shared a tool to download slides for lesson plans. I can test that by Thursday, August 20.

For the many many contributors that have passed through the Training team, again, thank you! Props were pulled together on fast notice and can be found where the Learn site launch was announced. This was our first official time giving props for the launch.

#learn-wordpress

Update on learn.wordpress.org

Hey there Training team

I hope you are all faring well through this trying season.  It’s been quite some time since we’ve met.  For those able to join in for a chat, come join in some open office hours at 11am EDT on Monday.  

We’ve got some big news.  So much effort by our team has gone into shipping a new Learn site. @man4toman @chetan200891 and @dufresnesteven have done a fantastic job at building out the site.  @juliekuehl and @jessecowens have led this team through the reorganization of our lesson plans moving to our Github repository, and soon we’ll get to see them living on the Learn site as well. It’s possible that the Learn website will be able to soft-launch within one week. 

As WordCamps, Meetups, and other in-person WordPress related events have pivoted through the Coronavirus pandemic, the Community team has reimagined online events, with a new initiative to build community beyond events.  

Moving beyond synchronous events

Using a flipped-classroom model, the Learn site will soon be an organized way to find how-to lessons for a wide range of abilities and goals.  As we compile a series of lessons, contributors can record them and offer video workshops, reinforcing the content with optional real-time discussions.  That can happen online, and in the future as in person-events resume, could happen in the pre-pandemic method we have offered.

Possible Lesson elements:

  • A video presentation about the subject, and a way to download this for offline use as needed
  • Lesson plans for anyone to use when presenting the lesson in person
  • Slides if applicable
  • Links to Support and Developer articles that are relevant to the material
  • A way to rate and review the lesson and content and presentation
  • Participant assessment of confidence, familiarity, and understanding of the content before and after
  • What workshop(s) does this lesson plan connect with?
  • Details for the next online real-time event 
  • Editor-level taxonomy in the admin dashboard to help us audit content readily as updates are available

What Training Team Contributors can do:

Where do we go from here?

The Community team is fast at work on organizing real-time online events to extend the lessons and workshops into spaces where participants can engage with instructors.  We’ll hear more about how that goes soon. 

We could set ourselves a goal, as a team, to facilitate one new lesson plan per week.  In time, lessons will culminate into workshops.

As a team, we have an amazing opportunity for cross-team collaboration, assisting instructors and other contributors, and ultimately, to empower others with ways to express their voices online.

Who’s interested? For those able to be present, at 11am EDT/3pm UTC, join me in the Training channel.  Share your ideas in the comments below. 

#learn-wordpress

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