As we get closer to launching Learn WordPress, and we continue to explore ways to improve the platform, a number of contributors started to pull together some ideas in this post for what we’d like to see Learn look like in the future.

This originally started as a Google document, so I’ve tried to capture most, if not all, of the comments shared in revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. of this list. However, these ideas are just a starting point to collect all of our ideas and visions for Learn. Please keep adding thoughts, ideas, clarifications, and so on as you think of them!

Project Goals

Learn WordPress is an online platform that offers free educational content for anyone interested in learning how to publish with, build for, and contribute to WordPress. It is intended to be the primary learning resource for anyone wanting to learn how to do more, and help others do more, with WordPress.  

We aim to:

• Educate about WordPress
• Appreciate the power of WordPress and how it’s made
• Celebrate all the cool things people are doing with WordPress

What could this look like?

Think of this as answering the question: “What could Learn WordPress look like in 2023?”

Courses

• Courses include multiple workshops, articles, and quizzes.
• Courses are focused on specific, practical learning outcomes.
• Certifications are received after each course, and/or available based on broader learner outcomes.
• Individual lessons can include text content along with the videos.
• Different WordPress agencies or businesses can indicate what level of mastery on which subject areas would be expected for successful candidates for their open positions.  
• Development-focused courses include prerequisites for familiarity with the required languages, as well as resources on how to build those skills.

Workshop videos

• New videos being published every week.
• All videos are captioned, and sub-titled in multiple languages.
• All workshops have an associated quiz and next step (now you try, share your work, discuss in a group, now learn this).
• All videos are downloadable for offline viewing.
• Video content and discussion groups are readily available in multiple languages.

Lesson plans

• Up to date and actively maintained.
• Similar to plugins and themes, each lesson plan shows Version, Last Update, Compatible up to, and Scheduled review date.
• All lessons plans have viewable and downloadable slides.
• Lesson plan content is easily printable.
• It’s easy to contribute updates/fixes to lesson plans.
• Lesson plans available in formats that meet the requirements of multiple learning institutions: high schools, vocational schools, universities, bootcamps, Youth Events.
• Curriculum aligned to specified educational standards (national & regional, specialty areas), with standards included in the lesson plan display/information.

Discussion groups

• Take place daily.
• Discussions are scheduled and take place directly on Learn.
• Workshop presenters host discussions groups for their own workshops.
• Anyone can initiate a discussion group and schedule it in through the UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. on Learn – only users who have completed and passed a “How to facilitate a discussion group” quiz will be allowed to make use of this.
• A public calendar on the site showing all discussion group timings.

Quizzes/evaluations

• A user’s average quiz score is displayed on their .org profile.
• Quizzes are repeatable until you get the score you want.
• Quizzes can be neatly printed in order to be taken offline.
• A public leaderboard showing ranking based on average quiz scores is available.
• Profile badges are automatically awarded for people who complete lots of courses and/or get consistently high grades on the quizzes.
• Create a rubric of alternative measures of evaluation, depending on the course type, i.e. a course to create a 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 with a cohort.

New content

• People can submit ideas for content they would like to see – ideas are visible publicly so others can choose to work on them.
• People can apply to present a workshop.
• People can submit additional quiz questions.
• Workshops come from professionals, as well as “normal” community members.
• The possibility of having multiple workshops on the same topic from different community members.

Master courses

• The site hosts occasional synchronous master courses.
• They can be streamed live or watched later from the recording.
• They include homework/exercises for viewers to go through on their own.

Learning groups

• New learning groups in popular courses and time zones are forming every week.
• Cohorts can be self-organized by anyone using the UI on the site with built-in tools for sharing work and holding video calls.
• Cohorts go through a course together and have a private space for sharing notes and discussions.
• Group-oriented cohorts: Members of a cohort are from a specific group to better support DEI initiatives.
• Goal-oriented cohorts: Members of a cohort work on a particular task (e.g. create a plugin) while learning about the project.
• Contribution-oriented cohorts: Participants learn how to contribute to WordPress in a cohort and end up making a tangible contribution.
• Explore the possibility of engaging different audiences through collaborating with Youth Events organizers. 
• Open feedback loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. from cohorts to allow us to learn what they would like to learn next, as well as how effective the course was for them.

Workspace tooling

• A practical workspace on the site for people to do exercises along with the workshops, including a WP dashboard as well as an online coding environment
• This can be used for regular workshops, as well as masterclasses.
• An accessible library of resources for setting up local sites and other tooling for locally hosted workspaces.

Showcase

• A showcase on the site shows the work people have done after going through the content – could be new sites, blog posts, plugins, themes, or anything else relevant.
• Any learner can submit their content.
• Content is vetted before being publicly displayed.
• Regular revisions or tooling allows us to make sure that content is kept as up-to-date as possible (avoid broken links).

Cross-linked content

• Lesson plans, workshops and discussion groups are all cross-linked where applicable.
• Content is also linked to docs on DevHub and HelpHub in a visually engaging way (i.e. oEmbed or something similar).

CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. integration

• A WP-admin dashboard widgetWidget A 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. for Learn that shows highlighted workshops, courses, and other information.
• New WP sites have an opt-in to add links to video tutorials on multiple features in WordPress, as well as a “true beginner” video overlay that guides new users through the admin screen and how to write their first post and page.

Learner profile and notification settings

• Learners can subscribe to different courses and tags (JS, UI, leadership, etc) to be notified when new courses are published or new material is added to courses.
• Profile to include “diploma room” with certificates of completion, plus various badges earned through completing individual or groups of courses. Also, learning goals and most recently attended discussion group.
• Learners can sign up to be alerted of new discussion groups on certain topics or workshops when the discussions are added to the schedule
• Trained discussion group facilitators will have a special badge on their profiles, as well as workshop presenters

Outreach

• Lesson plans are available & appropriately formatted for high schools, vocational schools, and universities to factor into their curriculum. 
• High schools and college clubs can use our WordPress Local Learning start-up kit to start their own WordPress clubs in school and book special discussion groups for people in their age groups. 
• Outreach coordinators will promote the courses to NPOs focused on technical training for underrepresented groups and can use our white papers to apply for grants to fund this training. 
• Engage in outreach to existing WordPress trainers and educators to create content that meets a variety of business standards, and to help with continuous iteration on building guidelines, standards, and vetting tools that help us achieve these goals.

Thank you so much to @courane01, @azhiyadev, @hlashbrooke, @andreamiddleton, @harishanker, and @angelasjin for contributing to and helping to write this post.

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