WordPress
Learn WordPress Course Cohort #3
Planning issue for the next Learn WordPress course cohort:
https://make.wordpress.org/training/handbook/training-team-how-to-guides/course-cohorts/
Tasks
- [x] Decide on content
- [x] Decide on dates
- [x] Publish sign up post
- [x] Gather attendees
- [x] Facilitate cohort
- [ ] Publish wrap-up post
Suggested dates
- Sign up post - Friday, October 11, 2024
- Sign-ups close - Friday, October 25, 2024
- Course cohort dates - Monday, 5 November, 2024 to Friday 13 December
- Weekly Zoom calls every Wednesday during the 6-week period
Thanks @laxmariappan
If we hold the weekly Zoom calls every Wednesday, that would be the following dates:
- 6 November
- 13 November
- 20 November
- 27 November
- 4 December
- 11 December
Are you free for all those dates? And then, what time would you like to have the call?
I am available on those days. Can we make it 12:00 UTC? Or any other time will work as well.
Content
We've discussed this in Slack, but we're going to focus the cohort on an Introduction to developing plugins.
Structure
I propose we follow the following structure:
Prerequisite preparation and reading
Cohort participants will be required to sign up for the Beginner WordPress Developer course and complete all the lessons in the first module on A brief overview of how WordPress works:
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/wordpress-and-web-servers/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/the-wordpress-file-structure/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/the-wordpress-database/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/permalinks-rewriting-urls-on-apache-and-nginx/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/front-end-page-request/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/admin-page-request/
Weekly course content to be covered
Each week, we can focus on specific topics related to beginner plugin development from this learning pathway.
At the start of the week, we ask folks to work through the related content in the course, and then we discuss it during the Zoom call on Wednesday.
For some weeks, more than one lesson is listed under related content. This does not mean we have to cover all those lessons as part of the weekly call. Additionally, where there are only 1 or 2 lessons, it's also okay to share other resources around that topic (developer docs, developer blog posts, etc.).
Week 1: Setting up a local development environment
Primary objective: participants will set up a local development environment and choose a code editor
Related content:
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/local-development-environment/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/wordpress-installation/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/code-editor/
Week 2: Basic plugin requirements
Primary objective: participants will build their first plugin that can be activated on a WordPress site. It does not have to do anything.
Related content:
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/what-is-a-plugin/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/plugin-requirements/
Week 3: Hooks and Filters
Primary objective: participants will learn how to use action hooks and filter hooks
Related content:
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/wordpress-hooks/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/action-hooks/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/filter-hooks/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/working-with-hooks/
Week 4: Custom post types and taxonomies
Primary objective: participants will learn how to register a custom post type and a custom taxonomy.
Related content:
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/custom-post-types/
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/custom-taxonomies/
Primary objective: participants will learn how to register and use post meta for custom data
Week 5: Custom post type data Related content:
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/custom-post-type-data/
Week 6: CSS and JavaScript
Primary objective: participants will learn how to enqueue and use CSS and JavaScript in their plugins.
Related content:
- https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/enqueuing-css-or-javascript/
After the cohort
Participants will be encouraged to complete all the other lessons in the Beginner developer course.
@laxmariappan let me know if you have any questions, comments or feedback about this suggestion.
@jonathanbossenger everything looks great👏
I am sure the participants will get much value out of it 🙏
Project thread: https://make.wordpress.org/training/2024/10/13/project-thread-the-third-learn-wordpress-course-cohort/
Announcement post: https://make.wordpress.org/training/2024/10/13/announcing-the-next-learn-wordpress-course-cohort/
Participant update:
42 participants signed up. Three did not have valid Slack accounts, so I had no way to contact them to invite them to the cohort.
This leaves us with 39 valid sign-ups.
@laxmariappan has confirmed he's happy to proceed with that number. This will be the largest cohort we've run so far!
I will be reaching to out all 39 this week to confirm their participation, and adding them to the #training-cohorts channel in Slack.
Participant Update:
I have DMd all valid Slack accounts today. There were an additional few participants that didn't have Slack accounts, so the current total number of potential participants is 34.
Call planning
Based on the cohort content structure and syllabus shared here, this is my proposal for the format for each weekly call.
Week 1: Welcome (30 minutes) and local development environments (30 minutes)
- Welcome all participants
- Introduce facilitators
- Allow each participant to introduce themselves (name, location, what they do with WordPress)
- An overview of local development environments
- Cover all the available options (see https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/local-development-environment/) and anything else we want to add
- Allow time for questions related to local development environments
Week 2: Basic plugin requirements
- Short welcome
- Cover the basic plugin requirements
- Show creating a plugin with a plugin header, and activating it on the local WordPress site
- (optional) Cover the plugin header fields in more detail
- Questions
Week 3: Hooks and Filters
- Short welcome
- Cover any questions from last week
- Cover hooks and filters, and show some examples (either from the lesson or your own)
- (optional) Cover hook priority, hook parameters, and hook order
- Questions
Week 4: Custom post types and taxonomies
- Short welcome
- Cover any questions from last week
- Cover registering a basic custom post type and a custom taxonomy
- (optional) Cover some more of the possible parameters that can be used when registering a custom post type or custom taxonomy
- Questions
Week 5: Custom post-type data
- Short welcome
- Cover any questions from last week
- Custom fields, how to enable custom fields in the editor, how to add new custom fields from the Custom fields panel, how to add/edit custom fields via code
- (optional) Cover how to automatically pre-populate field names for the Custom Fields panel
- Questions
Week 6: CSS and JavaScript
- Short welcome
- Cover any questions from last week
- Show how to enqueue custom CSS or JavaScript
- (optional) Cover the use of parameters like dependencies and version number, also using timestamp for cache busting during development
- Wrap up cohort, inviting folks to continue with the rest of the learning pathway.
Any items marked as optional can be left out if we're running out of time, but it is suggested to prepare for these topics anyway.
Plugin content
The lessons in the developer learning pathway create a bookstore plugin. We should follow that code as much as possible so that learners follow the same code examples from the lessons. However, we can add more things over and above the code form the lessons, as we see fit.
@laxmariappan, let me know if you have any comments/questions, or suggestions on the above plan.
@laxmariappan this is a great plan.
I'm thinking of adding some examples and a simple quiz ( poll ) during the session
Weekly Zoom meeting details
Topic: Introduction to Plugin Development course cohort Time: Nov 6, 2024 12:00 Universal Time UTC Every week on Wed, 6 occurrence(s) Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system. Weekly: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/tZwvf-2gqzsoHtL77ZsOd5fVeTxRlmoGNeFK/ics?icsToken=98tyKuGgrDMuEtGVsh2BRpw-AIqgLPzwmGJBgrdxy0jfEA9XNwXAM9ZaAL5yH__-&meetingMasterEventId=Acvri6kBSmypxaS8YkA_Yw
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88284850246?pwd=lPTA9Lu5YTNciBZu2trhcMl9NfUvrE.1
Meeting ID: 882 8485 0246 Passcode: 364025
Posted the feedback survey results on the project thread here: https://make.wordpress.org/training/2024/10/13/project-thread-the-third-learn-wordpress-course-cohort/#comment-4423
This cohort is now wrapped up.