Today, our revamped WordPress development course is freely available to the community under CC0 license. Among many updates, the course is now available with videos, in addition to independent video playlists on our YouTube channel. As an enterprise WordPress agency, we pioneered the learning & development initiative with our free & open course, and we hope the revamped version will aid learners become professional WordPress developers.
The first version of our WordPress course has been out since 2019. However, internally, the course was going through multiple iterations based on the feedback and evolving needs of our L&D program. With this revamp, we have now merged our internal and public courses, making available a fully matured course on our LMS, for anyone on the web.
Our revamped WordPress Development Course
Thousands of learners across the globe took our public course. More than 100 rtCampers were trained through our internal course in a blended environment, combining classroom and self-learning through our learning & development program.
Over the years, this allowed us to gather valuable feedback and insights. With this revamp, we have addressed the feedback to enhance the learning experience and adapt our course for current online learning trends.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of what has changed in the revamped course:
Visually Rich Course with Videos
In response to learner feedback, we added videos to the course to improve its visual appeal. However, we found that long videos were difficult for learners to focus on, so we divided them into shorter, more manageable chunks and distributed them throughout the relevant lessons. The videos include real-life examples, and step-by-step demonstration of key concepts, allowing learners to delve deeper into specific topics and supplement the lesson text.
We also incorporated videos from other YouTube channels and WordPress.tv where appropriate, drawing on the best of our classroom sessions from the past four years.
Content Update
Since 2019, WordPress has gone through many updates. Like with any new update, a few functions & functionalities are added while some get deprecated. To make sure that our course remains comprehensive and captures key changes over time, we have added relevant concepts. For example: Gutenberg Block Editor – Phase 1 and Phase 2(FSE).
Course Grid
Based on learner feedback, we abandoned the linear structure of the previous course and adopted a grid-based structure instead.
This allows each major topic, such as engineering basics and WordPress plugin development, to be an independent course with its own lessons, assignments, and quizzes. Learners can take these courses in any order, allowing them to skip ahead if they are already familiar with certain topics.
Dashboard
The LMS helps us to display the course grid as a personalized learner’s dashboard, providing a quick overview of each course’s progress once the user is logged in. This allows learners to prioritize their learning and resume where they left off.
From Beginner to Expert
We have expanded the scope of the course to include both basic and advanced WordPress development concepts, listed separately to allow learners to take each course at their own pace.
Micro Courses
We know through experience that professional WordPress development requires more than just the knowledge of plugins and themes. To make this a well-rounded course, we have added micro-courses in complementary areas such as Basic React, Debugging, Testing and WooCommerce. These courses allow learners to develop their skills in specific niches related to WordPress.
Quizzes & Assignments
We have now included comprehensive assignments and quizzes to ensure that learners can evaluate their learning and identify if they can apply what they learned.
Project-Based Learning
We ensured that the course included real-world examples, such as the assignment to create a book library for plugin and theme development. Book library is a familiar concept for most learners – using it as context helps learners clearly understand and apply concepts like custom post types, archive pages, and categories.
Coding Best Practices
Our training places special emphasis on coding best practices to make sure that the code has good readability, sound logic, and is free from potential vulnerabilities. It is important for any professional WordPress developer to not just adhere, but also understand the why of coding best practices. With this revamp, we now have a separate course dedicated to coding conventions.
Core Contributions
We have added a course on contributing to WordPress to the curriculum, to give exposure to learners to the open-source & community-run nature of the WordPress project. Our course guides learners through the process of making contributions.
Catalyzing Careers in WordPress
Our training programs, powered by this course, help us train freshers for enterprise grade WordPress applications. We hope that our free WordPress course acts as a catalyst for learners to become professional WordPress developers and contribute to the WordPress community.
Those who diligently complete the course should feel confident applying for a WordPress engineer position at rtCamp or any other WordPress businesses requiring qualified engineers.
We invite the community to use, modify, and distribute the course content freely and make WordPress more accessible.
Happy learning!
Links: Course link | YouTube Playlists link | We’re hiring
