This post was updated on July 20th, 2022 to reflect the name change from Social Learning Spaces to Online Workshops.
Tl;dr: Online Workshops have proved to be useful and accessible learning spaces for community members to learn more about various WordPress topics. This post hopes to clarify who and what these spaces are for, and how folks can get more involved.
What are Online Workshops?
Online Workshops are live and collaborative learning sessions that were introduced on Learn WordPress in January 2022. These sessions tackle a variety of WordPress topics and can be run in any language and from any part of the world.
The reason why these sessions were called “Social Learning Space” in the past is because they follow the theory of social learning practice from Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner. The “social” aspect is the act of us gathering synchronously to “learn” in a designated “space”.
Online Workshops are scheduled in the Learn WordPress Online Workshop Meetup Group and appear on our Training Team’s Online Workshop calendar.
Who can join an Online Workshop?
Absolutely everyone, time permitting of course! We also record most sessions, enable transcription, and put these videos up on WordPress.tv.
Also, anyone can apply to become an Online Workshop Facilitator, and you can see how facilitator applications are vetted in our handbook.
I want to facilitate an Online Workshop, but don’t know where to start!
No need to stress, we have our guide for getting started in our Online Workshop handbook page, various topic ideas on the Training Team’s Content Development GitHub board, and you can also work with a Training Team member to make your Online Workshop dream a reality.
The Training Team has already assisted over 10 contributors in facilitating their own Online Workshop, and are ready to provide guidance and mentorship along the way.
Still have questions about Online Workshops? Feel free to ask here in the comments, or ping me (@Destiny) or a Training Team Rep in the Make WordPress Slack’s #training channel.