Leading WordPress Education Programs
This course prepares facilitators to confidently lead WordPress Education Programs at their institutions and communities. Whether you’re an educator, a community organizer, or a training professional, you’ll build the knowledge and skills to bring WordPress into learning environments, and to do it independently.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Explain the WordPress open source ecosystem, including its community structure and contribution pathways.
- Identify the WordPress Education Programs: WordPress Credits, Campus Connect, and Student Clubs, and how they connect.
- Navigate key community tools and platforms, including Make Teams, GitHub, Slack, and Meetup.
- Use the contents of this course to independently own, run, and maintain WordPress Education Programs at your educational institution.
- Find support from the WordPress community and contribute to improving these resources over time.
Build your confidence, strengthen your community, and help more people discover the power of WordPress.
Facilitators can utilize this facilitation guide for the course to teach the concepts from the course over a 2-3 day workshop.
Open Source Foundations
This module introduces the foundational concepts of open source software — what it is, why it matters, and how it shapes the WordPress project. By the end of this module, you will understand the key principles and philosophy behind open source, how open-source governance works (with WordPress as a case study), why these concepts are relevant to education and workforce development, and how the WordPress project fits into the broader open-source landscape. This foundation will equip you to confidently teach these concepts to your students.
Lessons
What Is Open Source? Open Collaboration: Philosophy and Community Norms Governance and Decision-Making in Open Source Open Source in Education: Skills, Credentials, and Careers The WordPress EcosystemWhat Is WordPress?
Module 1 introduced WordPress as an open source project — its principles, community, governance, and ecosystem. This module shifts focus to WordPress as a product. You’ll learn how WordPress works as software, what its core components do, how content is created with the block editor, and how to contextualize WordPress for the students and academic programs you work with.
By the end of this module, you’ll be ready to use WordPress confidently and to teach it effectively, regardless of your technical background or the discipline you teach.
Lessons
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com: What Educators Need to Know WordPress Core, Themes, and Plugins The Block Editor: Creating Content in WordPress WordPress in the World: Scale, Impact, and Use Cases Teaching WordPress Across DisciplinesWordPress Website Creation and Admin Basics
Module 2 introduced WordPress as a product: what it is, how it works, and how to contextualize it for your students. This module moves from understanding to doing. You will create a WordPress.org account, configure a WordPress site, navigate the admin dashboard, work with content types, manage media, set up users and roles, and establish basic security and maintenance practices.
By the end of this module, you will have the hands-on WordPress knowledge needed to set up and manage a site independently and to guide students through doing the same.
Lessons
Creating a WordPress.org Account Configuring Your WordPress Site Navigating the Admin Dashboard Pages and Posts The Media Library Users and Roles Basic Security and MaintenanceContributing to WordPress
Module 1 built your open source foundation. Modules 2 and 3 gave you the WordPress knowledge and site management skills you need to teach effectively. This module puts those foundations into practice by introducing you to the WordPress contributor community and the tools, spaces, and pathways through which contribution happens.
You will learn how to frame contribution for your students, navigate Make Teams and WordPress Slack, understand how GitHub is used in the WordPress project, and connect students to community events. By the end of this module, you will be ready to guide students through their first WordPress contribution experience with clarity and confidence.
Lessons
Understanding and Teaching WordPress Contribution WordPress Make Teams in Depth Getting Started with WordPress Slack GitHub in the WordPress Ecosystem WordPress Events, Meetups, and Connecting Students to CommunityWordPress Education Programs and Their Impact
Modules 1 through 4 built your foundation: open source principles, WordPress as a platform, site creation and administration, and contributing to the WordPress community. This module shifts from building knowledge to understanding the programs you are here to run.
WordPress Education Programs consist of three distinct but connected initiatives: WordPress Credits, WordPress Campus Connect, and WordPress Student Clubs. Each program serves a different purpose and fits different institutional contexts. Before going deep on any one program in Modules 6, 7, and 8, this module gives you the full picture of how all three work together, what impact they are designed to create, and how to make the case for them at your institution.
Lessons
WordPress Education Programs: An Overview Making the Case: Impact, Alignment, and Institutional BenefitsWordPress Credits
Thoughts
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Module 6: WordPress Credits
Module description:
WordPress Credits is a contribution-based practice program developed by the WordPress Foundation that enables university students to earn academic credit through real work on the WordPress open source project. In this module, you will build the knowledge and practical skills to implement WordPress Credits at your institution with confidence.
You will learn how the program works for students, how to enroll as a facilitator, how to support students through onboarding and their contribution projects, and how to guide them through the challenges they will encounter along the way. By the end of this module, you will be ready to run WordPress Credits independently, without relying on ongoing external support.
Lessons
What Is WordPress Credits? Onboarding to WordPress Credits Helping Students Get Started Mentoring and Guiding StudentsWordPress Campus Connect
WordPress Campus Connect is a global learning initiative that brings hands-on WordPress education directly to campuses and community spaces. In this module, you will build the knowledge and practical skills to plan, organize, and facilitate a WordPress Campus Connect event at your institution.
You will learn how the program works, how to navigate the application and approval process, how to design an agenda that serves your students, and how to use the event infrastructure and resources available to you. By the end of this module, you will be ready to bring a Campus Connect event to your campus and connect your students to the wider WordPress community.
Lessons
What Is WordPress Campus Connect? Planning a Campus Connect Event Structuring Agendas for Your Event Encouraging Participation Understanding Site Structure From Materials to Impact: Managing Your Event Resources and Follow-UpWordPress Student Clubs
WordPress Student Clubs are student-led organizations that create year-round WordPress communities on campus. This module covers what Student Clubs are, how to support their formation, and how to help students sustain them over time. Whether a club grows from a Campus Connect event or is formed independently, your role as a facilitator is to provide the structure and encouragement students need to take genuine ownership of their community.
Lessons
What Is a WordPress Student Club? Starting a Student Club Running and Sustaining a Student Club Navigating Your Student Club SiteGetting Support
By the time you reach this module, you have built the knowledge and practical skills to lead WordPress Education Programs independently. Module 9 is not a remediation module. It is a resource map.
Its purpose is twofold: to make sure you know exactly where to turn when you need help, and to reinforce that needing help is not the same as being dependent. Every experienced WordPress educator, organizer, and contributor uses the support systems in this module regularly. Knowing how to use them well is itself a professional skill.
