All WordPress all the time–I have been running, facilitating and training WordPress workshops for 7-years.  The sessions have been good,stimulating, informative, glitchy, boring and misguided at times. The longest session lasted day and the shortest 5 minutes. People have fallen asleep, have created blogs and in some cases empployed blogs or ePortfolios in their teaching and learning. WordPress gets called a powerful, intutive system or a limited and complicated one. I have taught this class in many different ways from content heavy click sessions to more facitated sessions. Here are five things that I find important in these classes.

  1. Find out what they want to know. Workishops often have a diverse group of faculty, staff and student, try to engage groups in activities that bring out there expectations for the sessions.
  2. Teaching/Training is people. How can you be more empathetic, inclusive and connect with participants?
  3. Plan–Teach–Reflect: Facilitating and teaching is an art built on the foundations of planning and reflection. Take the time to plan the sessions and reflect on their outcomes each time that you present them. Reflect fearlessly and without defensiveness.
  4. Move beyond satisfaction surveys. Why are the participants taking this workshop? What are their goals? What are the learning objectives and how does the workshop meet these goals and objectives?
  5. Focus on the deeper knowledge–Not button pushing. What is the difference between pages and posts? What is the difference between categories and tags? What is a header and sidebar and how to custmomize them? external media, RSS and embedding. Use metaphors and analogies to assist participants understand concepts. Consider your own expert blindspots? Often when we have acheived mastery we cannot break down the steps we are taking.
  6. Imagine the possible. Show examples and tell stories of the roll of WordPress/UBC Blogs in teaching and learning.