Ladies Learning Code

A New Workshop Format (and MOAR WORDPRESS!)

Taking WordPress to the Next Level – Intro to Custom Post Types and Custom Fields with Wes Bos

A couple weeks ago, when we announced the launch of our job board, we hinted that we have another new initiative to roll out in February – and it’s time for us to share it! We’re happy to introduce a new workshop format – among other exciting things, this also means that WordPress is back, and so is all-star Ladies Learning Code Lead Instructor Wes Bos. Wes led our WordPress workshops in November and January, so we’re thrilled that he’s decided to join us again to help us launch this new format. We’re all pretty excited about it.

This is also going to be our first time offering a workshop topic that isn’t for total beginners – to register for this workshop, you must have a basic understanding of WordPress. For example, you need to have self-hosted website with WordPress (.org) already installed – either locally (WAMP or MAMP) or on a server. If you aren’t sure what that means, don’t worry! You’re the perfect candidate for one of our weekend WordPress workshops, which we’ll be offering again sometime in the next few months. Stay tuned!

Registration opens at 7 pm on Wednesday, February 22nd. You can register up to four tickets at a time for this event. Click here for the link to the registration page.

Why a new workshop format?

We’re excited to introduce a new workshop format, for three main reasons:

1) Workshops for non-beginners!

Until this point, all of our workshops have been geared toward people who are beginners – as we say on our event registration pages, “if you know absolutely nothing about coding or computer programming, you’ve come to the right place!” Now that we’re seven workshops in, there are a lot of people in the Ladies Learning Code community who are no longer absolute beginners. We’ve also been asked many times now to run workshops for people who are “just beyond beginners”, and WordPress has been in particularly high demand. The final reason we’re excited to introduce a workshop for non-beginners? We know we have a gap – people come to our weekend workshops and have a great time, and then many of them look to us to give them ideas for what to do next. Until now, we haven’t had a great answer, but we’ve known for months that we wanted to find a way to fill that gap. Our new format is the perfect starting point.

2) More WordPress!

We know our community wants more WordPress! Our last WordPress workshop (led by Wes in January) sold out almost instantly, and had a waitlist of over 100 people within a few hours.  Since then, we’ve received dozens of emails and tweets asking us to bring WordPress back as soon as possible. Knowing that WordPress is popular with our community, we’re excited to offer people who have a basic level of comfort with WordPress the chance to dive deeper, by learning all about custom post types and custom fields. This workshop is ideal for anyone who attended either of the Ladies Learning Code Intro to WordPress workshops, or anyone who is comfortable enough with WordPress to install a self-hosted WordPress site on their own server. WordPress seems like the perfect first topic for our new workshop format, and we couldn’t ask for a more knowledgeable and engaging developer than Wes Bos to lead us.

3) Instructors and mentors get paid – yay!

We know that our lead instructors and mentors have a great time volunteering at our workshops. After all, all of our lead instructors have agreed to lead more workshops, and many of our mentors come back to help every month (and we love them for that). But, sometimes, for the lead instructors and mentors who help us a lot, we want to offer them more than just undying appreciation. So, for this new format, we’ve baked it into the model: everyone who teaches gets paid for their time. When you buy a ticket for this new workshop format, you can feel good knowing that you’re contributing to making Ladies Learning Code a more sustainable organization, because we’re able to compensate the people who really make Ladies Learning Code magical. (Eventually, we hope that Ladies Learning Code can help to make the leap to being a freelance web developer, designer or entrepreneur less scary for people, by providing talented members of Toronto’s tech community the chance to make money by leading Ladies Learning Code workshops. It’s just something that feels right to us.)

How exactly will this new workshop format be different?

This workshop format is different in a few ways. First, capacity for this workshop format  is 30 people (that’s about 1/3 the number of people present at our weekend workshops). This will create a more intimate and an even more collaborative learning experience. Second, these workshops will take place during the week, from 6:15 – 9:30 pm. They’re just over three hours, so you don’t have to give up an entire day of your weekend (just in case that’s something that’s been holding you back). Finally, as you now know, you’ll be led by Wes Bos, and there will be two incredible mentors present to help you throughout the workshop – both of them will have helped with one or both of our previous WordPress workshops. So, not only are the people you’ll be learning from experienced WordPress developers, they’re also familiar with the “Ladies Learning Code Way” (if there is such a thing). We’re sure this is going to create an awesome learning experience for everyone involved.

What else is included? Pizza. And everyone who attends gets a free theme from Themify.me ($39 value).

The cost of this workshop? It’s $35. And we’ll be offering it four times: on March 8th, March 15th, March 22nd and March 29th. (In case it isn’t clear, it’s the same workshop repeated four times.) These workshops run from 6:15 pm to 9:30 pm and will be hosted by the new MaRS Commons (101 College Street). Thanks, MaRS!

What about the content?

This workshop is called “Taking WordPress to the Next Level: Intro to Custom Post Types & Custom Fields with Wes Bos”. Long, but catchy, right?

First, let’s finally get this part out of the way. To participate in this workshop, you must:
- be comfortable with WordPress and editing themes at a basic level
- have self-hosted site with WordPress (.org) already installed – local (WAMP or MAMP) or on a server
- have access to your FTP account and be familar with uploading files to FTP

(Aren’t sure if that’s you? You might be underestimating yourself. Please email us if you aren’t sure, and we’ll help you determine whether this workshop is for you or not!)

About Custom Post Types & Custom Fields:

Custom post types come in many different forms – which is the best part about them! They are used to create Portfolios, Albums, Library, Staff Directories, Online Stores and add endless flexibility so that you can use WordPress as a powerful CMS, and less like a traditional blog.

Custom fields let us break away from the (sometimes boring) Title and Content inputs, and allows a fully customized, user-friendly backend for your website.

Description:

In this workshop, we will be creating a recipe page that allows you to add custom fields such as cooking time, ingredients, steps, photo and comments. Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to all be chefs! You will quickly see how this example can be applied to the many different ways you use WordPress.

Custom Post Type = Recipe
Custom Fields = Name, Description, cooking time, ingredients, steps, photo and user comments.

What’s included with this workshop?
• A theme from Themify.me ($39 value)
• A 10:1 participant-to-instructor ratio (with a maximum of 30 participants)
• A fun and inclusive learning envionment
• A great venue (MaRS Commons) with stable wifi
• A pizza party!

You can register up to four tickets at a time for this event. Registration opens at 7 pm on Wednesday, February 22nd – that’s today! Click here for the link to the registration page. Hope you’ll join us for some more advanced WordPress fun!