WordPress Development

As a former university professor, I would elaborate that there are two types of courses, ordinary undergrad courses, where the expectation is that the students sit more or less passively while the professor provides most of the info and does most of the talking -- this is NOT that kind of course -- or there are grad school courses, in which the students are becoming experts in the field in their own right, and so there is much more expectation that the students will participate actively and help teach each other -- this IS that kind of course.

As a former teacher myself, I totally understand the value of self-direction, but I do also think that there's an important distinction between a "course" and a "guided study group". I definitely expect to be a total self-starter through this process, but I do still have some basic questions around this first assignment, like...

- Is it going to be evaluated at all, beyond a "Yes" / "No" on whether or not we met the basic criteria in the assignment?

- If there _are_ any additional expectations, what are they? I've got a little more time to spend on it, but I don't know how to best spend it. Does the visual impact of the site matter as much or more than the technical sophistication?

- Is this sample site going to serve as a base for future assignments, or is it a one-off exercise?

Those are all pretty basic questions that I think would really help us all to know. Does that make sense?

i hate to say it, but i don't see that this is working for me. it seems everyone is off on different feet using different themes, different child themes, and different plugins for galleries, slideshows etc.

its cool that different people are coming up with different things... but when joe blow using abc theme and xyz plugin needs help, i'm certainly no expert with that configuration. furthermore, how would joe blow help me? won't this gap also widen as the weeks go on and the sites get more and more functionality?

i'll stick it out and complete the assignments as i understand them, but i don't see how group learning is going to happen if the students aren't on the same page with eachother.

i'm just going to get a book and teach myself as the course goes on.

I am hopeful that our teacher/facilitator will be online on the irc channel tomorrow. I agree communication/direction could be a lot better.

- When someone submits an assignment and we see it could be improved in some way we suggest to the student what can be made and how it can be accomplished.
- On the forums and the chat channel you have a handful of people eager to help and give their opinions on your work and answers your questions.
-I will be blogging and tweeting about the best assignments and this can give you visibility.

Now don't think this is easy. Not everyone will be able to complete the course. It takes significant effort to take on an assignment each week and complete it on time. Actually I believe most people will not be able to complete it! But if you do it makes you someone very special and I'm sure other people will notice that as well.

Also I'm preparing more surprises for this course so stay tuned :)

Yeah, have to admit that this wasn't quite what i was expecting. I think it is difficult to help someone when they're off using different themes and plugins. I've been working with WP for a couple years now and there things we could learn/share with each other if reviews were more organized somehow.

Also, just noticed that the assignment emails were going to my spam box for some reason, it'd be nice to post assignment details as a discussion also...they do that in my php course.