Jonathan Bossenger 7:31 am on March 7, 2024

Discussion: possible collaboration to transform learning pathways to Skill Trees

During the feedback/discussions around Learning Pathways, @ skilldisplayflo has offered to help transform our learning pathways to a skill tree format .

The Skill Tree format appears to be something available from the SkillDisplay platform, where they have collaborated with other open-source projects, including TypoCMS.

I would recommend that folks interested in this discussion read the original comment linked above, and the rest of the threaded conversation, to understand the benefits.

The idea here is that the skill tree format could allow teachers to “cherry pick the skills (aka learning path tree nodes) they really need, instantly render their own curriculum for a handout and get matching learning resources that are tailored towards her use case.”

Converting Learning Pathways into Skill Sets would involve using the SkillDisplay tool to create the Skill Set and then hosting the Skill Set somewhere on the Learn. WordPress.org WordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ website.

I want to invite anyone interested in this process to read through the suggestions and share their thoughts in the comments on this post.

If this is something we as a team would like to consider, then we might want to decide on:

when we want to do this
who will be managing the process

Please leave your thoughts in the comments on this post by by Friday 22 March, 2024.

Ronny Shani 7:53 pm on March 11, 2024
Hi Jonathan, I read the original comments and visited SkillDisplay’s website to understand their system. It’s an interesting idea, but I still have a few questions:
- How complicated would it be to convert the existing materials (the actual tutorials and the overall structure/curriculum) into SkillDisplay’s platform?
- The example mentioned above focuses on teachers, while the Learning Pathways is student-oriented. Does it still make sense from an individual learners’ perspective?
- What are the benefits of the SkillTree approach, besides standardization?
- The more I think about it, the more I feel like the difference between the so-called linear approach of the Learning Pathways and the components-based approach of the SkillTree model is mainly semantic. I wonder if the same result couldn’t be achieved with some design modifications.
Thanks for bringing this up 🙂
- Flo (SkillDisplay) 9:37 am on March 12, 2024
  @ ironnysh thank you for the questions/feedback
  - You can reuse any existing learning material and don’t need to modify it. For building the Skill Tree I’d suggest to analyze the current structure/curriculum and then build from there to change the linear singular path into a tree. (The TYPO3 Education Committee did use a similar approach)
  - When changing from a linear pathway to a tree structure Learners get the benefit auf automatic individual learning paths. Effectively this would mean instead of offering a single learning pathway to all learners, your pathways get interactive and flexible, depending on the needs of the learner (e.g: Training to become a certified developer vs training for a specific job)
  - Skill Tree benefits: Standardization, Individualization (learning paths), automatic suggestions for the next fitting learning material depending on your current set of skills and your goal, comparability between job/task requirements and learners skills, planning support for trainers who design learning material and courses (select the skill you want to teach, automatically list all requirements, render a set of learning goals from standards) and more.
  - The difference between Skill Trees and learning paths are flexibility and comparability – also when branching out to other technologies.
  One of our partner schools is working with SkillDisplay and did build a skill tree for WordPress for internal use.
  Feel free to reach out if you’d like to see it showcased, that’s perhaps the easiest way to visualize what a Skill Tree for WordPress could look like and what benefits the community would get from it.
Ronny Shani 10:10 pm on March 19, 2024

Hi @ Flo , thanks for taking the time to respond.
Is this the Skill Tree you mentioned (the WordPress one)? https://www.skilldisplay.eu/news/detail/new-wordpress-skill-definitions-released/
- Flo (SkillDisplay) 10:52 am on March 21, 2024
  
  @ ironnysh Yes, although the link you provided is the announcement for the public release of the skills created by the educational institution regarding WordPress.
  
  The skills are viewable at https://my.skilldisplay.eu/en/skillset/565 (it is possible just to click “continue without registration” to get an anonymous user that can track progress)
  This view suggests the next fitting skills (“recommended skills”) based on the users current skill level and matching learning resources that the teachers tagged.
  
  The underlying tree looks like this in the Visual Skill Editor:
  
  If the training team can confirm this SkillTree or suggest a different one, educational institutions are able to adhere to standardized learning goals when creating their own curriculums by cherry picking from the available skills. (and confirming them to students, making their achievements transparent based on strong skill definitions by the WordPress team)
  - Ronny Shani 6:22 pm on March 21, 2024
    
    Hi Flo, I think there’s a screenshot missing (“The underlying tree looks like this in the Visual Skill Editor:”)
    - Flo (SkillDisplay) 6:43 pm on March 21, 2024
      
      @ironysh I had posted the url, but it seems it got cut – can I post the screenshot somewhere else (e.g.: in Slack Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/ . The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ . ?)
Destiny Kanno 3:05 am on March 22, 2024

Hi @ skilldisplayflo , thanks for engaging us in this conversation.

Given that this year the team is currently tackling the release of learning pathways and a redesign, I think it will be highly difficult for us to also migrate to a new LMS this year.

Seeing as our content is currently public, I wonder if your team would be willing to set up a demo site with Learn WordPress content and share this with the team in a demo?

Also, what kind of long-standing support could we anticipate from SkillDisplay? Are there feature enhancements that can be put into place at the Training Team’s request?
- Flo (SkillDisplay) 8:06 am on March 22, 2024
  Hi @ piyopiyofox , thank you for your questions.
  
  SkillDisplay is not an LMS and we are not looking to have any learning content migrated or changed.
  What SkillDisplay does is assist industry experts and certifiers in breaking down their learning goals to SkillTrees so the general public (Learners, Educators and Companies) can work on a common skill language and cherry-pick them to their needs.
  
  Our methodology and platform are designed to integrate into existing platforms and tools – our own platform ( https://skilldisplay.eu ) acts as a main index for all skills of all providers and also as a starting point and ready to use solution for skill providers which don’t want to integrate functionality via the API API An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. .
  
  For you that means: All features we are talking about in these threads can be integrated directly into LearnWordPress via API. If your team wishes, you can integrate this API functionality to suggest the next fitting learning resource directly on LearnWordPress.
  
  But if you don’t want to do this, people are able to get learning suggestions to enhance their WordPress skills directly on the SkillDisplay platform. Important: Even if they use https://my.skilldisplay.eu , they only get the suggestions on where to go next based on their existing skill portfolio and the SkillTree your team created. They then get directed to your learning content on your site.
  
  Example from your teams point of view:
  The LearnWordPress team creates a SkillTree which defines skills and their learning goals.
  
  The skills get mapped to existing learning resources (For example, the article https://learn.wordpress.org/workshop/searching-and-installing-a-plugin/ gets tagged with the skills “Extensions and Plugins” and “Managing Plugins” – you can see an example at https://my.skilldisplay.eu/en/skillset/528 )
  
  Now you have a SkillTree and mapped learning resources, this means you have individual learning paths for all learners available and the platform will suggest a suitable individual learning path based on the SkillTree you created for each user.
  
  The main advantage is, that you now (with very little effort, just by creating a SkillTree and tagging learning resources) converted your static linear learning path which only provides one learning resource for each step, to a flexible individual learning path in which you can easily integrate any community or official resource you like (videos, blogs, etc.)
  You don’t need to change anything on your platform or any existing material – you just define the skills and relate them to your existing resources.
  
  Example from an Educators point of view:
  Educators have (sometimes stately) curriculums that they have to stick to. They allow for some flexibility (“Learners can setup and make use of a CMS”) but are created by other Educators. To allow flexibility they have to be generic.
  
  Now let’s assume an educator wants to teach WordPress. They look at an existing linear learning path with fixed learning resources, but realize they only need 40 % of that to match the stately curriculums needs.
  
  By offering them a SkillTree and a common skill language they now can select the point in the tree where they want to go to. (“I need everything in my curriculum up to this point in the tree”)
  The educator can now instantly render a full learning curriculum as PDF and is sure it adheres to the standards the WordPress Learning team has set.
  Moreover each of his/her students will now immedately be able to benefit from a flexible learning path, because you mapped the learning resources with the skills and we know 3 important factors:
  - Which skills should be taught
  - Which skills have been obtained (users can confirm that)
  - Which learning resources are mapped with the missing skills and are the best next fit
  In a nutshell:
  - Keep doing what you doing, you just need to create the skill tree and map the skills to existing material
  - Use the existing SkillDisplay ecosystem or integrate the functionality via the API (API can be hosted from our main platform where the community meets or on your own platform with the open source Open Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. solution)
  Demo
  The demo is already available. https://my.skilldisplay.eu/en/skillset/565 is a full set of all currently existing WordPress skills that our partner school created. (all skills are tagged with the schools logo, the creator is clearly visible, so people are sure that they are unofficial at this time. Official SkillSets also receive the red “Certification” or “Official” badge)
  
  If you “continue without registration”, select one of the skills and then click “Self Assessment” – therefore marking the skill as known – then go “Back to the SkillSet” you can see the learning resource suggestions (therefore starting an individual learning path) below the “recommended skills”. The same information is available via the API ( https://www.skilldisplay.eu/api/v1/skillset/565 (see JSON JSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. entry “recommendedSkills” and “recommendedSkillSets”)
  All links in Learning Resources lead to their official sources (in this case: Learn WordPress)
  
  Outlook
  This answer is already rather long, so I’ll keep the outlook short, but there are numerous other benefits that come with this approach. (Motivating people for certification, allowing educators to claim acknowledgement for their coaching, identifying and supporting educational institutions coaching wordpress, Micro-Certification scenarios, etc….)
  
  If you have any other questions or would like to talk in person (e.g. Online Hangout) feel free to reach out. Our team will also be represented at WordCamp WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more . Vienna and WordCamp Europe (representatives from CMS Garden have shown interest having a SkillTree for WordPress at FOSDEM and will also be there)
  - Destiny Kanno 5:39 am on March 27, 2024
    
    Thank you for getting back with more information @ skilldisplayflo .
    
    I’ve brought this back to the Training Team representatives and we’ve done some brainstorming on this proposal; however, after quite a bit of thinking, we’ve decided not to go down the road of a skill tree feature right now. It’s important to underline that we must prioritize our current projects and goals , which includes the continued development and refinement of our learning pathways, along with other team objectives.
    
    That being said, we strongly believe in the open-source nature of Learn’s resources. As such, we welcome and encourage individuals or groups who are interested in creating a skill tree to utilize the educational content on Learn. It is our hope that this flexibility can ensure that our materials can be adapted to a multitude of learning approaches, including innovative concepts such as the skill tree.
    
    Thank you again for engaging the team on this topic, and I hope you have a profitable time at WordCamp WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more . Vienna and WordCamp Europe.
Flo (SkillDisplay) 7:57 pm on March 28, 2024
Thank you for evaluating our suggestion with the WordPress team @ piyopiyofox .

We’ll encourage our educational partners to continue to use the learning materials on Learn WordPress.
That said – our educational partners – and therefore also your audience – would benefit from the possibility to:
- rely to strong learning goal definitions, which are clearly indicated as being created by the WordPress learning team
After consulting our educational partner that created the suggested skill tree for WordPress, they confirmed that they appreciate the flexible learning approach the skill tree offers, but see it as even more important to have official learning goals created by external experts (The WordPress training team)
They have shown interest to reflect the official learning paths on the SkillDisplay platform, featuring links to the original resources on Learn WordPress and the WordPress logo as clear indication of the origin of these learning goals.

This would allow them:
- to keep using the SkillDisplay features they currently benefit from (allowing users to track their progress, confirming educational training, etc.)
- to share a common standard between multiple educational institutions, relying on standards
For the WordPress Learning team it would mean
- additional leads to the official platform and stronger use of standards
It could also mean benefits for the following goals of your team regarding these scenarios:
- Implement data analyzing practices to gauge the health and effectiveness of the Training Team and Learn’s Content (As skill owner you get anonymous statistics on the usage, e.g.: “which skills/learning goals are the most frequently used ones, where do people struggle to convert their learning efforts to exam success, etc.)
Thank you and the team for your continuous efforts in bringing learning content to the community – we are looking forward to WordCamp WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more . Vienna and WordCamp Europe and the possibility to engage with everyone on educational topics.

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Discussion: possible collaboration to transform learning pathways to Skill Trees

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