Recently, I came across a gentleman who runs a site called Understanding WordPress. The class is a six week course that charges $25. Of course, this is a minimal fee and could be beneficial, but is it worth it if it is not with an accredited schooling facility? For example, I took my Microsoft Courses with the local area Rend Lake College and receive college credits.
On the upside, it proves to potentially be a good thing as there are people honestly looking to learn about WordPress. The downside, there are already free tutorials in many places online, so why pay? WordPress has even free video tutorials at WordPress.tv. Also, WordPress has a whole section dedicated to explaining every function and aspect of the WordPress blog platform in their WordPress Codex. And even more beneficial are the WordPress support forums where users help each other with various issues from installation and even troubleshooting.
Also, for about the cost of that 6 week course, you can purchase Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s book, WordPress for Dummies at your local bookstore (or have them order it) or even on ebay, or Amazon.com. I left the link for Lisa’s page for WordPress for Dummies. The book is great, easy, and can you believe it, I had to buy a 3rd copy from the latest edition because my previous 2 copies were stolen – the most recent only a couple weeks ago! I was mad, but I guess I am glad someone might find some use with it.
So, no, I would not pay for the website courses, but I would pay for Lisa’s book because it was officially blessed by Matt Mullenweg and it is a great resource that I recommend. I would only recommend taking the classes if it were with an accredited college.
What do you think? Would you pay to learn how to use WordPress with the Understanding WordPress courses if you were new to the blog platform? For those who learned WordPress well enough to use it comfortably – how did you learn to use it? Where (what site) or who do you recommend teaching you to learn how to use WordPress?
Would I pay?
Well, I remember the first time I saw Hotmail on a page and tried to get my head around the difference between web-based email and an email client.
I couldn’t even ‘see’ the Hotmail page because there was so much going on, or so it seemed.
So I have every sympathy with anyone confused by WordPress.
But I don’t think I could have crammed what I have learned into a six week course.
So quite apart from the fact that the web is full of free information, I just wouldn’t put myself under the pressure of a six week course.
Definitely you have a valid point that I did not cover. WordPress is extensive. I was lucky to have experience with its previous product, b2 when I got knee deep into WordPress.
There are so many helpful people online who give tons of information for not just tutorials but extra things that people would not normally think about doing with their WordPress install…and on occasion, I mention those people on this site. I think if people want to pay, it should be with an approved source by Automattic.