I’m really excited to announce a new project I’ve been working on and thinking about for a few months. Several people have approached me saying I should teach classes on WordPress, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and/or design. In a way, I guess I do already teach these things in some of my blog posts, but I thought it would be great to have more conversation and one-on-one.
Introducing: Colour Coding! Colour Coding will be a series of free web design/development chats and paid e-courses for the more advanced topics.
Colour Coding Talks
I’m going to start putting together regular Colour Coding talks on Google Chat. Each chat will have a pre-planned topic (like SEO, or Getting Started with WordPress, etc.) but ultimately it’s just going to be us, hanging out, chatting, sharing knowledge, and answering questions.
I’ll probably have a limit on the number of people who can come to each chat to ensure it’s not too hectic. So make sure you get in early. 😉
Interested in these chats? Register your interest!
If you’re interested in participating, please fill out the below form. I’ll be sending out an email once I have details about the first chat. 🙂
E-Courses
I do a lot of tutorials on Nose Graze, but I do tend to stay away from some of the REALLY in-depth topics because it’s hard to just put those in a post. For example: How do you make your own WordPress theme? That’s way too in-depth for a single blog post. Or even: How did you make that custom archive widget in your sidebar? That involves PHP coding, making a custom widget, and ajax. I don’t know how to explain all that in a blog post! There’s just so much information.
These e-courses will explore these topics in detail through a series of posts. You’ll have tasks to complete, I’ll check your work, and we can even go over it one-on-one to ensure you’re understanding all the concepts.
Learn how to make your own WordPress theme!
My first course is going to teach you how to make your own WordPress theme. This course will have a few pre-requisites since it’s not starting web development from scratch—just the process of creating a WordPress theme. You would have to already be pretty familiar with HTML and CSS. This course is designed for people who know how to make a pretty basic, static website, or know their way around HTML/CSS pretty well, but they want to learn how to incorporate that into a custom WordPress theme. The course would include:
- Describing the structure of a WordPress theme and its template files (style.css, index.php, functions.php, single.php, etc.).
- A basic introduction to PHP and how it’s used in WordPress.
- Understanding The Loop (repeating post areas).
- How and where to add your own CSS.
- Adding widget areas.
- Adding customizable navigation menus.
Interested? Make sure you sign up to be notified when the course is ready!
Oh this sounds wonderful for you! You’re going to have a ton of people interested in this. I’m very interested too, but I don’t have a lot of time to learn it. I know a little HTML to get me by but I’d love to learn more.
I wish you a ton of success with this. Keep us posted on how you’re doing with it and what topics there are and I may join in on some.
Thank you! 😀 And I’ll definitely keep everyone posted. I might include a recap of chats in my Sitting on Starbucks posts.
Woot. Signed up.
Sweet! 😀
I signed up. My HTML is very limited and I would like to learn more.
Grace
Great! 😀
Awesome, Ashley! Thank you!
The WordPress Theme course is too advanced for me, but if you decide to make some basic courses, I’m totally in! Can’t think of a better person to teach wordpress and coding 🙂
I might try to make some more basic courses too. I think the problem I’ve been having is that just general HTML and CSS are so broad. It’s hard to know where to focus and how much depth to go into, you know?
I totally understand, Ashley. For me it’s difficult to know where to start.
But when I look for information regarding an specific problem, I feel I’m struggling with simple things I could solve in an easier way if I knew the basics… (still not sure what the basics would be…lol)
Anyway, if launch a course I can follow, I’m in! 🙂
Maybe a good course would be teaching people how to customize a premade theme. That would be a decent introduction into both HTML and CSS, and ultimately give people a final product to show off!
Sounds perfect to me 🙂
That would be awesome.
What a great idea! I’m so excited about these chats and think they’ll be very helpful!
I’m excited too!! 😀
You always have some awesome ideas! I would love to learn more 🙂
Woohoo! 😀 We’ll make learning fun. ♥
You’re awesome girl. I would signed up even if it wasn’t free. Thank you so much for the chance
My pleasure! I’m so excited. 😀 I think it will be a lot of fun.
This is so awesome!!! I love this idea. I can’t wait for the chats!!! I am taking PHP and Javacript right now at school. Ugh, not my favorite. OMG, just realized your changed your blog design, lol.
I’m so excited too!! I think it’ll be so cool to just hang out and talk about awesome web design/dev stuff. We can learn, teach each other, and bounce ideas off each other.
I kind of hate JavaScript—how about you?
I am only two weeks into the class, so far I can’t say much about javascript. I’ll get back to you in a few weeks. 🙂
Perfect! I’m actually looking for ecourses on web design. I’m familiar with Treehouse, but I’m not sure I want to pay monthly. Now that you’re offering ecourses, yay!
I’m really excited! I’m even building my own ecourse system so that it perfectly integrates with what I already have on Creative Whim.
Thank you so much for doing this, it’s an amazing opportunity for a noob like me!
This is going to be a hit so the best of luck for your new project! 😀
Thank you! 😀 I’m really excited!!
So excited for this Ashley! 🙂 I’ve always wanted to know how to make a personalized WordPress theme by myself, so I am so excited for these Color Coding lessons! Thanks for being willing to share your knowledge with us!
My pleasure! 😀 I’m excited and can’t wait to start working with people.
I am so happy to see you branching out into this! I cannot wait!
Oh, and I love the new designs. I went on Creative Whim, and saw the new style, and I was like “SHE MUST HAVE CHANGED HER BOOK BLOG TOO! AHH”! Love them so much. So dainty but still one your robust and organized designs.
Thank you so much! 😀 I’m in love with them too. They’re very simple, but that’s how I wanted them. I wanted more white with simple colour accents.
This is so awesome! I’m all signed up and look forward to it!
Oh my gosh I love this idea!!! I would LOVE to pick your brain ^.^
You’ve got a great idea here, Ashley. The chats sound great. I know some html, but that’s about it. I think a class customizing a premade theme would be a great starting point for a lot of us.