892453 - Make webmaker.org/teach page more welcoming and grokkable to newcomers

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Webmaker Graveyard :: webmaker.org, defect)

Description

[Laura Hilliger [:epilepticrabbit]]

We should hash out #4 on the roadmap and decide what "on ramp" actually means for this community in terms of the website.

Things to think about:

/teach is currently optimized for people who already drank the kool aid. Should it be? https://webmaker.org/mentor vs /teach
one stop shopping. Which URL do I write on slides?
pedagogy - we should be more vocal on this.
weblitstd - might come later, but we should plan for it now.

Mentor Team feedback: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/Mentor-Website-Roadmap

Comment 1

[Matt Thompson (@OpenMatt :OpenMatt)]

* webmaker.org/teach should be our definitive landing page.

* that's the URL we should write on slides, use in our outreach, etc.

* agreed that that page isn't telling the overall story well enough yet for newcomers. But let's fix that. instead of confusing people with yet another new URL.

Comment 2

[Laura Hilliger [:epilepticrabbit]]

definitely wasn't suggesting another URL!

What if we made a few makes that address the overall story better? For example, as a make or a link in the sticky box, we include (bug 891922): http://hivenyc.org/storycamp/howtouse.html

and the title & description says something like "Educational Models: Learn more about the pedagogy behind Webmaker" or "The Web Literacy Learning Standard" or whatever. 

Then we still have a Make first experience, but can add pages for more description on things that are missing and deserve more than a single sentence. And we can do so from the Mentor team, edit, pivot, rethink - without having to use Brett's team for small changes.

In which case, we need this template as a stand alone make: https://webmaker.org/mentor 

Thoughts?

Comment 3

[Matt Thompson (@OpenMatt :OpenMatt)]

(In reply to Laura Hilliger [:epilepticrabbit] from comment #2)

> What if we made a few makes that address the overall story better? 

Excellent idea. Big +1 on this. 


For
> example, as a make or a link in the sticky box, we include (bug 891922):
> http://hivenyc.org/storycamp/howtouse.html
> 
> and the title & description says something like "Educational Models: Learn
> more about the pedagogy behind Webmaker" or "The Web Literacy Learning
> Standard" or whatever. 


Yup. Another idea: could include something of this in the "How to create your own teaching kit" kit? 

> 
> Then we still have a Make first experience, but can add pages for more
> description on things that are missing and deserve more than a single
> sentence. And we can do so from the Mentor team, edit, pivot, rethink -
> without having to use Brett's team for small changes.

I really like that. I would include stuff like: 
* "How to start your own learning network in your hometown" (the Hive cookbook,) 
* "How to become a Webmaker Mentor"
* "How to use Maker Party to teach the web"
etc. 

I'd suggest that we do this ourselves once the new teaching kit template is shipped. It shouldn't require any additional design or development work. Just content from us.

Comment 4

[Laura Hilliger [:epilepticrabbit]]

Attachment: baconstack-teachpage.jpg

Comment 5

[Laura Hilliger [:epilepticrabbit]]

Changed the title of this bug after my cat woke me up at 5am and I had a thought that the #webmakerwin for /teach and to the Mentor work as a whole is to integrate the Bacon Stack directly into the /teach page.

Threw together a mockup that changes the purpose of three spaces on the page. Since the content of "CTAs" and "Celebration" would be dynamic, we would need the ability to administer those spaces.

here, take a look.

Comment 6

[Cassie McDaniel [:cassiemc]]

I'm not sure what "Bacon Stack" means, but I think I see where you're coming from and think there may be a solution for this that ties in a bit better with the rest of the site, given our current limitations on the dev side. Longer term, we could definitely do a better job to redesign this section for your needs.

My thoughts:

* Your main Stamp area can be whatever you'd like, so long as it fits in with the image + text + button formula. I can help with the image, or Cappleton, just ping us!

* I would keep the makes strictly as remixable teaching kits; that's what users will come to expect from gallery items throughout the rest of the site. Hacking these to make subpages for the /teach section (if I'm understanding correctly, that's what you want to do) is not an optimal solution – it becomes meta very quickly and is confusing. 

That said, making a teaching kit with generic photos and text for users to easily fill in (bug 891922) makes complete sense. We want to put that generic template somewhere else though - we do intend to build another page for /teach as a "Get started hacking teaching kits" page, similar to https://webmaker.org/event-guides (and /teach will need a button added at the top to link to this page). Having a prominent link that goes to that page will be good.

* It's not currently possible to have more than one stamp per page, so incorporating other "subpages" into the gallery is much trickier. This has to do with the library we're using for the responsive grid layout (Packery). It will likely be possible in the future, but not now.

* Maybe you can let us know what you need - ie what you're trying to accomplish with the mockup - that is currently missing? If we know what you need we can help structure the content appropriately across the site.

* FYI, in the next 3 weeks we plan to update the look and feel of the CTAs bar. It's currently not working for any section of the site, and those are important pages/links getting lost in the bottom half of the site, so this may help?

* I liked the other bug title better, maybe because I don't know what Bacon refers to :) Can you add a link to the roadmap so I know we're all looking at the same thing?

Comment 7

[Laura Hilliger [:epilepticrabbit]]

>I'm not sure what "Bacon Stack" means
http://openmatt.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/The-Bacon-Stack.008.jpg

>there may be a solution for this that ties in a bit better with the rest of the >site, given our current limitations on the dev side. Longer term, we could >definitely do a better job to redesign this section for your needs.

Happy to hear ideas for other solutions. But we need to get the redesign of this page in the works ASAP if you don't want us to hack the process by making remixable resources. There's a lot missing/buried.

>I would keep the makes strictly as remixable teaching kits; that's what users >will come to expect from gallery items throughout the rest of the site. Hacking >these to make subpages for the /teach section (if I'm understanding correctly, >that's what you want to do) is not an optimal solution – it becomes meta very >quickly and is confusing. 

It might not be optimal, but we need to make and publish stuff. I think using makes to accomplish fixing some of our pain points now is smart (so does Matt, read the comments in this bug).

>That said, making a teaching kit with generic photos and text for users to >easily fill in (bug 891922) makes complete sense. We want to put that generic >template somewhere else though - we do intend to build another page for /teach >as a "Get started hacking teaching kits" page

2 things - this will only be two templates (one for kit, one for activity), secondly, please explain your reasoning for moving this to another page. I am not sure that's the right move.

>what you're trying to accomplish with the mockup - that is currently missing?
What's missing is onramps, calls to action and celebration - 3 of the 4 ingredients needed for community participation.

>FYI, in the next 3 weeks we plan to update the look and feel of the CTAs bar. >It's currently not working for any section of the site, and those are important >pages/links getting lost in the bottom half of the site, so this may help?
kind of depends. Putting onramps, CTAs and celebration under the fold and/buried on the community page seems ill-advised. Just for the record, these are not NEW problems.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webmaker/Mentor/Roadmap/Website

Comment 8

[Matt Thompson (@OpenMatt :OpenMatt)]

+1 to this. Laura, let's tackle this once the initial set of work on the teaching kits is done. I have ideas here as well.

Comment 9

[David Humphrey (:humph)]

Matt, can you own/close this?

Comment 10

[Matt Thompson (@OpenMatt :OpenMatt)]

I think we should close this one and re-file as needed later