After months of careful planning and deliberation, we’re thrilled to announce that WP101 is now powered by the powerful LifterLMS learning management plugin for WordPress!
We think you’re going to really going to enjoy learning WordPress with the help of the new features that LifterLMS brings to our site.
We’ll be able to better interact with you as you make your way through our tutorials, providing timely information and helpful resources along the way. You’ll be able to track your progress, earning badges and certificates for completing lessons and courses. And we’ll be able to bring new courses online more quickly!
Why is this change necessary?
First, let me share a little background. This is just the third time we’ve changed platforms since we launched WP101 in 2008. For the past several years, this site has been powered by a highly customized integration with an obscure recurring billing service.
While this system has enabled us to offer simple access to our WordPress tutorial videos as part of a membership, it lacked support for discount coupons and other basic functionality. More importantly, we’ve been unable to provide the type of learning experience we really want to deliver. Until now.
Today, WP101 serves more than 25,000 members, so it’s no small challenge to migrate to a new membership plugin. Thankfully, we benefited from the trusted advice of our good friend and long-time coach, Chris Lema. Together, we spent more than a year carefully evaluating the many options available today.
So we were absolutely thrilled to have finally discovered LifterLMS, a powerful (and free) learning management plugin for WordPress. Not only was it the first plugin that checked all the boxes for our needs, but it also quickly became apparent that the creators truly share our passion for online education.
In particular, we really resonated with their focus on restoring human interaction to online learning, something that is conspicuously absent from most online courses today.
You see, we don’t just want you to watch our videos. We want to acknowledge your progress and interact with you as you make your way through the lessons. We want to answer your questions and help you accomplish your goals for learning WordPress in the first place.
LifterLMS gives us the tools to serve you even better.
Here are some of the new features we think you’ll love…
Track your progress. The all-new “My Courses” page shows you the courses you’ve enrolled in, with a visual indicator of your progress through each one. Return at any time and pick up right where you left off.
The new “My Courses” page in action.
Earn badges and certificates. No more watching videos in a vacuum! Now you’ll earn badges and certificates for completing lessons and courses. Print and share these to verify that you’ve completed our training. Or just enjoy the rewards as an acknowledgment of your progress.
Timely help when it matters most. LifterLMS enables us to send helpful tips or links to additional resources based on lessons you’ve recently completed. This will help us strike up a conversation as you progress through each course. We’ll be able to answer any questions you might have at that point, or recommend related resources, products and services you might find helpful.
Clearly-defined courses. We’ve reorganized our entire tutorial library into individual courses, making it easier to find the specific training you need.
New courses, finally! Best of all, this model will enable us to bring new courses online more quickly. For example, we’ve partnered with noted WooCommerce expert, Daniel Espinoza, to create an in-depth course for that popular e-commerce plugin. When it’s released, you’ll be able to purchase just that course — or any of our future courses — à la carte, if you like. Better yet, buy a Lifetime Membership and get access to all our future courses for one single payment!
These guys are good!
We really want to thank the stellar team at codeBox — the creators of LifterLMS — for handling the “heavy lifting.” They not only migrated all of our site content and member data, but also provided strategic advice and much-needed encouragement along the way to help us better serve you — our members.
From the first video conference with the entire team in January, it was clear that these guys really love online education. Joshua and Chris even host a podcast where they share their best advice for creating effective online learning experiences.
If you’re interested in building your own online courses, we highly recommend LifterLMS. The plugin is 100% free, but their Boost service is perfect for individuals who don’t have time to set it up or don’t want to mess with the technical side of things.
You’ll not only benefit from the well thought-out features of the LifterLMS plugin itself, but also the wealth of knowledge and experience these guys bring to the table!
Go ahead. Log in and check out your new profile page!
We’ve already migrated your account to the new system and enrolled you in our current courses. You’ll enjoy access to the same video tutorials you had before this move.
When you’ve finished watching a video lesson, simply mark it as complete. You’ll be automatically redirected to the next lesson in the course. When you’ve finished all the lessons in a course, you’ll earn a badge for your profile, and a gorgeous certificate of completion you can print and share!
Of course, you can still post your questions in the members-only Q&A Forum and get answers from the creator of WP101, Shawn Hesketh, as well as other members of the community.
So log into your new “My Courses” page now and check out our latest WordPress tutorial videos. If it’s been a while, you might be surprised by what you’ll learn this time around!
Never stop learning!
