This year, coming out of the Forum for the Future event was the re-igniting of the Joomla Educational Outreach (JEO) Working Group. This group of motivated individuals came together with a common goal of wanting to spread awareness and training of Joomla! through the education community. It took a few months to get our feet under us and now we are poised to move in 2021.  

The hardest part so far has been the honing of our mission. Being a group of ‘doers’ who were eager to get out and teach Joomla, taking a step back to focus on what we wanted to accomplish beyond the simple goal of spreading Joomla Love, was a challenge.

The mission needed to encompass our goals, not be too broad, and most of all are achievable. After several months, we landed on one we think fits great.

Our mission is to be a hub of teaching tools and resources for those who want to teach and learn Joomla around the world. 

What this means is that we will actively work to gather tools and resources from throughout our community and beyond, making them available to all. As not everyone learns the same nor teaches the same, we have imagined that there will be something for everyone, at every stage of their educational path.   

To reach our goal of implementing this hub of shared training material, we are starting by gathering materials from working group members who have held classes with school-aged children, high school or secondary students, continuing education adults, as well as taught higher education courses. While English will be the primary language, we also seek materials in other languages.

We cannot achieve our mission alone. As we look ahead to 2021, there are many opportunities for JEO to align with other initiatives proposed for the Joomla project.  One such initiative is inspired by Joomla’s Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and would encourage college/university student engagement, volunteerism, and mentoring. 

Our work is just beginning. Look for stories from the Joomla Educational Outreach Working Group members on our journey to entice educators, engage learners, and gather materials to educate the world about Joomla as we build this portal of educational tools and resources.