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WordCamp Miami Draws 100+ for Kid’s Camp, Plans to Host Standalone Kid’s WordPress Conference in Summer 2019

The 11th edition of WordCamp Miami was held this past weekend, a three-day event that featured multiple learning workshops and six different tracks. The speaker ratio was 50% male and 50% female, and nearly half of the speakers were new to WordCamp Miami.

One of the highlights of this year’s event were the WordPress stories coming out of the Kid’s Panel. WordCamp Miami has been hosting learning experiences for kids since 2014 and for the past four years has included a two-day Kid’s Camp along with a Kid’s Panel. More than 100 children (not including parents and guardians) attended this year’s event. Some of the kids who are more experienced with WordPress shared their experiences during the Kid’s Panel.

Kids reported that they using WordPress for blogs, science projects, and robotic competitions. One fifth grade student, who has been using WordPress for three years, said she plans to continue using it to document her life and share her future educational experiences:

“I plan to be using it later in my life when I go to college, so I can be talking about what my life journey was and what I’m going to be studying, which is software engineering.”

Miami to Host New One-Day WordPress Event for Kids and Teachers

The growing popularity of WordCamp Miami’s kids events has inspired organizers to host a new one-day event for kids and teachers. The date has not yet been set but the plan is to have it scheduled for summer 2019.

The event will be divided into two tracks, one for kids aged 6 to 18 and another for teachers and educators. The kid’s track will include talks on WordPress, MineCraft, STEAM/STEM activities, and ways they can improve their coding skills. Teachers and educators will have a dedicated track with talks that will help them incorporate coding, WordPress, and broader STEAM/STEM activities into their curricula.

In their announcement, WordCamp Miami’s organizers said they believe the next generation of WordPress users are “vital to the growth of the open web.” They are looking for sponsors to cover the costs of snacks and lunch for approximately 100 students, volunteers and speakers to give presentations on various subjects for kids and teachers, and people to spread the word to schools in the Dade/Broward area.

Kids engaging with WordPress is one of the most inspiring things happening in the community right now. It’s the spark of a new generation of users who are embracing the concept of sharing their ideas on the open web. WordPress’ Community team also has a new Kids Event Working Group that kicked off last month to support the growth of these kinds of events around the world. They are currently working on documentation, training guides, legal documents, supply lists, and other resources. This is another way to get involved if you don’t live near a local kid’s event.

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WordCamp Nordic to Host Workshop for Kids on March 7

photo credit: Ivan Gatić

WordCamp Nordic, a new regional WordCamp taking place in Helsinki, is just 23 days away. Organizers have published a list of 26 speakers and their sessions this week. Topics include content design, entrepreneurship, security, leveraging AMP, WooCommerce, internationalization, Gutenberg, and general WordPress development.

The event’s organizers are also embracing a growing trend of hosting a kids’ camp alongside the WordCamp to introduce younger attendees to the software. WordCamp Nordic is planning a free WordPress workshop for 20 kids aged 8-14 that will be held Thursday, March 7, from 13:00 to 17:00. It will run at the same time and in the same venue as the WordCamp’s Contributor Day. Attendees will learn how to set up their own WordPress websites, choose a theme, and learn how to add text, galleries, videos, and other elements to the their sites.

WordPress veteran Petya Raykovska is leading the kids’ workshop. She has led similar workshops all over the world, first in Bangkok 2017, followed by events in Belgrade, Sofia, Varna, and other locations. Demand for the kids’ workshops has grown in the past two years and Raykovska started receiving requests from other European WordCamp organizers to lead events at their camps. As a result, she has created an organizer kit for others wanting to host their own WordPress workshops for kids.

WordPress can be a gateway to the open web for the next generation

Workshops for kids are starting to become more common at WordCamps, as there is a growing demographic of WordPress users with children and technology is more accessible than ever before. WordCamp Miami and WordCamp Phoenix were some of the first camps to offer kids’ workshops and since then St. Louis, Cape Town, and many other WordPress communities have hosted their own.

These workshops are important events that will foster the next generation of bloggers, business owners, and contributors to WordPress. Facebook (and soon to be Snapchat) is widely regarded as an “app for old people” and its users under the age of 24 are rapidly declining. WordPress is in a better position, because an influx of older users doesn’t affect the overall experience of the app the same way. However, if WordPress usage isn’t growing among the school age population, it is in danger of suffering the same fate as Facebook – becoming an application that will live and die with its current generation of users. Onboarding new young WordPressers doesn’t just help to ensure the software’s future but it also gives kids a tool that can help them find their place on the open web, a home for their content that will outlast all the ephemeral social networking apps.