Presentation on Sensei LMS

Last week I presented at our WooCommerce Los Angeles Meetup group on Sensei LMS. Sensei is an Automattic, Inc. open-source project offering free classroom features for WordPress powered websites.

We set-up a demo site and imported the demo content file. Content consists of courses, optional modules within courses, lessons within courses or modules, and quiz questions within each lesson. The audience was invited to request a WP Admin account to set-up teacher user role users as well as register students on the front-end.

We discussed the roles of Bookings, Memberships, and Subscriptions optional WooCommerce Extensions. Bookings can be used to sell or otherwise accept orders for seats within a class. Memberships controls content restrictions to paid or otherwise product-registered customers. Subscriptions can recur payments over a set period of time.

We also identified a couple of Sensei WooCommerce Extensions that offer some requested functionality, particularly Content Drip and Paid Courses, the latter of which connects memberships products to courses in lieu of adding some custom code to make that connection.

We’re seeing an uptick in interest for classroom functionality during the “new normal” and “social distancing” measures that societies around the World are taking in the battle against coronavirus. I predict this interest will be long-term and will grow as technology is built or upgraded. I also predict that there will be more hybrid models in the future – combinations of safer in-person and online syndicated meetings and classes powered by ever-growing virtual conferencing technologies.

While there are many, often more polished, proprietary solutions for Learning Management out there, Sensei brings the benefits of open-source community, customize-ability and its WooCommerce-focus to maximize the value of your online store investment.