Aug 17

Teachers: Free Wordpress Website for your Students

 

The following is a copy of the Wordpress post we received in email. Lumonics has no connection to this plan, but want to let educators know about it.
Today at WordCamp US 2026, we’re officially launching WordPress.com Education.

At its heart is a free dedicated Student Plan, built to give students the tools of a professional WordPress.com environment while they learn.

Now, students can build real websites in a professional environment that they can keep using after the course ends.
We’ve been quietly piloting this for the past year, and it’s already reached more than 5,000 active students across 27 countries. Now we’re ready to open the doors.
At WordCamp US 2025, Matt Mullenweg closed his keynote with a question: 
How do we give the next generation the best tools, so they don’t have to write with a borrowed pen?
That line is the whole reason WordPress.com Education exists.

The Student Plan: Free professional WordPress.com tools
Any teacher can apply for their class at wp.com/edu and get, for every student:
  • A real WordPress.com plan: The same platform millions of businesses run on. No watered-down “student tier,” no restricted plugin access.
  • A free domain name: Students can register a .blog or .art domain at no cost (our two education-eligible TLDs for this initial phase). 
  • Plugin support: Students can install plugins and extend their sites as part of their coursework.
  • The first year, completely free: No credit card required.
This isn’t a stripped-down classroom version of WordPress.com. The Student Plan includes plugin support, 6 GB of storage, backups, staging sites, SFTP/SSH, phpMyAdmin, and Studio Sync. Students learn and build with many of the same tools they’ll encounter working with WordPress professionally.
After year one, renewal is just $2/month ($24/year) — a price that keeps the site online and accessible long after the course ends.
That last point matters more than it might sound. This isn’t a throwaway class project that disappears when the semester ends. It’s a real website, on a real domain, that a student owns and can carry into a portfolio, a job application, or their first freelance client — for less than the price of a coffee a month.
And even if a student decides not to renew after the first year, nothing gets deleted. The site simply drops to a free WordPress.com plan on a free subdomain, and every page, post, comment, and media file the student created stays exactly where it is, fully intact and online.
No countdown timer, no “pay or lose your work” ultimatum. The portfolio a student spent a semester building is theirs to keep, whether they renew or not.

Why we built the Student Plan for real classrooms
Teachers tell us the same challenges come up again and again:
Setup takes too long. Creating accounts, configuring sites, troubleshooting access issues — all before the actual coursework even starts. WordPress.com handles the infrastructure so you can focus on teaching.
Students lose their work when the semester ends. Most classroom tools delete everything once the course closes. Motivated students who want to keep building have nowhere to go. With WordPress.com Education, every student owns their site and can keep it live for $2/month — or take their content with them, anytime.
Not every student starts from the same place. Students in under-resourced schools or countries often face barriers that limit what they can build or access online.
This program gives every student the same professional-grade platform, the same custom domain, and the same opportunity to create a real web presence — no matter where they’re starting from.

Preparing students for the real web 
Education systems around the world are rethinking what digital literacy means in the age of AI. 
We think the answer starts with ownership — not another walled-garden tool that disappears the moment a subscription lapses, but the open web itself.
Students leave with a domain they control, content they own, and practical WordPress skills built on the fundamentals that power over 40% of the internet.

It’s already working: 5,000+ students, 27 countries
WordPress.com Education has been running successfully as a pilot program for the past year.
At IES Luís Seoane in Spain, marketing teacher Joaquín says giving students access to WordPress.com from day one lets them work in a real environment. More than 20 of the program’s 30 students went on to internships, and employers were “surprised by the level our students bring—not just in SEO and SEM strategy, but in working with WordPress.”
I love the ‘forever’ nature of this. My students can build a real portfolio that they can keep and use after the course ends.
— Javier, Media Studies Teacher, San Telmo Arts School, Spain
Survey results from pilot educators confirm this:
  • 88.9% said WordPress knowledge, combined with the program, improves their students’ employability.
  • 81.5% said it improves their students’ entrepreneurial capacity.
Real skills, on real infrastructure, translating into real outcomes — internships, jobs, and the confidence to launch something of their own.

Building the bridge to the community
WordPress.com Education is also a bridge into the wider WordPress community. Beyond our own classroom program, we’re supporting two WordPress.org initiatives with free WordPress.com hosting:
  • WordPress Credits is a WordPress Foundation program that partners with educational institutions to engage students in open source contributions. We provide free hosting to participants, and 150+ students have benefited so far.
  • WordPress Campus Connect is a WordPress.org initiative that brings local WordPress communities into higher education institutions through student-led events. WordPress.com has sponsored dozens of these events with free hosting for organizers and attendees.
It’s about moving students from “I have a website” to “I’m part of a global open source community” and doing our part to strengthen the programs the wider WordPress project has already built.

Bring WordPress.com to your classroom 
WordPress.com Education is more than free hosting. It’s a program that works alongside educators to prepare students for the future of the open web, helping them retain ownership of their content while strengthening their employability and entrepreneurial skills.
This includes initiatives such as AI-assisted website creation, microcredentials, and professional certifications designed to build practical skills, validate knowledge, and turn ideas into real-world opportunities.
Educators can apply to bring the Student Plan to their classes at wp.com/edu.
If you’re a teacher, department head, or program coordinator who wants your students building real, lasting websites they can own and grow — apply today.

Aug 11

Divine Mine by Mel Tanner

 

Divine Mind (1970) by Mel Tanner is the oldest light sculpture on display at Lumonics, and is one of the limited editions we reproduce at Lumonics.

top view of Divine Mine

 

 

 

 

Aug 09

Mountain Meditation 2 is an official selection of the 17th DocuWest Documentary Film Fest

Greetings from Denver. The Denver Documentary Society is thrilled to announce that Mountain Meditation 2 is an official selection of the 17th DocuWest Documentary Film Festival. Yay. The festival takes place November 12-15, 2026 at the Sie FilmCenter, Denver’s only independent movie theater in Colorado. 

 
Sincerely,
Wade Gardner
Filmmaker/Founder of Denver Doc Society
 

DocuWest enters its 17th season ready to expand its screenings while curating selections from our submissions, and as needed by inviting some docs to take audiences for a diverse documentary ride in Denver.

This fall DocuWest continues presenting an insightful, thought provoking, and awe-inspiring line-up of documentary titles from around the world – and allows filmmakers whose works are submitted and accepted into the festival the opportunity to monetize their screening via DocuWest’s ticket sales revenue share program.

Screenings will be at the Sie FilmCenter Denver’s only independent arthouse theater and home to the Denver Film Society will allow us to present audiences with a variety of documentary films in theater setting.

DocuWest explores the world of our people, our politics, our societies, our history and ourselves through the lens of filmmakers from around the globe. We embrace the idea that cinematic truth revealed in a non-narrative manner can allow the filmmaker to make choices that presents life either surreptitiously or purposely based on the choices they make.

The Denver Documentary Society’s objective is to present our audiences with the stories that are not only astonishing and jarring, but awe-inspiring and thought provoking. We encourage more dialogue and discourse to take place with the filmmakers and subjects attending each screening, or presented in each film.

We stand with the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA). We support the work of the Alliance of Documentary Editors (ADE). We mirror the DPA’s and ADE’s work on proper crediting and sustainability. Documentaries need to be better organized for access and sustainability – for all. It is the only branch of filmmaking that is not organized to support docuentary filmmakers. We hope that changes. We present juried awards and recognition for editors and producers.

 

 

 
Mountain Meditation 2 is a reimagined view of nature that began with a car ride and hike in the Colorado mountains.

“The source material is Colorado car rides and hikes in the mountains, which I record using a mobile phone camera and/or Insta360 camera attached to the car window or mounted on the roof. I then transform the imagery in production, and add an original soundtrack. No AI!”
– Marc Billard

 

still image from Mountain Meditation 2 by Marc Billard/Lumonics

 

still image from Mountain Meditation 2 by Marc Billard/Lumonics

 

still image from Mountain Meditation 2 by Marc Billard/Lumonics

 

 

 

 

Jul 26

Dorothy Tanner passed 6 years ago

dt_epic

photo of Dorothy Tanner  by Jeff Nass

Marc Billard and Barry Raphael wrote this in 2020 and have updated some of the information as we post this on the anniversary of Dorothy’s passing: Marc Billard and Barry Raphael wrote this in 2020 and have updated some of the information as we post this on the anniversary of Dorothy’s passing:

Dorothy Tanner passed away peacefully in her sleep in the early morning hours of July 23, 2020. She was 97 years old. Dorothy and Mel Tanner (1925-1993) are the co-founders of Lumonics, among the first and longest-running light art studios in the US, originating in 1966. Since arriving with her team in Colorado in 2008, Dorothy had many highly-acclaimed exhibits, including a retrospective at the Museum of Outdoor Arts (Then & Now: A Retrospective of Light-Based Sculpture by Dorothy & Mel Tanner) and the Lumonics Mind Spa – Stretching the Body, Mind, and Spirit at the McNichols Civic Center Building, the longest exhibit in the Building’s history. Dorothy was a recipient of the Denver Mayor’s Arts and Culture Award for Innovation in the Arts, “presented to an individual or organization that is breaking new ground in the arts and whose contribution to innovation in the arts has been significant.”

In October, 2018, she co-founded the Lumonics School of Light Art with long-time associate Marc Billard, who is the course instructor. Students are taught how to make lighted cubes and columns, which were among the first geometric shapes created by the Tanners in the early days of their art form.

Long-time team members, Marc Billard and Barry Raphael, continue the project, most notably Lumonics Immersed: “We present the most up-to-date form of Lumonics. Our intention is to expand the boundaries of sensory engagement and artistic expression, and honor the Tanners’ contribution to light art and the immersive experience. If you want to get away, Lumonics will take you there.”

Billard and Raphael established the Lumonics Legacy Project for the continuation of the project. Barbara Billard, who also volunteered for the project in 1972, passed in 2023. We want to thank all the wonderful people in Denver who have made us feel so welcome and contributed to the success of Lumonics. And thank you to the many people from all over the country and world who have expressed their appreciation for the Tanners and their art these past years.

Memorial Tributes  from the Community