WordPress for Interaction in Education

1. WordPress forInteraction in Education A demonstration of WordPress to create a blog/website for increased student interaction, and for training students to operate this valuable content management system. Elio L. Arteaga, MFA Assistant Professor, Media Arts & Technology Miramar Campus

2. WordPress Identified by our advisory committee as a “must-have” skillfor graduates entering the industry. Content Management System—Create blogs and websites. Easy way to organize content and separate it from style. Write new posts and pages, and manage media. Cloud-based, hosted by WordPress.com (totally free, but limited themes,does not allow JavaScript or Google AdSense ads) or… Self-hosted, enables your own URL and custom plug-ins, but requiresa hosting service that provides PHP and MySQL, a file editor and an FTP client).

3. WordPress sitesused in education ElioArteaga, MFA – elioart.wordpress.com Ruth Ayres and Stacey Shubitz – twowritingteachers.wordpress.com Jaimie Gordon – fotoprofessor.wordpress.com Jacqui Murray – askatechteacher.wordpress.com Barbara Schroeder, Ed.D. – itcboisestate.wordpress.com Geoff Sheehy – ateacherswrites.wordpress.com All of the above-referenced blogs are the personal creations of the professor/teacher-authors. As such, they avoid the appearance of official school materials and even contain disclosure policies for transparency. A great site for building a disclosure policy statement specifically intended for use in blogs for education is disclosurepolicy.org.

4. Dos and Don’ts Do use blogs to share ideas about your subject matter or field of study. Don’t use identifying information; do protect confidentiality. Do disclose whether you are making money with your blog. Don’t use blogs to promote DeVry, nor to bash the competition.

5. Getting Started Set up a new account The front and back ends Editing your public profile Adjusting settings

6. Go to WordPress.com, click Sign Up Now.Create a blog address, username/password and give your email address. Check your email, and click the link to activate your new account.

7. Your new blog is now ready. WordPress sites consist of two parts: (1.) front end, and…

8. (2.) Back end. To access, add /wp-admin to the end of your blog’s URL in the browser’s address bar. Right-click on the blog title in the upper-left to open the front end in another tab.

9. Edit your Public Profile. Pull down My Account and choose Edit My Profile.

10. This information is all public; don’t enter your home phone number. 

11. Settings: General – site title, tagline, admin email, time zone, etc.

12. Settings: Writing – default category, format, link.

13. Settings: Reading – default display, posts or pages

14. Settings: Discussion – To avoid comment spam, require comment authors to enter their names and email addresses and register and log in. Approve comments before showing, and blacklist any offenders.

15. Settings: Privacy – totally public, hidden to search engines only,or totally private.

16. Publicize your posts on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Drag Available Services downhere to enable them. Settings: Sharing Choose button styles and labels.

17. Posts v. Pages Posts are displayed in reverse chronological order and contain news items, articles, etc.—timely info that can become stale. Posts are organized by date/time/category/tags/authors. Pages are static and freestanding. Can contain site info, contact info, FAQs, etc. Pages are organized by a parent/child relationship.

18. Writing Posts Adding new posts Typing and editing text Inserting special characters Adding links Adding images Adding categories Publishing/updating posts

19. In the sidebar, click Posts, and Add New. • The URL for this post becomes http://____.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/this-is-my-first-post. • Type your title and body-text content.

20. Currently, the post is a “Draft,” but that can be changed to “Pending Review” or it can be “Published” straight-away . In addition, you can choose what date it becomes visible on the internet.

21. Posts can be typed in a Visual editor or in HTML. They can even be typed in Microsoft Word, copied and pasted into a post using the Kitchen Sink and Paste as Text buttons (shown above).

22. You can add special characters and foreign characters by clicking Character Map, the omega icon, visible when Kitchen Sink is selected.

23. Add text links by selecting text in your post, and clicking Insert Link, the chain icon above the post body text. • Be sure to add a title for improving search engine optimization. • Open link in a new window if your link takes your visitors away from your site.

24. To add an image, look between the post title and the main body text of the post. You’ll see a group of icons next to Upload/Insert.They are images, video, audio, SWFs, polls and custom forms. Click Image. Click Select a File from your Computer.

25. Add details. Remember, alternate text is important for search engine optimization, as well as for visually-impaired individuals who use a text reader to audibly recite the alternate text of images on web pages. Click Insert into Post.

26. Change to the tab displaying the front-end, and refresh the browser.

27. Add categories to help organize your posts. At the bottom right of the post-editing page, click Add New Category, and enter the name of the category, in this case, Events. • Next, uncheck “Uncategorized” and check “Events.”

28. Click Update, change to the tab displaying the front-end, and refresh the browser. The new category is visible at the bottom of the post.

29. Writing Pages Adding new pages Setting up your site’s landing page

30. Back in the Dashboard, under Pages, click Add New. Begin typing a title and body-text content, just as you would with a new post. • The URL becomes http://________.wordpress.com/contact-us/ • Click Publish.

31. Click Pages to display your list of pages, hover over Contact Us, and click Quick Edit. • Next to template, choose “One column, no sidebar” to get rid of the sidebar on the static page. • Also, uncheck Allow Comments to remove the comments box from static pages. These two only make sense if they were in posts, not pages.

32. Click Update. • Go back inside the page editor, and uncheck Show sharing buttons… to remove them from this page. Likewise, they only make sense if they were in a post, not a page.

33. The Contact Us static page displays neither the sidebar, nor the comments box, nor the sharing buttons. Just right! Now, try removing those three items on the About page.

34. If you wish to make one of the static pages, rather than the posts page, the landing page (home page) of your site, first go back to the back-end. Make a new page called “Blog” and publish it. Don’t do anything else with it. • Go to Settings: Reading (remember this?) • Click Front Page Displays:A Static Page (Select Below). • Front Page: About • Posts Page: Blog.

35. Click Save Changes, and refresh the tab displaying the front-end. The About page is now the home page, and there are navigational links to Blog and Contact Us. Great work!

36. Moderating Comments Comment moderation is necessary, otherwise spam will fill up your comment boxes. Earlier, in Discussion Settings, we indicated that comment authors must provide their name and email addresses, that they must register with WordPress and log in, and that the administrator must approve each comment before it becomes visible.

37. The number 1 indicates that there is one comment needing approval.

38. The yellow background on elioart’s comment indicates that it hasn’t been approved by the administrator yet. • Hover over the comment. The options are: • Approve • Reply • Quick Edit • Edit • History • Spam and • Trash Click Approve. Your visitors can now read this comment.

39. Modifying theSite’s Appearance Selecting a theme Adding widgets Customizing menus Adding polls Changing background and header images

40. Changing Themes CSS separates a site’s content from its appearance. It’s easy to change the appearance of your site by choosing various themes and changing other characteristics.

41. Appearance:Themes

42. Not every theme contains the same features, for example, a two-column sidebar layout and a single-column layout in the same theme. To browse for features, click Feature Filters…

43. Select desired features and click Apply Filters. WordPress shows you all the themes that contain those features.

44. Same content, now previewing in the DePo Masthead theme. You may activate it, or just close the Preview window.

45. Adding Widgets Widgets are fun little programs that can contain calendars, Twitter feeds, RSS feeds, etc.

46. Appearance: Widgets

47. Drag any widget into one of the widgetized areas on the right side of the Dashboard. They are automatically added. Just change to the tab containing the front-end display…

48. Refresh the browser, and there’s my calendar of events in the sidebar. They’re fun to experiment with, so have a good time!

49. AddingCustom Menus WordPress makes it possible to customize the navigation menus in your site.

50. Right now, my menu displays Home (my About page), Blog and Contact Us, but it’s possible to better organize the menu so that your visitors can better appreciate the scope and scale of your site.