Teaching Word Press

Getting a Blog

• http://piratepanel.ecu.edu– Log in, choose “Create Blog”

• http://blog.ecu.edu/sites/wp-login.php

Getting a Custom Named Blog

• Create TechExcel request• Optionally put in Consulting/Training

queue• Ex: Project, Conference, Department

name

Customizing Your Blog

• Theme• Dashboard: Users• Dashboard: Settings: Discussion• Categories• Tags• Pages• Widgets• Plugins• Post!

Theme

• ECU CommonSpot Theme– recommended for “official” blogs

• ECU Theme– If you like a modern ECU color

• Any of dozens of others already installed

Theme

• Create your own– Creating your own theme

• Request a theme– Ex: Minimalistic Clean Free WordPress

Themes

Dashboard: Users

• Update name for posts• Add additional users individually or in

bulk.• All user names are simply PirateID (no

@ecu.edu, no intra)

Dashboard: Settings: Discussion

• “Allow people to post comments on new articles” = Alllow comments at all

• “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” = ECU authorized users only

• “An administrator must always approve the comment” = Comments don’t appear until released

Categories

• Create hierarchical organization for posts

• Possible faculty categories• Teaching• Research• Service

• Benefit: Find posts quickly• Benefit: Subscribe to single category

Tags

• Free form method of adding metadata to posts

• Possible faculty tags– “Some journal name”– “Some conference name”

• Benefit: Add additional descriptive terms that aren’t worthy of entire category

Pages

• Modify or delete the “About” page• Optionally add more pages, such as

“Teaching Statement”, “Research Statement”

• Optionally choose to have tabs (if theme uses them) for pages

Widgets

• Can be placed in one of four sidebars– Name of sidebars is theme dependent

• Requires that theme is widget enabled• Make sure to use preview to verify that

widgets work• Theme pack themes and ECU themes

allow widgets

Recommended Widgets

• Meta – Log in/out• Links – Dashboard: Links• Categories – Dashboard: Posts:

Categories• Tag Cloud – Dashboard: Posts: Post

Tags

Plugins

• Wptouch iPhone Theme• Mobilepress• Slideshare• Viper’s Video Quicktabs• Sociable

Wptouch iPhone Theme

• Works regardless of “normal” theme• Detects iPhone/iPod Touch and

converts to device friendly format• Allows users to revert to normal thems

Mobilepress

• Allows mobile theme for non Apple devices

Slideshare

• Integration with Slideshare.net• Just copy and paste “Embed

(wordpress.com)” code from Slideshare into post.

Viper’s Video Quicktabs

• Adds buttons in new post editor to editor sites

• Includes options for FLV and Quicktime (not enabled by default)

• See plugin settings for enabled media

Sociable

• Adds buttons/footer to all posts that let you “Include this article in XXX”

• Choose from 99 social sites to in/exclude from your posts

Media: Images

• From URL• From Computer• From Library

Minimal WordPress

• Create blog• Update name• Update about page• Pick theme• Start posting

Creating Local WordPress

– How to Back Up Your WordPress Blog Using XAMPP

– Consulting Team has lots of XAMPP and WordPress experience, we can help with setting this up

– Use Dashboard: Tools: Export to copy all tags, categories, posts into local install (doesn’t copy themes)

Now What?

• So You’ve Got a Blog. Now What?