Blogging: A Hands-On session for Learning VIU’s WordPress

Prepared by: Michael PaskeviciusLearning Technologies Application Developer

Centre for Innovation and Excellence in LearningVancouver Island University

Blogging defined

• Blog is short for “Web log”, an online, chronological collection of personal commentary, media and links

• Blogs are easy to create, read and comment on from anywhere with an Internet connection

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjwUHXoi8lM

http://xkcd.com/802/

• 19 percent of websites on the internet are powered by Wordpress

• Based on open-source technologies (PHP and MYSQL)

• Active and vibrant developer community • Plugin and theme marketplace • Ability to run networks of blogs

Why use the VIU Wordpress blogging network?

– Hosted on campus – Compliant with FIPPA – Unified login – Under the viu.ca

domain – Secure and backed up

regularly by IT

Why not use the VIU Wordpress blogging network?

– You require a special URL

– You want to administer plugins and themes

Options: wordpress.com, blogger.com, your own server

The Wordpress network

http://wordpress.viu.ca/

http://wordpress.viu.ca/Chemistry

http://wordpress.viu.ca/MGMT210

http://wordpress.viu.ca/SarahsBlog

• One code base to maintain• Simplify backups• Unified login

http://studentblogs.viu.ca/http://wordpress.viu.ca/

• Personal blogs and websites• Project or research blogs • Reflective spaces inviting feedback via

comments• Public ePortfolios to showcase student work• Blogs can be used to ‘tie the web together’• Develop media/technical literacies

How to use the VIU Wordpress blogging network

Blogger's Code of Conduct

1. Take responsibility for your own words and for the comments you allow on our blog

2. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person

3. Connect privately before responding publicly4. If you believe someone is unfairly attacking

another, take action5. Do not allow anonymous comments6. Ignore the trollshttp://radar.oreilly.com/2007/04/draft-bloggers-code-of-conduct.html

Post versus Page• Posts are entries listed in

reverse chronological order on the blog home page by default.

• Pages are static and are not

listed by date. Pages are often listed at the top of the blog in a menu.

http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-vs-page/

Post are automatically organized by date but can be furthermore assigned to categories and tags.

Pages do not use categories and tags but

can be organized in a hierarchy.

http://wordpress.viu.ca/barclayl/

Older posts

Links to other sites

PagesNew posts appear here

Site search

Title of the blog

Recent posts

Recent comments

Category of this post

Pages on the site

Web view Author view (logged in)

Wordpress Dashboard

Create a new post

Summary of blog activity

Recent comments

Themes

Use images to bring your posts to life

Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sower.jpg / CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

http://compfight.com

Wordpress documentation on wiki

https://mediawiki.viu.ca/wiki/Wordpress_Help

https://wordpress.viu.ca/

https://wordpress.viu.ca/wp-login.php

The site name becomes part of your URL and

must be lowercase with no spaces.

The site title is displayed by default at the top of

your blog and may contain spaces. Allow

discoverability in Google

Blog showcase

• Les• http://wordpress.viu.ca/barclayl/ • http://wordpress.viu.ca/ap5mondays/

• Eugene• http://wordpress.viu.ca/viuasc/ • http://wordpress.viu.ca/limi/

• Stephen• http://wordpress.viu.ca/guppy/

• Rachel• http://wordpress.viu.ca/mollr/

• CIEL• http://wordpress.viu.ca/ciel/

References

• EDUCAUSE 7 things you should know about Blogs

• http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7006.pdf

• Using Blogs for Formative Assessment and Interactive Teaching

• http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue51/foggo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License. To view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ca/

Prepared by: Michael Paskevicius Learning Technologies Application DeveloperCentre for Innovation and Excellence in Learningmichael.paskevicus@viu.ca

Follow me: http://twitter.com/mpaskevi

Blog: http://wordpress.viu.ca/edtechdev/

Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/mpaskevi