WordPress Introduction John Boucha, M.S. STEM IT Professional - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

WordPress Introduction

John Boucha, M.S.

STEM IT Professional Great Plains STEM Education Center www.stem.vcsu.edu

What is WordPress?

• Software for Website

Authoring

○ Blog Tool ○ Publishing Platform ○ CMS (content management system)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress

Why WordPress?

• Communicate

○ http://stem.vcsu.edu/blog/explorations-in-the-greater- yellowstone-ecosystem/

• Chronicle activity

○ http://blogs.vcsu.edu/yellowstone/?cat=11

• Web Page content management

○ http://www.uj.edu/

• Digital Publishing

○ http://www.newyorker.com/ ○ http://time.com/

• eCommerce

○ http://shop.pushkinpress.com

Who uses WordPress?

• At minimum: 1 in 6 websites are WordPress

○ About 74,652,825

■ 1/2 of those hosted for free on wordpress.com

• Used by bloggers, business, university, non-

profits, photographers, writers, news agencies, and so on.

• Previously Cited Examples: The New Yorker,

Time, Jamestown University

WordPress.org

WordPress.org

• wordpress.com hosting

○ <your-site-name>.wordpress.com ○ Limited themes ○ Free or $18/year for custom domain

• Paid web hosting

○ Custom domain name

■ <your-site-name>.com (or .org, etc.)

○ More control over installation ○ Custom themes

■ edit theme files

○ Not free

• Example: http://henryboucha.com/

WordPress Themes

• Change appearance of website

○ A separation of style and substance ○ Change look without changing content

• A multitude of characteristics can be modified

○ Fonts, color, layout, graphics, animations, site navigation, image presentation, and so on.

• Site administrators can preview themes before

deploying them.

WordPress Themes

WordPress Themes

• Theme Costs

○ Free - $50

■ Many themes are free from wordpress.org ■ Developers sell custom themes on various websites

• Ex. themeforest.net

■ WordPress developers charge $50/hr for custom work so buying a theme is generally worth it for unique looking sites

• Documentation

○ Not always the best with purchased themes

WordPress Plugins

• Extend features of WordPress

○ Akismet is most popular

■ Spam filtering

○ WordFence

■ Security

○ Flickrstream

■ Embeds Flickr photos in site

○ W3 Cache

■ Caches site on users computer for faster page loading

○ Captcha

■ Checks that you’re human

WordPress Pros and Cons

• Pros

○ Easy to manage content ○ Easy to install and work with ○ Huge community ○ Free!

• Cons

○ Some useful features require plugins ○ WYSIWYG is a pain ○ Probably most hacked websites out there

WordPress versus...

• Many different platforms that do similar things,

for example:

○ Joomla - social networking, eCommerce ○ Drupal - large corporations, most advanced ○ Blogger - easier to use / less features ○ Tumblr - social space with blogging

• Many choose WordPress

○ Often fits their needs ○ Popularity and ease of use ○ Massive online community.

Have your own WordPress site?

• Variety of Uses

○ Showcase student projects

■ English - post writings ■ Art - present artwork ■ Science - publish research ■

• Soft. Eng. - publish code/software examples

○ Creates a professional image

■ Resume builder

○ Fun to manage a blog

Want to learn more?

• WordPress.org

○ http://codex.wordpress.

• rg/WordPress_Lessons
• WPBeginner.com

○ http://www.wpbeginner.com

• YouTube

○ Search: “wordpress tutorials”

• Lynda

○ http://www.lynda.com ○ (Monthly fee)

Yellowstone Blog Site

• http://blogs.vcsu.edu/yellowstone

○ Dr. Ketterling used in 2012, 2013, 2014

• Animoto: Yellowstone Trip 2013

Goals for the Yellowstone Blog

• To communicate the magic of Yellowstone
• To underscore the challenges with preserving the

natural habitat

• To openly reflect on the debate on the re-

introduction of the wolf and the impacts

• To be a repository of activity for years to come
• To be a one-stop for the curious
• To be a place for you to visit, re-visit, add

perspective on a future students trip

Yellowstone Blogging

• Have too many photos to post?

○ Create a Flickr account

■ Or, we can add to GP SEC Flickrstream

• Everyone has access to a camera?
• 5-10 minute video animation of photos

○ iMovie (Mac), Movie Maker (Windows) ○ Web software

■ http://slide.ly ■ https://studio.stupeflix.com/en/ ■ http://animoto.com ($5)

Yellowstone Blogging

• Yellowstone Journal

○ Single post containing journal entries ○ Daily or bi-daily ○ Category as ‘2014 Fall’ ○ Add images if you like

How to Post

• First, register at: http://blogs.vcsu.

edu/yellowstone/wp-admin

• Password automatically

generated and emailed to you

• Log into website at: http://blogs.vcsu.

edu/yellowstone/wp-admin

• Admin panel on left side of page

○ Posts>>Add New

How to Post

• Give post a relevant title
• Use visual editor

○ [Add Media] for inserting images ○ WYSIWYG toolbar to format text/content

• Categories option important

○ Determines where posts show up on site

• Featured Image

○ Useful for navigating blog page

• Save Draft/Preview/Publish

Tasks for Today

• Review Student Profiles from past trips

○ http://blogs.vcsu.edu/yellowstone/?page_id=693

• Create Profile
• Upload Photo

○ Image size limited to 10MB/type varied

• Add one paragraph biography as a post

○ featured image /embedded photos

• Questions or Suggestions?