Last week, I wrote about why WordPress is a great option for teachers who want to quickly create a website. Today’s post explains, step by step, how to get a WordPress blog up and running. The goal: to create an interactive, useful and attractive website in under an hour.
Are you ready to begin? Keyboards at the ready…. Start your stopwatches!
Step 1: Create an account with WordPress.com
The first thing you will need is a place to host your website. Unless you are very technically-minded (or want to maintain complete control) it is usually easier to let someone else do the hosting for you. Many hosting companies will charge you a fee, but the good folks at WordPress.com will allow you to set up a basic blog free of charge. Simply visit www.wordpress.com and click the big button marked ‘get started here’.
First, you will need to choose a username, password and an address for your blog. WordPress automatically assigns you a web address in the format: yoursite.wordpress.com. You can, however, upgrade to a cooler address (a ‘dot com’ perhaps?) for a small fee.
Note: If you need an address ending in .edu or .edu.au , simply choose the free option at this stage. Later on you can purchase the domain name that you want (from domainname.edu.au in Australia or educause in the US) and map this to your wordpress blog.
Step 2: Skip the Upgrades
Once you have signed up, WordPress will offer you a package of upgrade options. Some of these are quite cool and you may want to invest in them down the track. However, if you are a beginner, you probably won’t use all of them and you certainly don’t need them straight away. Save your money and skip the upgrades.
Step 3: Choose your theme
You are now the proud owner of a sparkling new blog site. However, you may feel a little disappointed when you first look at your site. By default, WordPress sites can look a little, well, bland.
Luckily, WordPress provides a selection of themes that you can use to modify the look and feel of your site with a single click.
To change the theme, you need to go to the ‘dashboard’ for your site. This is a special password-protected web page that you visit when you want to modify your blog.
To access your dashboard, simply log into wordpress.com using the username and password that you created earlier. In most cases, the dashboard will open automatically. If not, you can always get to the dashboard by clicking on the name of your blog in the top left hand corner of the page.
Once you are in the dashboard section, choose Appearance and then Themes from the left hand menu. This will bring you to a gallery of over 100 free and premium themes. Choose the one you like and click ‘activate’. The entire look and feel of your site will change instantly.
Step 4: Create Categories
The readers of your blog might want to read every single thing that you have to say; Alternatively, they may only be interested in certain topics. To allow for this, WordPress permits you to assign categories to each post that you write. It then groups these posts automatically.
To set up categories for your blog, visit the dashboard page for your blog and choose Posts and then Categories. You might choose to create different categories for different curriculum areas or, if you are creating a whole-school blog, one for each classroom. Don’t worry if you miss a category – you can always add new ones later on.
Step 5: Invite new users
The power of your website is magnified exponentially when more people are involved. Your students, colleagues, parent community and administrators can all contribute to your blog in some way — whether by publishing articles, submitting comments or simply reading the posts.
To invite people to be involved in your blog, go to your dashboard and select Users, then Invite New.
There are a number of roles that you can assign. For example, you may wish for your students to contribute work to the blog but want to review their work before it is published. In this case, you would assign your students a role of ‘contributor’.
To invite a person to take on a role, just fill in their email address, select the role and click the button marked ‘send invitation’.
Step 6: Create an information page
Most of your WordPress site will be created automatically as you (and your team) add new material. The newest posts will be located at the top of the page and your categories will be listed down the side.
However, you may wish to create a couple of static pages to hold important reference information. This could take the form of an About Me page, contact details for your school or background information about a project that you are running.
To create a new static page, choose Pages and then Add New from your dashboard. You will then be taken to a simple data entry page. Type in the information that you want and click ‘publish’. To add pictures, simply click on the camera icon (next to the words upload / insert) and follow the prompts.
Each of your static pages will be listed in the navigation bar at the top of your website. To select which of these pages your visitors will see first, choose Settings and then Reading from your dashboard.
Step 7: Roll the Presses!
Your website is now ready. However, you are still missing the most important part: your content! Luckily, everything about WordPress is designed to make it easy for you (and your army of co-conspirators) to share your words with the world.
To create a new post, open your dashboard, choose Add New and start typing. Using the WYSIWYG (‘what you see is what you get’) editor, it is easy to add pictures, polls, forms, audio and other media. When you are finished, just click ‘publish’. Don’t forget to add some categories so that WordPress can automatically sort your work.
So, there you have it. In less than an hour, you have created a functioning class website. The key is to fill your website with interesting content and keep it up-to-date. Remember, you are not expected to do this all yourself — Your students will relish the opportunity to publish to an authentic real world audience. Assign yourself the role of editor-in-chief and watch your website grow!
Time spent: 1 hour
Cost: $0
Laptop image used under creative commons licence courtesy of Kenny Louie.
