Session 1 Online Learning Activities

Dilbert – Our CMS Hero of the Week

Things to do this week

Here are some things you should do this week (before class session 2) to build on your CMS understanding and skills acquired in the first class session.

Post a blog entry and post comments on your team peer WP sites

As early as possible this week, please make at least one initial blog post on your WP blog and also visit the newly created blogs of each of your team peers and post at least one comment to one or more of their blog posts.

You visit their blog by typing their username followed by the wordpress.com domain as the URL in your browser.

Choose the best theme and corresponding widgets for your WP site:

Continue to hone in on the best theme for your intended use of your WP blog by browsing/search themes via Appearance/Themes on your dashboard as well as via the Themes Showcase.

For example, for those of you who would like to use a theme designed for display of high-quality photography. If you visit the Themes Showcase and search on the term photography, you will see the following theme as a candidate.

http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/duotone/

Note how on the chosen theme page within the Showcase, you can see many types of description for this theme, including an example of a site using it, a list of popular sites using it, how many people are using it, and tips for using the theme with widgets. If you use this theme and widget selection strategy, you will achieve the kind of personalization and customization you need.

Using WordPress to Create a Website

Although a dedicated blog is a useful purpose for your WP site, in this course, you should try to use WordPress as a true WCMS by designing and building the structure and content more appropriate to a Web site that you can grow (scale up to larger size and more users and uses).

Continue to choose and use the appropriate blog name and front page header image and tagline and place appropriate content in your blog posts and pages (does not have to be lengthy, but make its purpose clear so people who visit will understand and know how to respond (or for whom you give user roles to collaborate in posting, editing, etc.).

Content Hierarchy

To do this, you need to plan properly and use pages and posts in appropriate ways. Please follow and try to emulate the site building tactics described in this tutorial, including the creation of a multi-level menu system that provides access to Web pages in a parent-child hierarchy.

http://en.support.wordpress.com/using-wordpress-to-create-a-website/

Also, follow these tips for site structure as it can greatly improve SEO:

http://yoast.com/site-structure-seo/

You don’t initially need to populate all of your main menu headings, but try to create some “depth” for at least one of the menus (see examples in this tutorial). Your individual Web pages don’t need to be fancy or complete as long as you provide evidence of the wide and deep page structure of a (larger) Web site in development.

Of course, you should also provide the Web 2.0 interaction of posts and comments and other interactive elements (many found through use of widgets – like polls, etc.)

When you visit the WP CMS sites of your team peers, try to provide brief suggestions for further development along these lines in your posted comments (and/or via email).

Thanks for your learning engagement and support,

Doc