Blogging 101 with WordPress Presented by: Tyler Hart

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1 Creating Your Blog: Blogging 101 with WordPress Presented by: Tyler Hart Signing up for your new blog! It s as easy as signing into your account! 1. Go to: 2. In the log in section sign up with your User Name and Password 3. You ve done it! You have created your blog! Blog URL: (What s That?!) Congratulations! You have just created your blog website. Your blog URL, or website address, is the link you will provide people, so they can access your blog. Your new link address is: user name) Bookmark it now, so you don t forget! Blog Title: Time to start personalizing! There are many different ways to make your blog your own, but the first thing that people will look at is the title. Let s change our class title. 1. Go to your Blog s Dashboard 2. Once you are in your Dashboard, scroll down and click on Settings in the bottom left of your Dashboard. 3. In the General category, the main thing you can change is the Site Title. If you would like to change the tag line to your school, you can do that as well.

2 Changing your Blog s Theme and Appearance: The default theme that WordPress, uses is a good one, but if you are interested in spicing it up even more, there are many other themes to pick from. 1. Click on Appearance in the Dashboard 2. There are 6 pages of different themes to choose from. On each theme, you can either Activate it or Preview it. Making a Post to your Blog: A post is where you will publish your latest update or article on your blog. Most of the information that is published on a blog is done as a post. Post show up in reverse order, so the latest posts are displayed first. Here are three different ways you can make a new post:

3 Steps for making a basic text post 1. Make a Post Title 2. Type up the post information: text/picture/video/audio 3. Select a Category to organize the posts 4. Check the Allow Comment section, so your students can make comments 5. Click Publish! Congratulations! You ve made your first post! Making Comments on Blog Posts So, you are a master at posting on your blog! Now it s time for your students to get involved! This is the part of the blog that really gets the students thinking. Depending on your theme, the link will be at the top or bottom of your post.

4 Steps for leaving a comment for a post: 1. Name - Students use ONLY first names 2. Mail - Students use theirname@theirschool.com This obviously is not a real address, but it tricks the program while showing where the comments came from. 3. Website - nothing is required 4. Comment Box - Type their comment 5. Click Submit Comment When finished, the comment will not post right away to the blog. An will be sent to you to let you know that the comment needs to be approved first. How do you do that?! 1. Go to My Blogs-->Your Blog-->Manage Comments 2. Click Pending - this will bring up all the pending comments. 3. Click the Pull down arrow and change the action to Approve. 4. Make sure the comments you want approved are checked, and then click Apply. 5. Your comments should now be visible to the public

5 Wonderful World of Widgets! Widget? What s a Widget? Widgets are the sidebars that run down the sides of your blog. They come in real handy when trying to customize your blog. They are great way to help visitors to your blog navigate through all the content. There are many different types of widgets to customize your blog with. 1. Click on Widgets in the Appearance Drop Box in the Dashboard. 2. In the Available Widgets menu, drag the widget you want into the sidebar on the right side of the screen. 3. You can drag widgets off of the sidebar off to remove ones you may not want. Some of the basic widgets are: Categories: Use this to categorize all your posts Archives: Use this to separates by month s entries Links: Use this to add other important websites Text: Use this to embed code or have quick message Adding Links 1. Go to the Dashboard and Click the Links menu 2. Click Add New to add a new link 3. Type in what you want the Name of your link to be. Type or Copy/Paste the actual Website Address 4. Click Add Link! Congratulations! You ve added your first link!

6 Adding Categories 1. Go to the Dashboard and Click the Categories menu 2. Type in the Name of the Category. 3. Click Add new Category Adding Pictures into your Posts Alright! Your Blog Appearance is all set up, you know how to make a post, and you know how to comment on those posts. Now it s time to spice up those posts. Time to break out that digital camera and click, click, click! Don t have one? Check one out from the library. Are they all checked out? Find a great picture on the internet and insert it into the post. Pictures really add life to your posts, and the students really enjoy checking them out--especially of themselves! Steps for posting a picture into a post: 1. Go to the Dashboard and select New Post 2. Add your title, text, category, and make sure allow comments are checked 3. Click the first icon next to Upload/Insert. 4. Click Select Files in the next box that pops up. 5. Select where the picture is located on your computer. Select the picture so that it is highlighted. Once you have it highlighted, select the Open Button, and the picture will be inserted into your post.

7 Inserting Pages into your Blog Ever wanted to make a class website, but was super overwhelmed on how to do it? Now that you already know how to make a post, you can easily create extra pages to your blog page. These new pages can be used in all sorts of ways: class newsletter, subjects, weekly homework, photos, movies, about me, etc. The possibilities are totally up to you! When making a basic New Page, there are five easy steps to complete the posting process. 1. Go to the Dashboard and Click the Pages menu 2. Click Add New to make a new page 3. Type the Title of your New Page 4. Type your Page information into the text box. This is also where you can add pictures as shown in the previous section. 5. Click Publish! Congratulations! You ve made your first post!