WordPress for Education

Book description

Create interactive and engaging e-learning websites with WordPress book and ebook.

  • Develop effective e-learning websites that will engage your students
  • Extend the potential of a classroom website with WordPress plugins
  • Create an interactive social network and course management system to enhance student and instructor communication

In Detail

WordPress is typically known as a platform for blogging. However, the versatility and simplicity of WordPress makes it the perfect solution for the needs of professional educators. WordPress for Education guides readers through the practical applications of WordPress in a classroom setting. Readers will gain an understanding of the WordPress platform and how it can be used to create powerful classroom websites.

WordPress for Education guides educators through the process of setting up a typical class website, creating student blogs, and using WordPress to power a learning management system. WordPress for Education provides clear and practical examples for using WordPress within the classroom. It will empower educators to create useful and engaging e-learning websites.

Through the examples given in the book, you will gain an understanding of how to use WordPress to build an engaging and easy to update e-learning website. You will also learn about a variety of WordPress plugins that extend its abilities and usefulness in an educational environment, such as creating student blogs, keeping track of classroom events, managing coursework, and developing a classroom social network

Table of contents

  1. WordPress for Education
    1. Table of Contents
    2. WordPress for Education
    3. Credits
    4. About the Author
    5. About the Reviewers
    6. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more
        1. Why Subscribe?
        2. Free Access for Packt account holders
    7. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. Self-hosted WordPress or WordPress.com
      3. Who this book is for
      4. What you need for this book
      5. Conventions
      6. Reader feedback
      7. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    8. 1. Installing and Configuring WordPress
      1. Installing WordPress
        1. Purchased hosting
        2. Installing WordPress with purchased hosting
        3. Finishing the installation
        4. Manually installing WordPress
      2. WordPress overview
        1. Creating posts and pages
          1. Writing a new post
          2. Creating a page
        2. Settings
          1. General Settings
          2. Writing Settings
          3. Reading Settings
          4. Discussion Settings
          5. Media Settings
          6. Privacy Settings
          7. Permalinks
      3. Summary
    9. 2. Setting Up Our Class Site
      1. Basics of post and page editing
        1. Previewing and publishing options
      2. Pages
        1. Creating a home page
          1. Making the Home page static
        2. Syllabus page
        3. Deleting the sample page
      3. Posts
        1. Adding a video to a post
        2. Categories and tags
        3. Editing an existing post and adding an image
          1. Adding an image
        4. Editing post categories
      4. Themes
      5. Widgets
      6. Menus
      7. Summary
    10. 3. Enhancing WordPress with Plugins
      1. Finding and installing plugins
      2. Managing plugins
      3. Plugins
        1. Preinstalled WordPress plugins
          1. Hello Dolly
          2. Akismet
        2. Education plugins
          1. ScholarPress Courseware
          2. WP Survey and Quiz Tool
          3. Grader
        3. Conversation and communication plugins
          1. Contact Form 7
          2. Semi-Private Comments
          3. IntenseDebate Comments
          4. Disqus
          5. bbPress
        4. Social plugins
          1. WP to Twitter
          2. Simple Facebook Connect
        5. Other Plugins
          1. Jetpack
          2. Calendar
          3. WordPress Mobile Pack
          4. Add Multiple Users for WordPress
          5. Anthologize
      4. Updating plugins
      5. Uninstalling plugins
      6. Summary
    11. 4. Enabling a Multisite Network
      1. Before installing
      2. Creating the network
      3. Exploring the Network Admin area
      4. Creating a new site
      5. Installing themes and plugins
        1. Network enabled themes
        2. Network enabled plugins
      6. Network administrator plugins
        1. New Blog Templates
        2. Multisite Plugin Manager
        3. ThreeWP Activity Monitor
      7. Network content
        1. Displaying a list of network sites
        2. Displaying network posts
      8. Summary
    12. 5. Creating a Social Network with BuddyPress
      1. WordPress, Multisite, and BuddyPress
      2. Installing BuddyPress
        1. Components
        2. Pages
        3. Permalinks
        4. Theme
        5. Finish
      3. Registering student accounts
        1. Individually registering students
        2. Enabling student self-registration
      4. Activity
      5. Friend connections
      6. Groups
      7. Forums
        1. Group forums
        2. Sitewide forums
      8. Protecting student privacy
      9. Summary
    13. 6. BuddyPress Courseware
      1. Installing and configuring BP Courseware
        1. BuddyPress Courseware settings
          1. Global settings
          2. Collaboration settings
          3. Make assignment responses private
          4. Gradebook default grade format
          5. Webservices API integration
          6. Customization
        2. Renaming the groups page
          1. Setting Courses as the site home page
      2. Creating a course
        1. Enabling BP Courseware
        2. Courseware dashboard
      3. Adding course content
        1. Lectures
        2. Assignments
          1. Posting assignments as a teacher
          2. Submitting assignments as a student
          3. Viewing student responses
          4. Gradebook
        3. Bibliography
        4. Schedule and calendar
      4. Teacher and student roles
      5. Help and support
      6. Summary
    14. 7. Site Management
      1. Site backups
      2. Site performance
        1. WP Super Cache
        2. Better WP Minify
      3. Site security
        1. Secure WordPress
        2. WP Security Scan
      4. Updating WordPress
      5. Summary
    15. 8. WordPress Resources and Plugins
      1. WordPress resources
        1. WordPress Codex
        2. WordPress Support Forum
        3. WordPress Showcase: Education
        4. wp-edu discussion list
        5. Digging into WordPress
      2. Plugin directory
    16. Index

Product information

  • Title: WordPress for Education
  • Author(s): Adam D. Scott
  • Release date: June 2012
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781849518208