There are two different ways to edit your site. Through the Customizer
or through the Dashboard
You can do many of the same things in both menus. The Customizer has fewer options but allows you to see your changes in action. In general the Customizer is good for aesthetic changes and the Dashboard for building the architecture of your site.
Picking a theme
Your theme influences the overall look and structure of your site. You have a lot of theme choices and not all of them offer the same kind of functionality. Consider the kind of material your audience is going to be engaged with-mostly text or lots of videos? Do you want to prominently display images? Are you planning on using a lot of plugins? Do you want a sidebar? Themes are designed to best display different kinds of media and are more or less compatible with plugins and widgets. Try out different themes keeping in mind the possible features and content you might want for your course site.
How to find out what theme and plugins a wordpress site is using If you see a WordPress site that you like, use the resources on this page to find out what theme and plugins it is using.
Posts vs. Pages
Pages are permanent, static pages that display information. What you are looking at right now is a page.
Posts are usually date marked and include an author and generally appear in reverse chronological order (i.e. newest at the top and oldest at the bottom.) Pages can contain posts. Use posts to blog or for any content that will be updated in an ongoing way.
Categories and Tags
Categories are an easy way to organize your posts. If you want some of your posts to appear on your “field observation” page and others to appear on your “interviews” page, creating categories will help your posts get to the right place.
Tags are another way to organize your content. Tags can group together posts by theme, location or anything else.
Add categories and tags under the “Posts” menu in the Dashboard
Plugins
Plugins add functionality to your site. Some popular plugins include:
Google Doc Embedder: Lets you embedded PDFs, Microsoft Docs and other documents into posts and pages
Jetpack by WordPress.com– Give you a variety of tools to manage your site and track visitors to your site. Requires a (free) WordPress.com account
WP Google Maps + Maps Marker + Joes Social Explorer Embedder– Allows you to embed Google, OpenStreetMap and Social Explorer maps in posts and pages
Slideshow– create a slideshow from your images
If you have an idea that you think a plugin might help you accomplish, email me.
Widgets
Widgets appear as small blocks, typically on the side or bottom of your page. They add a variety of different functions to your site. This course site, like many themes, has a number of different widget areas- one on the right sidebar and three in the footer. Some themes however do not have widget areas: for these themes the “Widgets on Pages” plugin will allow you to post widgets on pages and posts.
Add Widgets to your site under the Appearance menu in the Dashboard
Menus
Menus are the main way to organize your site. Some themes have multiple menus in different locations (i.e. one on the top of your page and one on the side). You can put the pages, posts or categories you have created as well as custom links in your menus. Custom links are a useful way to link to outside pages (i.e. a google drive) or even to link to tag collections or posts by a certain author.
Change Menus under the Appearance menu in the Dashboard
Pictures/Media
Pictures that you use in your site should either be ones that you have personally taken or that have a licence that allows their use. There are a variety of Creative Commons (CC) licenses that allow for different kinds of reuse.
Creative Commons 0, also known as Public Domain, is the least restrictive licence, allowing any type of reuse, including modifications to the original image, CC0 images do not have to credit the original creator. There are a variety of other more restrictive Creative Commons licences. Most allow you to use images on your site as long as you credit the original creator. Check out the Creative Commons licensing page for more info.
There are a variety of websites that host CC0 and other CC images, including Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, Unsplash, and a variety of museums and cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently made available almost 400,000 public domain images.
Search through a variety of CC image sources here
Research and References
Historical Research References super helpful list of online historical databases put together by ITF Maggie Galvan
Purdue Online Writing Lab site includes definitions, how-to, examples, etc.
Purdue Research and Citations Resources list of the most common citation styles with examples
Other helpful links:
Seminar 2 Encyclopedia This site gives examples of MCH student projects from Seminar 2.
Eportfolio@Macaulay FAQ Answers some common questions and lists community guidelines about Eportfolios
Eportfolio or blog? What is the purpose of an Eportfolio?
WordPress Basics WordPress 101
Are there tools and/or resources that you need that are not listed here? Email me and I’ll add them to this page.