Contents
Week 4 Learning Outcomes
Learners will be able to:
- Match pedagogical and learning experience goals to course site design
- Articulate the role of widgets and plugins in a WordPress site
- Navigate and adapt the course template to meet the needs of their course
- Identify which plugins, if any, they will use for their course
- Describe the function of themes and give examples of ways themes might affect the way a site is displayed
Preparation for June 28 Zoom session
Create a site map for your course site
Your site map can be a simple text-based outline, like this map of the Teaching on the OpenLab site, or you can create a more visual representation of your site organization.
Use your site map to set up the structure for your course site.
Create the pages and categories you will need for your site. Edit the site menu to reflect your desired structure. Add some content to at least one page and one post.
Experiment with themes
Try out some themes and try to identify one that will support your vision for the site.
Read about accessibility and website design
These accessibility tips from North Idaho College are a good overview of what to keep in mind when creating your site. This accessibility guide has instructions about how to create accessible sites in WordPress. If you’d like a deeper dive into accessibility, you can also check out this Accessibility Toolkit from the CUNY Library (optional).
Ask us or your colleagues questions in the discussion area of our community profile (instructions for contributing to the discussion are here) by replying to the Questions prompt.
Agenda for Tuesday, June 28, 11:30am – 1:00 pm, Zoom session
- Open in Action: Brielle Buckler
- Introduction to widgets
- Breakout rooms: Q&A
Preparation for June 30 Zoom session
- Continue working on your course site and experiment with widgets
At our final Zoom session on Thursday, you’ll be meeting in breakout rooms with colleagues in your discipline to “workshop” your OpenLab site and vision. You’ll want to have a link to your site handy and may also want to show your course sketch and/or course map.
Agenda for Thursday, June 30, 11:30am – 1:00 pm, Zoom session
- Adding functionality to your site: Introduction to plugins
- Teaching in the open and privacy options
- Workshopping sites in breakout rooms
- Open Q&A
