Preknowledge

1. Your blog site URL will be in the form of:
   https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/username-blog
   • Replace “username” above with the username you registered for the blog site in lowercase letters.
     For example, the blog site URL for username “mackiwg” will be:
     https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/mackiwg-blog
   • Bookmark your blog URL in your browser so its easy to remember the site address
2. The log-in page for a WordPress blog site can be accessed by adding wp-admin as a suffix to your blog URL
   • For example, the log-in URL for mackiwg-blog will be:
     https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/mackiwg-blog/wp-admin
3. Know the difference between the edit view and published view of your blog
   • When logged in to your site, you can access the editing “Dashboard” by hovering over your username-blog link in the top left of the page or by adding wp-admin as a suffix to your blog URL
   • From the “Dashboard” view, by hovering over your username-blog link at the top, you can select and click on the “Visit site” link.

For more information, watch the WordPress Dashboard video published by WP101.COM

Four steps to setting up your blog

Modify your site identity

Purpose: Change your site title and tagline using the ‘customise’ interface.

1. Log in to your blog site
2. Go to your site Dashboard
3. Click on Appearance –> Customise
4. Select “Site Identity”
   • Change the Site Title field from username-blog, to a descriptive title, for example: “Wayne’s personal blog” or “Wayne’s learning journey”
   • Change the Tagline from “Just another EDT4OL Blog and Course Sites site” to something meaningful, for example: “An EDT4OL portfolio” or you can remove the “Tagline” by unchecking the “Display Site Title & Tagline” option.
5. If you want, you can upload a site icon. Note that this must be a square image of at least 512 X 512 pixels. Depending on the WordPress theme you are using, these specifications may be different. Note that you will need to use an external graphics software package to generate an icon of the correct dimensions.
6. Remember to click on the “Publish” button to save your work.
7. Optional customisations, depending on the theme you have selected:
   • Colours

Create a static “About” page

Purpose: To learn about the difference between Pages and Posts in WordPress, and to practise using the Gutenberg block editor

1. From your Dashboard, go to Pages –> Add new
2. Change the page title to “About”
3. Add paragraph text about yourself so that visitors to your blog site can find out who you are. If appropriate, you can format the page by adding:
   • Subheadings
   • Personal bio picture (practise changing alignment, image size etc.)
   • Adding hyperlinks, for example to your employer’s website, or other online pages.
4. Remember to click on the “Publish” or “Update” button to save your edits to the server.

Create a primary menu for your blog site

Purpose: To generate a primary menu for your blog site to link to static pages

1. From your Dashboard, go to Appearance –> Menus
2. In the Menu Name text field, type “Primary menu”
3. In Menu Settings, check the “Primary menu” option
4. Under Pages, click on the “View All” tab, and check the “About” page you created above, then click on the “Add to Menu” button.
5. If you want to add a permanent navigation link to log in to your site, go to “Login/Logout”, check your option, then click on the “Add to Menu” button. (Adding a Login and Logout link will make it easier to access your site for editing, removing the need to ad “wp-admin” to the suffix of your site URL everytime you want to edit your blog.)
6. Remember to click on the “Save Menu” button at the bottom of the page to publish your changes.

Remove the “Recent comments” widget

Purpose: To learn how to use widgets in WordPress

A widget is a pre-coded modular element you can add to sections of your website, for example in the footer area. The widgets which are available will depend on the theme you are using and those that have been enabled on the website.

We have disabled comments on the Blog website to avoid problems associated with managing spam comments. Consequently, we must remove the “Recent comments” widget that comes standard with the default theme. This widget won’t work, because comments have been disabled.

1. From your Dashboard, go to Appearance –> Widgets
2. Click on the “Recent Comments” heading block, and under options (three dots), select “Remove Heading”
3. Click on the “Latest comments” block, and and under options (three dots), select “Remove unsupported”

Change your theme (Optional)

Purpose: To demonstrate how themes can change the look and feel of your blog site

The default theme installed on the blog site is called “Twenty Twenty-One” but users can change the theme of their blog site, and customise options within the capabilities of the theme they have selected.

Features in some themes will not necessarily be supported in other themes. Therefore, it is important to choose a theme you would like to use early in the process to avoid additional work in the future if you change to a new theme that doesn’t support the options used in a previous theme.

1. From your Dashboard, go to Appearance –> Themes
2. Hover your mouse over the alternate themes
3. Click on the “Activate” button on a theme you find interesting
4. Go back to your blog site to see the effect of using a different theme
5. Choose the theme you like best for your site

Your blog site is now ready to proceed with publishing your Acceptance portfolio blog post.