Word.emerson.edu is a network of WordPress sites maintained by the Instructional Technology Group (ITG) and available to members of the Emerson community upon request.
Request a blog
Need a blog for curricular use? If you're a student, you likely already have a blog set up for you by your instructor. If you're an instructor, you can request a blog with the steps below.
- Go to support.emerson.edu
- In the top right-hand corner, click Submit A Ticket and fill out the form. (You can request training at the same time, just mention it in the description!)
- In Subject - Enter Course Support - New Blog Request
Log into WordPress
- Go to word.emerson.edu and log in with your Emerson username and password
- You may either find yourself at a WordPress Dashboard screen or a custom landing page that lists out your sites
WordPress Dashboard
- On the top navigation bar, click on My Sites (1) to see the sites you currently belong to and to select the site you would like to go to from the dropdown list
-
- If you don't see the site you're looking for, submit a ticket for help
- The name of the site that you are currently editing appears next to the My Sites link in the black bar above (2)
Custom landing page
- The custom landing page won't have a black admin bar like the Dashboard
- Choose the "Visit Dashboard" link for the site you're looking for from the list under "Your Sites"
Creating Posts
A WordPress blog is made up of a series of posts. Begin posting to your site by creating and publishing posts:
- Select the site you would like to post to from the My Sites drop-down menu.
- If you are already on your site, you can easily get to the Dashboard by clicking the name of your site in the top navigation bar (1) and selecting it from the drop-down menu (2):
- Create a new post by clicking on the Posts tab (1) and choosing Add New (2) from the left-hand menu bar:
- Alternatively, you can create a new post by clicking on + New (1) from the top navigation bar, and selecting Post (2) from the dropdown menu:
Within the Post
- Click on the Visual Editor to use a rich text editor tool (1). If you are familiar with HTML code, you can utilize the Text editor (2).
- Enter a title for your post (3), add text (4), and/or also add media (5) to your post:
- When you are ready to publish your post, click Publish:
- See this guide to the Anatomy of a WordPress Post for more details.
Categories
You can add categories to your posts to keep similar topics easily viewable to users. You can also create parent and children categories.
- Here's how to use categories to group posts by their author. For example, you can create a category called "Student Journals," and you can give it a child category for each of your students' names:
- When you're building a navigation menu, you can create a placeholder item such as "Student Journals" and add each category—each student's name—as a dropdown item:
- When your students write posts, ask them to check the box next to their name in the Categories panel on the editor's right-hand side. This assigns their post to their category:
- When the blog viewer clicks on a students' category in the menu, they'll be taken to a category page listing all posts in that student's category:
Here's a WordPress guide to using categories.
Here's a WordPress guide to creating menus (and see later in this guide for more info).
Creating Pages
Pages are used to present static information about yourself or your site. Creating individual pages in WordPress is similar to writing a post:
- Click Add New in the Pages menu.
- Enter in a title for your page, text, and any media.
- When your page is ready, click Publish.
Adding Media
You can upload and insert images and audio files of less than 2 GB in WordPress pages and posts. For embedding videos you own, we recommend using Panopto. Here's how to add non-video media:
- Find the post or page on which you'd like to add media, and click Edit (or add a new post or page). You can also access the Media Library from the dashboard menu under Media.
- A new window will appear. Drag-and-drop your media into the uploader, or use the file browser to select it from your local files. You can also view and select items you've already uploaded by clicking the Media Library tab, then clicking the item of your choice. When it's selected, click the blue Insert button at the bottom right.
- The media will appear in the Visual tab of your editor. Optionally, you can add text and/or other media around it. When you're finished editing your post or page, click Publish (or Update).
- Here's what your media looks like on the published post:
See this WordPress guide to adding media for a more detailed description of your media-related options.
Need to adjust your image's dimensions or file size? Use this guide to optimizing images for WordPress.
Changing and Customizing Themes
Themes are visual and organizational wrappers for your blog. The theme you choose will not only determine what your blog looks like, but also how many widget areas it has, where the main menu appears, and more. To change your theme:
- In the lefthand menu of your blog's dashboard, hover over Appearance and click Themes.
- Hover over the theme you're interested in, then click Activate (if you're sure) or Live Preview. Changing themes preserves all your content, but may alter your active widgets and their locations.
- To fine-tune your theme, use the Customizer, also under Appearance. Read this WordPress guide to the customizer for more info.
- The guide above also contains information about using widgets, small additional functions that can be placed at various locations on your blog. Examples include a text box, a Twitter feed, or a search bar.
Creating Menus
A menu is a list of links—usually horizontal, but sometimes vertical—that users will use to navigate your blog. See this WordPress guide to creating menus for detailed instructions.
See also this video guide to creating different types of dropdown menus.
Blog Use in the Classroom
The following are resources on how to effectively teach with blogs, including real-life examples: