Teacher Website WordPress User Guide. teachers.olatheschools.com

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1 Teacher Website WordPress User Guide version teachers.olatheschools.com 1

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Understanding WordPress... 3 What You Need to Know Before You Begin... 3 WordPress Login... 4 WordPress Dashboard Dashboard... 6 Dashboard Menu Bar... 7 Build and Edit the Site Select Plug-ins Select Template Photo Gallery Photo Gallery Menu Widgets Configure Menu (Navigation Bar) Add Pages New Page Tool Bar Add Media to a Page Add Posts Add Comment Option to a Page or Post Add Address to a Page or Post Add Items to the Menu (Navigation Bar) Open Page in a New Window Rearranging Menu Items Add a Photo Gallery to a Page or Post Resize Photos with NextGen Gallery Add Calendar to Site Available WordPress Plug-ins Style Hints for a Quality Website

3 INTRODUCTION WordPress is a web-based internet website management platform. This makes it possible for individuals with a very basic knowledge of computers to create and manage a website without the need for complex authoring and design software. WordPress is free software, designed and produced by volunteers. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU BEGIN You need to be aware of ethical and legal obligations when you set up a public website. You are a representative of the Olathe Public Schools. Be responsible, professional, respectful, and ethical at all times. Federal, state and local laws mandate that it is our responsibility to protect the privacy of our students and co-workers; always get permission to post pictures and information about any individual in the district. Before posting information about students check with your school administration. Parents may have completed the Opt-Out form regarding media permissions. Be mindful of copyrighted material; always seek permission from a copyright holder before posting copyrighted material. (See Olathe BOE copyright policy for details) You must follow USD 233 Board of Education Policies, the Student Code of Conduct, FERPA and HIPPA, and copyright law. These are available on The Board of Education website under BoardDocs. More information if needed: Olathe Public Schools Board of Education Policies website (BoardDocs) Copyright Policy and Fair Use Doctrine Olathe District Schools BOE Policy 1F U.S. Department of Education: FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) Contact Scott Mason, district legal counsel, smasonec@olatheschools.org (913) For Tech support or additional questions please contact: Your building IRT or Tech Team member Helpdesk helpdesk@olatheschools.org Helpdesk Phone: (913) Donna Roper: library media / instructional technology coordinator Randy Warner: eacademy facilitator

4 LOG IN TO WORDPRESS The most direct way to login to WordPress: Log in with your Olathe district network password. (The same one you use to login to your district workstation with.) 3. It should now display the admin screen on your new site. Alternate way to login to Teachers Site 1. Click the link that says Edit Your Site or Podcast. 2. Login using your Olathe district network username and password. (The same one you use to login to your district workstation with.) 3. If this is the first time you have logged in click on Create Website and follow the directions; otherwise click on the Website tab. *(Skip to #5 if you already have an account) 4. At the bottom it will ask you to login again with your district username and password. 5. Log out of WordPress by clicking on your name and selecting Log Out from the menu in the upper right-hand corner of the admin screen, then log out of the My Account application. Finally, login again to the My Account application to see your new account listed under websites. 6. If you already had an account you should see your site listed with a pencil icon next to it in the website tab; click on the pencil icon to go directly to the WordPress admin menu for your site. 4

5 Login to teachers.olatheschools.com via the O-Zone: 1. Go to the district website main page, click on the O-Zone link, and use your district network username and password to log in. 2. Go to My Page and click on WordPress Direct login Notes: 5

6 WordPress Dashboard The Dashboard The dashboard screen is the very first screen you see after you log in to WordPress. You have a QuickPress area on the right of the screen where you can type in news posts. Toward the left of the page there is an area called Right Now which displays the number of pages, posts, comments, tags, etc. It also displays the most recent news articles from WordPress.org and incoming links and comments. Home Returns you to this screen from wherever you are. My Sites This is a list of all of the websites you own on this domain, you can click here to move to a different site s dashboard. (WordPress Dashboard screen with Site Administrator privileges) Word Press does not work well with Internet Explorer 9. Word Press will perform better in the Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome browser. If you do not have either of these browsers on your computer you can down load at the following locations: FireFox: Chrome: 6

7 The Dashboard Menu Bar Posts The Posts menu is on the left-hand side of the admin screen. A post is usually an article which is time sensitive such as a news article, or a journal or web log entry. This content can also be shared with other sites using an RSS feed. All Posts - displays a page with a list of all posts that have been made. Here you can add or remove posts and edit their content. Add New If you click on this you will be able to make a new post entry. Category Categories are a way of sorting content. A post may belong to more than one category and the categories are hierarchical so users can search for a combination of categories. This is especially handy when dealing with overlapping subjects where an admin may want an article to appear in multiple different categories. Tags Tags are another way of categorizing posts, this is less hierarchical though and mostly used for searching. Plug-ins - This allows you to manage the Plug-ins you have activated for your site Media The Media menu is how you manage photos and other files on your site including PDF, PowerPoint, Word Docs, etc. You can upload most file formats. If you encounter a problem uploading make sure the file is under 10MB, and the file type is allowed. (Contact the Help Desk if you need to get a file type added to the allow list.) There are two options: Library lists all of the pictures and files you have uploaded to the site. You can control the pictures comments and upload or delete files in this screen. Add New This is where you can upload new files. Links Use this to set up a categorized list of Links and log meta information about each link (notes, description, etc.). You will then have to display this information on your front page using a widget. All Links This displays a list of all of the links which have been setup for this site. By default it will contain some links for the WordPress developer websites. Add New This will display a form to add a new link to the list. Link Categories When you display a list of links you can display them by category. The Link Categories menu allows you to add and remove categories. Pages A Page is static content. It is content which isn t time sensitive and does not change often. Create pages to post permanent content. All Pages This displays all pages on your site. From here you can add, edit, remove and categorize all page content on your site. Add New This allows you to create a new page. 7

8 Comments Appearance The Comment screen displays all of the comments you have received on your site, if your site is set up to allow visitors to post to it. Each page and post has the option to enable commenting; you can make it public or private or disable commenting entirely. This menu controls the site s outward appearance. Themes select from a limited list of themes; a theme is a website design layout. You can also change your title, tagline, navigation and the page that you would like to have as your front page. You may also decide to use posts as your front page here. Widgets A widget attaches to an area on the theme and displays. Menus This allows you to create custom menus for your site. Plug-ins Each of the Olathe WordPress servers has third party Plug-ins added to extend the features of WordPress. Installed Plug-ins This menu displays all of the third party Plug-ins available to your site. From this screen you can enable or disable these special features. Department sites are pre-configured with the suggested/required Plug-ins. For the teacher website you will need to enable the JJ NextGen JQuery Slider, NextGen Gallery, ICS calendar, MCE table buttons, WP- Spam Plug-ins. Click the word Activate under the name of the plugin to activate it. Click Deactivate under the name of the plugin to deactivate the plugin. You only need to do this once. Users From this screen you can add and remove other Users and assign them privileges. An Administrator can do everything you can on your site, where a Subscriber can participate in commenting on your site and seeing information which you have marked Private. An Editor can edit pages and posts, and an Author can only create new posts. In Olathe you can only add people who have logged in to the proper Olathe WordPress site once already. All Users This will display all users currently assigned to your site and what their roles are. From this menu you can add and remove users and assign privileges to them. Your Profile View your account details, change your viewable name, add other details about your account. (*Your account is linked to your district login. You cannot rename or change your password in WordPress, so you will want to use Windows or the Ozone website to change your password.) Add User Allows you to add a user to your site. Tools The Tools menu contains misc. functions to work with your site or import and export content to a file. Import This plugin allows you to upload an exported file from a different WordPress site to import into pages, settings, or posts. This is handy if you are moving over to a new building and you want to transfer your old content to your new site. Export You can export all of your pages and posts into a file and either use it to transfer to a different site or to keep as a backup. (Note: Internet explorer has problems with this feature; you may want to use a different browser such as Firefox or Chrome to export content from your site.) 8

9 Settings Settings controls how your site behaves. You can configure which page is displayed by default. In the settings you can also manipulate who can leave comments on your pages and posts. If you want to link your posts by a different date format than is set by default, you can change that behavior here as well. Department sites are pre-configured with the suggested/required settings. General Allows you to set the site name and tagline, and set the date format of the site. Writing Allows you to set default post and page sizes and default categories. Reading Allows you to set the default home page and number of articles to display. Discussion Allows you to set the default avatars (default picture for users) and configure the discussion behavior. Permalinks Gives you options on how you want the URL displayed. TinyMCE Advanced This allows you to customize your tool bar. You can add or delete functions here. WP-SpamFree This is the spam filter installed in WordPress. XVE: The is the plugin which allows you to embed video in your site Gallery The Gallery is used to store picture files that are used for slideshows in your website. Overview: Add Gallery / Images- Used to create galleries and add images to them. Manage Gallery Here you manage the items you have uploaded Album Create an album and drop a gallery of photos into it. Tags Tagging of photos allows for finding them in searches. Options Make the settings for how the entire gallery area functions. Style Allows you to make changes to the way the slide show looks Roles If you have more than one person working on the site you can define what changes the user can do. About Gives information about the gallery plugin Notes: 9

10 BUILD AND EDIT YOUR SITE Select Plug-ins Plug-ins are tools that extend the functionality of your website. Word Press has some that are default Plug-ins but there are others that you can add which will allow you to add photo slideshows, links, etc. to your site. 1. Click on the plug-in link in your menu 2. It will display a page with the available Plug-ins. Each plugin has a description and the word activate or deactivate under it. To activate the plugin click activate and to turn the plugin off click deactivate. That will automatically turn it on or off. You can also put a checkmark in each box. Locate the box that says Bulk Actions at the top or bottom of the list of Plug-ins. Click the drop down arrow and select Activate > Apply. This will activate them all at once 3. Activate the following Plug-ins: Black Studio TinyMCE JJ NextGen JQuery Slider ICS Calendar MCE table buttons 4. If you plan to use video you can also activate the video Plug-ins. See the available Plug-ins and their description on pages of this handout. Choose template 1. Create a homepage by selecting Pages > Add New. 2. Enter "Home" in the Enter title here entry text box, 3. Choose Homepage in the Template drop-down list 4. Click [Publish] 5. You will not put content on this page. This defines that the template will be your front page Publish Click on Appearance -> Themes 7. Search for your school s theme and click on the Activate link. 8. The theme for your site will now appear at the top of the page. 9. Click on Customize 10

11 This will bring up a screen that shows your front page and some buttons that will allow you to customize the page. 10. Click on Static Front Page. A menu will open. a. Click on A static page button to select it b. Click the down arrow under Front Page and select Home. c. Do not select anything under the Posts page a b 11. Click on Site Title and Tagline. This will allow you to change the title of your site as well as the tagline which is below the title. You can do this as often as you like. a. Type in the title of your site under the words Site Title b. Type in your class motto or a quote. Needs to be short to fit in the space. No more than 5-7 words c. Click close or use the back arrow to return to your dashboard. a b Photo Gallery The gallery contains the album for the slide show that is shown on the front page of your website. You need to make sure all your pictures for this slide show have been resized to 500 pixels wide by 375 pixels in height. You can use a photo editing program like Faststone Image Viewer or Photoshop to resize and crop photos. Galleries can be added to any page. They are not limited to the front page. This plugin is only used for photo albums. If you are going to upload attachments such as Word documents, PDFs, videos, single photos, PowerPoints, etc. you will use the Media link. 11

12 Gallery Menu Overview: click here to see a summary of the galleries that have been created and the photos that have been uploaded 1. Type in the name of the gallery. For the front page of your site use something like Front Page. Click Add gallery button 2. You may make as many galleries as you like and insert them on other pages in your site. Front Page Click here to add new Gallery 2nd 1st 1. Make sure all the photos you would like in your gallery have been resized to 500X375 pixels. You can use any photo editing program to size your photos. Scale images to 500 pixels by 375 pixels 2. Select the gallery images will be imported into 3. Click on Select Files button. You can upload the pictures one at a time or you can create a zip folder with all your resized pictures and upload all the pictures at the same time Click on Enable Flash based upload to deactivate it. 5. Upload Images The screen that displays after the images have been uploaded successfully. 12

13 Click here to manage existing galleries Click on the gallery you want to view. This screen gives information about the gallery. This is where you will add a caption, or link to an image on the front slide show. Add Picture Caption Here Add URL link for outside links, PDF, or other media here At this screen you can add delete images, add a web link or a description of the picture. It displays the date the picture was added as well as the size. If you put a checkmark in the exclude box the picture will not be included as part of the current slide show. If you are not going to use the photo again it is a good idea to delete them so you do not have a large amount of photos in your gallery. Widgets: You are now ready to create your front page using widgets. Widgets are a way to arrange content on your site s main page. A widget is a component which you can drag and drop onto a side bar. Once you do so the widget will perform a task or display some desired information on the corresponding sidebar in your template. For example using the Link plugin to display an organized list of links, show a list of post categories, or display a list of calendar events from your shared calendar. The front page of your site is made up entirely of widgets and you need to go into this menu to change the information on your front page. In your dashboard click on Appearance>Widgets. You will see the available widgets. You will also notice that some of them are the Plug-ins that you enabled before you started to create your site. WordPress has several default widgets that will need to be removed before starting your site. On the right side under Image Marquee delete the following by clicking the down arrow and selecting delete: Search, Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Archives, Categories, Meta. You can also drag them to the inactive Widget area at the bottom of the Widget area. 13

14 To add widgets you drag them to the area that you want them displayed. You may use the widgets as many times as you need them. a. Image Marquee: JJ NextGen JQuery Slider: This widget will add a slideshow to your front page. This will need to be configured the first time you start a site. 1. Open the JJ NextGEN JQuery Slider. 2. Select a gallery to Use: Chose Front Page. 3. Order to Use: Select how you want the images to be displayed. Click the drop down arrow to select. 4. Go down to the area for Width and Height: It is important to have your photos re-sized in advance. Set the width to 500 and height to There are additional settings under Nivo Slider Settings that will need to be configured. 6. Click on Nivo Slider to open. Nivo Slider Configuration anim Speed= 1000 pausetime=6000 directionnav=false directionnavhide=false controlnav=false controlnavthumbs=false controlnavthumbsfromrel=false keyboardnav=false pauseonhover=true manualadvance=false Click Save 14

15 a. Label 1: Text widget: This is the area directly under the slideshow on your front page. This will be the text that appears in the colored bar. Leave the Title area blank. In the text area type the heading for the area under the image marquee. Click Save Leave this blank Add the heading in this area b. Content 1: BlackStudioTinyMCE widget: This is the area under Label 1. This widget allows you to format text, add links to documents, pictures, websites, etc. To enable the table feature in Black Studio Tiny MCE you need to go to Settings>TinyMCE and drag the table features to the tool bar. You only need to do this once. c. Label 2: Text widget: This is the title bar at the top of the right-hand column d. Content 2: BlackStudioTinyMCE widget: this is the text box under Label 2 e. Label 3: Text widget: This is the title bar in the middle of the right-hand column f. Content 3: BlackStudioTinyMCE widget: this is the text box under Label 3 g. Label 4: Text widget: This is the title bar at the bottom of the right-hand column h. Content 4: BlackStudioTinyMCE widget: this is the text box under Label 4 Label 2 Content 2 Image Marquee Label 3 Content 3 Label 1 Content 1 Label 4 Content 4 15

16 Configure Menus: This will set up your menu navigation bar on the left-hand side of your site. 1. Choose Appearance > Menus 1. Enter Main in the Menu Name entry box, 2. Click Create Menu Main 2. You have created your main menu structure. The next step is to connect the main menu structure to your main navigation menu. 1. To do that find the area called Menu Settings 2. Below that heading you have two options. The bottom option is called Theme Locations. Make sure there is a check mark in the box 1. Find the area on that screen called Pages. 2. The list will contain Home and Sample Page. Click the View All tab to see all the pages you have created for your site *Do NOT edit or delete the Home page 16

17 Add Pages to the Site 1. Click on the Pages in the dashboard menu 2. Select Add New. 3. Enter the page title at the top. Enter your desired content in the large editing area underneath the title, using the tool bar above the content to format the content. 4. Use the Upload/Insert button on the upper left of the toolbar to add files to the Media Library. You can also load files that are already in the Media Library here. 5. Click the Save Draft button to save but not publish the page or changes. 6. Click the Preview button to see what your page will look like. 7. Click on the Publish button on the right hand side to make your page visible on your site. 8. On the Page Attributes panel on the right, under Parent, you can choose to set this page as a sub-page on a sub-menu. This will cause it to show up in the correct place on your Pages list. 9. Under Template you can leave this as Default Template 10. If this is a new site create all the pages you would like to have in the site first. Then you can go back and add content to the page. New Page Toolbar The WordPress tool bar gives you options for formatting text, making block quotes, links, etc. To see the purpose of each icon hover your mouse over it. On the right hand side of the tool bar are two tabs; visual (what you see is what you see when published on the web) and HTML (the basic programming language of web pages). You will work in the visual tab the majority of the time. 17

18 Click here to upload media files like ppt, pdf, and images that are not part of a slide show. Font Size / Paragraph To change the size of the font click on the font size icon down arrow in the tool bar. A menu will appear. You can choose from the sizes or styles listed there to change the look of the font. To change the size of headings click on the down arrow by the Paragraph icon. There are six choices; Heading 1 is the largest and Heading 6 is the smallest. Headings are automatically put in bold face. More Icon Instead of putting the whole post on your home page, this lets you specify a page break where the person must click to see the rest of the post. Embed Video Icons You can imbed video in your site if you wish. There are many different formats that you can embed; EX: MP4, YouTube, Flash. Click on the icons to find the one you need and load the video to your site. Click on this icon to create a table on your page. A pop up box will appear. 1. Type in the number of columns and rows you want your table to have. You can add more or delete if you have too many Cell Padding: The space around the material in the cell. The bigger the number the more space. 3. Cell Spacing: The amount of space between the cells of the table 4. Alignment: Click the drop-down box to choose left, center, right 5. Click the Advanced Tab if you would like to add a border color, make the cell a certain color, etc. 6. Once you have the table the way that you would like it click Insert 18

19 second icon in the table toolbar Click on this icon in the table toolbar to set the properties for the entire table row. Make sure you have highlighted the table row you are working with. Alignment: Click the down arrow to set the alignment left, center or right. Vertical Alignment: Click the down arrow to set the vertical alignment to Top, Center, Bottom At the bottom click the down arrow to update the current row, the entire table rows etc. Click the Advanced tab to change the background color of the row or add a background image to the table row. Click Update to save the changes Click this icon to change the properties of the table cell. third icon in the table toolbar 1. Highlight the cell/cells you wish to make changes to. 2. Click the icon and this popup menu will appear. You can change the alignment, vertical alignment etc. If you click the advanced tab you can change the color of the cell. 3. Click the arrow by Update Current Cell to determine which cells you want the changes to appear on. 4. Click update when finished. 19

20 You can add rows before or after by clicking the correct icon. The last icon allows you to delete rows You can add columns before or after by clicking on the correct icon. The last icon allows you to delete a column. first icon: Split a cell or row second icon: Merge a cell or row third icon: Delete the table Add Media Media are the attachments that you can add to your website. You can upload Word documents, PowerPoints, Excel files, individual images, PDFs etc. to this area. If you are uploading a newsletter that has been created in Word it would be best to save it as a PDF. Everybody does not have Microsoft Office loaded on their computers or devices so the document may not load correctly. 1. Click on Select Files 2. A dialog box will appear and you will choose where to find your file. Upload the file and it will be placed in your media library for user later. Add Media to a Page 1. Open the page you would like to add media to. 2. Place the cursor in the area where you are adding the media. You can add text that will be the link. If you have named your documents correctly you can just place the cursor where you want the link to be. 3. Click on the Add Media button located on top of the tool bar 4. A dialogue box will open which contains all the items in your media library. 5. Click on the item you would like to insert into your page. 6. On the right hand side a column will appear which contains information about the item you are inserting 7. Find the area called Attachment Display Settings 8. In the Link to box make sure Attachment Page is the one selected. If it is not use the drop down arrow and select it from the options available. 9. A URL will be displayed under the Link To box. Copy the URL. You can do a right click and choose copy or do CTRL C. If you have named your document, ex: November Newsletter, you can click the Insert into Page 20

21 button and it will place the document with the name you have given it in your document in the area you have the cursor. 10. Close the dialogue box by clicking the X in the top right corner If you did not click the Insert into Page button you will need to link the document to the text you have designated. 1. After you close the dialog box highlight the text you want to be the link. 2. In the tool bar select the link button 3. In the dialogue box that appears paste in the URL you copied. Make sure you delete the that is already there. If your link does not work check to make sure there is only one in the address. 4. Make sure you have a check mark in Open link in a new window/tab 5. Click Add link Add Posts Posts are like news articles on your front page; they are typically dated and grouped into sections by category. To add a new post you will want to do the following: 1. Click on Posts -> Add New 2. Type in the posts title at the top. 3. Then type in your content in the large space in the middle and format using the formatting tool bar. 4. Select a Category for the post on the right hand side of the screen. You can create categories by clicking the Add New Category link. 5. Click on the Publish button on the right hand side to save the page. 21

22 Add Comment Option to a Page or Post 1. If you do not see the Discussion checkboxes at the top of the WordPress work area in your browser, look for the Screen Options tab in the upper right hand corner. Click on it. 2. Click on the Discussion check box. Click on the screen options again to retract the menu. You should now see the discussion settings at the bottom of the screen. 3. Uncheck both boxes to disable commenting on a page or post. 4. Go to Settings>Discussion in the Dashboard Menu and define the settings for discussions Add Address Links to a Page or Post To add a clickable address, type your address and click the Link button on the toolbar. In the URL bar type your (with no spaces) using the following format: mailto:username@olatheschools.org Add Items to the Menu Add Pages to the Menu 1. Locate the area called Pages in the Menu Window. 2. Click on the View All tab 3. Put a checkmark by the name of the new page you created. 4. Click Add to Menu. There is one page labeled Home. This page contains information that you will not change. 22

23 Add a Custom Link to an Outside Web Site 1. In the menu find the area called Links 2. Capture the URL of the link you are wanting to add and paste it in the URL area 3. In the label area type in the name you would like displayed as the link. Olathe Public Schools 1. Click Add to Menu Add a Custom Link to a Page in the Site 1. Each page you create in WordPress has its own Permalink which is located under the title of the page. 2. Highlight and copy the permalink by CTRL+C or right click and choose copy from the menu that appears. 3. Click on the Appearance link and chose menu. 4. Click the down arrow by Links. In the URL box paste the permalink you copied from the page you would like to attach to the Menu About Me 5. Label the page with the title of the page 6. Click Add to Menu Make a Blank Navigation Link 1. In the Links URL box type a pound sign 2. In the Label box type the name of the Navigation link i.e. Student Information 3. Click Add to Menu # Student Information Go to Menu Area 4. Open the link you just made by clicking the down arrow Remove the #sign located in the URL area 6. Make sure Open link in a new window/tab is checked 5. Remove the # 7. Click Save Menu button at the top or bottom of the menu area 6. 23

24 Open Page in New Window Keep pages on the site opening in the same window. Only open in a new window when you link off your site. Click Screen Options to show what is available on your opening screen In the screen options window make sure there is a checkmark by Link Target. This allows you the option of opening a link in a new window. Click the arrow by the Screen Option tab to close this area. Click the down arrow on the page in the menu and put a check by Open link in a new window/tab 1. In the menu locate the page you would like to open in a new window. 2. Click the down arrow by the word Custom 3. A new window will open 4. Put a checkmark in the box by Open link in a new window/tab 5. Click on the arrow again to close the window. 24

25 Rearranging the Menu Items After items have been added to a menu, you can drag and drop to put them in the order you want. You can also click each item to reveal additional configuration options. You can drag a menu item a little to the right to make it a sub-menu. You'll see when the position of the drop target shifts over to portray the nested placement. When you have finished building your custom menu, make sure you click the Save Menu button. Add a Gallery to an existing Page or Post Open the page or post and click on the gallery icon on the far right hand side of the option bar. Then select the desired gallery and press the Insert button. Update or save your changes and you are done! Resize Photos Using NextGen Gallery Photos need to be resized (500 x 375 pixels) to display correctly in the Image Marquee. If you need to crop or change the pictures you will need to use a photo editor. Good ones are Microsoft Photo Editor, Photoshop, and Faststone. However if you need to just resize WordPress will do this automatically once you have set up the perimeters. 1. Click on Gallery -> Options. There are two areas that you need to define the size; Images and Slideshow Images Leave other values the same 2. Put in 500 by 375 by resize Images 1. Click on the Images link in the toolbar 2. Put in the size you would like the image to be to fit the window 3. Leave the other values the same Click Save Changes 25

26 SlideShow Put in 500 by 375 by resize Images Click on the Slideshow link in the toolbar 2. Put in the size you would like the image to be by default size 3. The default for the length of time for the image to show is 10 seconds. You can change that to a smaller or larger value 4. At that same screen you can change the transition / fade effect, the background color, etc. 5. Click Save Changes when you have made all the changes for that gallery of images. Calendar: If you have a calendar in Outlook that you would like on your site do the following: 1. Make sure the ICS Calendar plugin has been activated 2. Publish your Outlook calendar. You will receive an URL when you do this. Highlight the URL and do a right click>copy. 3. Go to the Settings Menu in your dashboard and click on the ICS Calendar link 4. Insert the calendar URL into the field under URL to ICS File(s). 26

27 Add calendar URL here 5. Click Save Changes 6. Go to Appearance -> Widgets 7. Select ICS calendar widget and drag and drop it into the desired sidebar area. 27

28 APPENDIX 1: Plug-ins You May See on Olathe Schools WordPress Sites Plugin Name Description Recommended Settings Akismet An anti-spam plugin. Requires free personal subscription on their website. Not recommended cforms Embed Iframe ICS Calendar JJ NextGen JQuery Slider MCE Table Buttons NextGEN Gallery Ozone Login Post Expirator An advanced plug-in for making forms. With this plugin you can embed another website in a page or post. You can add a widget on your home page or any side bar that contains a list of coming calendar events. You can also add a full size monthly calendar on a page or post. This is a plugin for the NextGen Gallery plugin providing an enhanced picture scroller. This adds a tool bar on your page and post editing screen which allows you to create html tables. This is a more advanced photo gallery plugin, it allows you to create galleries in pages and posts and also to add picture scrollers on your home page. This enables you to autologin to your site when you are logged into ozone.olatheschools.com Allows you to set posts to expire after a certain date and un-publish themselves. Create a form using the interactive wizard and use the cforms button to add the form into pages and posts. The tag you use in a page or post is : [iframe url width height] Go to the settings->ics Calendar menu after enabling the plugin and insert any number of shared calendar links (ICS format). Then go to the appearance- >widgets menu and drag and drop the ICS calendar widget to the desired side bar area. This plugin is recommended for a home page picture scroller because it has many more functions and looks better. Recommended if you need to create tables. You need to disable this plugin if you want to use the TinyMCE advanced plugin. Enable this plugin and a new menu will appear at the bottom left hand side of your screen. You can add pictures and create galleries in this new menu. Enable this if you need to auto-login from ozone. Can cause problems if you have different usernames on different sites. Good for time sensitive notices. 28

29 Syndicate Press With this plugin you can create a collection of different RSS Feeds and display them all on a page or post. Go to settings -> syndicate press to configure the plugin. Then add a code to the desired page where you want the feed mashup. TinyMCE Advanced Unfiltered MU WordPress Importer Enables you to add additional editor features by dragging and dropping new features onto the page/post editor. Disables the HTML filter on pages and posts allowing you to use embedded content like videos. Allows you to import content from other sites. Go to settings->tinymce advanced to edit your editor menu. Only enable if you need to embed content. It is safe to keep this enabled. WP-Filebase wp-intranet-only WP Multi-Network WP-SpamFree This is an advanced plugin which allows you to manage files and display them in folders. This is used on department and school sites where there are a lot of files to display. This plugin prevents people from seeing the site if they are outside of the district network or if they are not logged into ozone.olatheschools.com. This is an administrative plugin for managing multiple sites across multiple domains. Only network administrators can make use of this plugin. This plugin reduces or eliminates comment spam or unsolicited advertisement via page or post comments. A new menu will appear on the lower left hand side of the screen marked wpfilebase you can upload and manage files there. For use with internal sites only. It is safe to disable this. It is recommended to enable this plugin. Modernizr Allows use of html5 tags Keep this enabled 29

30 Respond.js Allows use of certain css3 features Keep this enabled WP- Politeifier Filters bad language from pages and posts. Keep this enabled Search Pages WP Photo Album Enables searching for both pages and posts Enables a simple photo gallery Use this if you need enhanced search functionality This is an older plugin. Use NextGen instead. XHTML Video Embed Allows you to embed certain kinds of internet video in pages and posts. Read plugin description to insert shot tags to display videos. Notes: 30

31 Important Things to Remember When Building a Website 1. Make sure you have permission to use a student s photo on your website. Photo restriction forms should be on file with the child s teacher or in the school office. 2. Never alter the proportions of the district logo or any photograph. You may resize them, but be sure to keep the height/width ratio the same as the original so it doesn t become distorted. (see example at right) 3. Keep your website up to date. Remove outdated information, broken links, and pages under construction, as these are frustrating things for a visitor to encounter on your site. 4. Provide a quality website rather than a quantity of information. Make sure you can provide the basics on your website and have the time to keep it updated before adding extra pages and content. 5. Use a style of writing consistent with other district sites. (see additional page) 6. Refrain from using a lot of colored text or unique fonts on your website. They are harder to read and may not appear the way you want them to on every visitor s computer screen. Please use the default color of black and the default font on your site. Spot color is fine and helps draw attention to parts of your web page. 7. Paragraphs of text should be aligned to the left of the page, not centered or flush right. 8. Add alternative text and/or titles to all images on your site. These are needed for our sites to maintain their compliance with federal accessibility laws. 9. NEVER, EVER use all capital letters. It looks like you re yelling at the reader. 10. Use consistent type sizes and styles throughout your site. Blocks of text should use the PARAGRAPH format. Headlines or headings at the top of tables should use one of the HEADING formats. 11. The spell-check tool can be your best resource. Always use it. 12. If you decide not to maintain a classroom website, please contact the Help Desk so it can be removed from the servers rather than letting people continue to visit an outdated, abandoned site. 13. Always have someone else read over your text/content before adding it to the site and making it public. Two sets of eyes are better than one. 14. Please call one of these WordPress trainers before experimenting with the HTML coding on your site. It is much easier to cause a new problem than it is to fix an existing glitch if you re not sure what you re doing. How to Maintain Your Website s Sense of Style Refer to the district as Olathe Public Schools or Olathe School District. We are no longer using the name Olathe District Schools, per the superintendent. Always clarify a.m. or p.m. when referring to a time of day, and put a space between the time and a.m. or p.m. (examples: 9:45-11 a.m. or 10:15 a.m.-2 p.m.) Spell out numbers one through nine and use numerals for 10 and larger. Spell out first grade, etc. Use numerals for 10th, 11th and 12th grade. Hyphenate first-graders or second-grade classroom. Do not hyphenate I teach first grade. Think TDP when listing the time, date and place of an event. The picnic will be at 7 p.m. Friday on our school playground. Be careful not to over-capitalize words in the body of your site. This includes words like kindergarten, website, district, and school among others. 31