10 Ways to Use ODU WordPress

Courses
Websites
Student Organizations
Publications
Multimedia
News
Collaboration
Creating New Web Applications
Presentations
Traditional Blogging
Examples

Courses

Making a website for your course is a great idea, no matter if you are a student, professor, or TA. There is more than one way to skin a course with ODU WordPress. Examples:

A Course Website

A professor can easily create a website for posting class materials, for course activities or for communicating with students. WordPress however does not take the place of Blackboard or Canvas or other course management systems.

A Group Blog

This blog is for the professor who wants to have the class blogging together as a group on one blog. This is probably the easiest to implement, given the Add Users ability, which allows students to be added to the site to contribute.

An Aggregated Course Blog

If many distributed posts are relevant to a certain subject or topic, they can be aggregated into one course blog (or “Mother Blog”) for a running stream of the latest work from various students within the class. This option allows students to own the work they do for a variety of classes in their own “digital notebook.”. In other words a site dedicated to housing all of a student’s work for his/her class(es).

Websites

Capture

The flexibility of WordPress can be used to create powerful static websites as well, without using external applications like Dreamweaver. Below are a few examples of the types of sites you can create with ODU WordPress.

E-Portfolios

ODU WordPress is an ideal way for students to create a portfolio of class projects, or even a personal portfolio. Such a portfolio could conveniently go on a resumè or C.V.

Research Sites

ODU WordPress can be used for class projects or for faculty’s individual research.

Professional Sites

Faculty have even started to use it as a quick and easy way to create their own homepage to publish information about their scholarship, teaching, publications, etc.

Student Organizations

Blogs are a great way for student groups to stay connected and share information with themselves and the community. Student organizations use their blogs to display important club information, news, student resources, and multimedia.

Publications

ODU WordPress reduces some of the technical and monetary challenges of creating high-quality online journals, magazines, zines, and numerous other publications.

Multimedia

Display and share your personal multimedia, such as video and audio.

News

Blogging is a popular way of sharing information with others. Using a blog to keep your community up-to-date has become increasingly standard over the last decade.

Collaboration

ODU WordPress offers an excellent platform for creating virtual meeting spaces for completing group projects, and makes collaboration easier. There are many examples of using blogs as such a space, where multiple users can quickly share with one another.

Creating New Web Applications

WordPress is flexible enough that advanced users can utilize themes and hacks to create their own social networking tools. Fragment is one example already discussed under the collaboration section. Fragment allows users to give short “shout-outs” in an expressive space, using the Prologue theme that is a Twitter knock-off.

Presentations

Given how attractive a blog on ODU WordPress can be- and all the features it affords you- why not use it to create a presentation for a conference that can serve at the same time as a resource for references, ideas, and concepts long after the presentation is over? It has been done pretty effectively already.

Traditional Blogging

ODU WordPress can also be used as a good, old-fashioned blog or online journal. This option is good if you want to write your thoughts out but prefer typing over physically writing or maybe want others to read and/or comment.

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Personal Blog

You can easily share your opinions, generate discourse, and interact with others using the best blogging software out there.

Travel Blog

In the same vein as the personal blog, but with an international perspective. Many students blog their experiences overseas during semesters or years abroad. Some even blog about experiences abroad after graduation, such as the Peace Corps.

Review Blog

If your interests lie in music, art, literature, or film, you might decide that what you really want is a space to share your reviews and observations.

Example Sites for a variety of uses

An urban Sociology Course (University of Mary Washington): http://urbansocg.lesliemartin.net/

A Digital Writing Course: https://307t.wordpress.com/

A Personal Site: http://taephoenix.com/

A Technical Writing Course: https://engl334w.wordpress.com/

A Professional and Technical Writing Course: https://engl715.wordpress.com/

An Entertainment: http://onlythetruest.com/

A Sports site: http://blogs.nfl.com/

A Cooking site: http://thelittlelibrarycafe.com/

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