Using Your Classroom
Learn everything from the basics to recommended uses for creating and managing your own classroom.
Creating Lessons/Posts and Categories
Your posts will be your different lessons. And you can group lessons for a course by creating a category. First we will create a lesson, then we will create a category, and we will go back to edit our lesson and categorize it. Then we will create a page describing the mission of our classroom.
- After you have created a classroom and activated it, go to “My Classrooms” > Your new Classroom > “New Post”.
- Title your post.
- In the next box down, this is where you will put the content for your lesson. You will notice two tabs on the top right of this box, one says Visual and one says HTML. The Visual Tab will allow you to create and format your post like an email, in fact the icons should all be very familliar if you have ever worked in microsoft word. Here we can add links, make things bold or underline, and we can add media. The HTML tab allows you the code your lecture in HTML.
- If you have already created categories, you can check the cateogory that the post belongs in. If not you can choose to either Save as a Draft, or you can Publish the post to make it public.
- To create a cateogory, click on “Categoies” in the left hand menu under the tab for “Posts”.
- Type the name, and the description, and choose a parent category if you want this category to belong inside another category.
- Choose add category when complete.
- To go back to our post and add this category to the posts, we can go to our “My Classrooms” drop down menu, and select “Manage Posts” from the menu for your classroom. Click on the title of the post you just created. Scroll down and find the categories box in the bottom right.
- Check the category you would like to tag to this post.
- Click the Update Post button when you are finished to save your changes. If you have not yet published this post the button will say “Publish”.
Creating New Pages:
- Creating pages allows you to have website like pages for your classroom. You might use this to talk about the class itself, or maybe create a syllabus, or anything that you wish really. These pages will be separated from your posts for both yourself with managing them and your viewer visually.
- To create a page navigate to “Dashboard” from the “My Classrooms” drop down under your classroom.
- On the left hand side, click on Pages, then click on “Add New”
- Just like a post, you want to add a title and your content in the box below the title. Also just like the posts, you have the Visual and HTML tab still.
- To create page hierarchy, you can select the page parent, however if this is your first page you can ignore this step.
- To publicly publish the post - click Publish.
- View your blog to see the new changes.
- To edit your page go back to your dashboard, and underneath pages, choose “Edit”
- You will see a list of all your pages, simply click on the title of the page you would like to edit
- Make your changes
- Click Update Post to save changes.
Adding Users:
- Users in your classroom allow you to have multiple teachers, or simply allows you to have a classroom where your students directly contribute.
- From your classrooms dashboard click on Users in the menu on the left.
- Click “Add New” to add a new user.
- Next fill out their username and email (users may only have one account per email address) and role.
- The user Roles are as follows: Administrator (all access), Editor(can edit posts), Author(can write posts, and edit their own posts), Contributor(can write posts and pages), and Subscriber (can read posts and write comments).
- Their password and account activation will be emailed to the new user.
Themes - Changing the Look and Feel:
- Choose “Switch Theme” from the My Classroom drop down under your classroom.
- You will notice a list of themes to choose from. Some of these themes have different options then others. It is a good idea to test out different themes and see which one you like.
- On the left hand menu you will notice a block called “Appearance” underneath this are your theme options. Click on widgets.
- Here you can add and remove different elements from your sidebars.
- Also for some themes, there is an extra option in this menu for your specific theme. For example. If using the K2 theme, you will notice a menu option underneath Appearance for K2 Options, and Custom Image Header - which both allow customizing of the look and feel.
Embedding Pictures and Video:
- Within both your posts and your pages, it is very simple to embed pictures and video.
- Above the content area, you will notice some bold type that reads “Add Media:”
- Hover over each icon to see what they represent, one is to add an image, one is to add an Image, one to add Video, one to add Audio, and one to simply add media for any other media such as a file that you want your users to be able to download.
- Click on the pertaining media icon, and follow the wizard to upload your files.
- Once you have uploaded and made changes to your settings make sure to click “Insert into Post” to make sure that the file is inserted into the content area.
Adding video from youtube / vimeo / or others:
- Another option for media is to use embed code from any site which allows you to embed some sort of video, or slideshow object into your webpage.
- To do this, you want to copy the embed code from it’s original source (perhaps you tube)
- Then you want to navigate to edit the post you want to insert the video in, or create a new post to insert the video in
- In the content area, make sure your in the HTML tab, and paste the embed code into the content area.
Creating a Quiz:
- Creating quizes helps to reassure your learners that they are actually learning the material. The quiz module allows you as the teacher to create a multiple choice quiz with a group of questions and answers. Each answer can also have an explanation.
- First navigate to the Settings block on the bottom left menu and find - “Quizzin Settings” and configure and save your options.
- Second navigate to the Tools block on the left and choose “Manage Quiz”
- Here is where you will see a list of all your quizes.
- To add a new quiz click “Create New Quiz” at the bottom of the list.
- Fill out the name, description and set up your final screen. Notice the variables at the bottom you can use within your text blocks, this will help to make your quiz seem more personal.
- Hit Save
- You are now taken to the screen where you can add questions. There should be an empty list of questions and underneath you can click “Create New Question”
- Once you do you are taken to another page where you will fill out the question, the answers, and the explanations.
- Save and continue steps 8 and 9 until you have all of your questions written.
- To add the quiz to a post or a page, first navigate back to “Manage Quiz” under Tools. Make note of the id of your quiz.
- Go to the post or page you wish to add the quiz to, or create a new post or page to add the quiz to
- add the following text where you want the quiz to show up: [
- change the number 1 to ID for your quiz. For example if your quiz’s id is 3 then your code will be [QUIZZIN 3]
Using the Grade-book:
- The grade-book can be helpful for teachers who want to allow students access to their grades. You can organize your grades on a csv, and then upload this to your website using the Grade-book module and your students will now have access.
- Click on ”KB Gradebook” under the Posts block on the left.
- Name your course for the gradebook and follow the instructions on the next page.
Classroom Privacy:
- Your classroom blog is either set to Public or Private. If it is public, it is indexed and searchable both from the WordPress Classroom homepage, as well as other search engines. If it is private, it is not listed on the WordPress Classroom homepage, and you can only access it by visiting it’s URL.
- To set your blogs privacy settings click on “Privacy” underneath within the “Settings” box on the bottom left
