Tag: p2pu

@p2pu WordPress Development Course: Assignment 1

I signed up for the P2PU WordPress Development course to challenge myself in design and getting a little handle on php, WordPress development and other stuff like theming (thought it might help with my work at Moodlenews.com and beyond).  Assignment 1 was to create a blog for a potential photographer client (in short order).

So after changing a spare domain’s name servers to my Bluehost account and installing a fresh WP via cPanel I was ready to go.  It took about an hour’s time, which really is a testiment to the quality of themes available freely on the web and how great WP just is out of the box.

  1. Change nameservers
  2. Install WP
  3. Cleanup the default info
  4. Create the requisite pages (contact, about, gallery, services)
  5. Upload some media for use in the galleries and in posts (I just used the images that come default with Windows 7, they look nice and professional so it’s a good proxy for a professional photographer’s style/quality)
  6. Find a good theme: I settled on AutoFocus 1.0.1 by Allan Cole which I’m really digging.  It creates a really snazzy landing page for more recent posts.  Something I’d be stoked to see landing on a photographer’s website.  After adding a few (10) posts to fill out the landing page it was on to the next step
  7. Creating/installing a nice “gallery/slideshow” type app for the Gallery page wasn’t necessarily required, but many of the peers in the course seemed to be adding some nice slideshow features so I figured I should take a crack at it too.  I chose the Portfolio Slideshow which didn’t require any additional installation of code and could be configured right in posts/pages.  It was simple to setup, though I’m not a fan of the way it requires each image to be listed if you don’t want to display all of them (time-consuming…) “[portfolio_slideshow include=”sample19,sample18,sample17,sample16,sample15,…lastimagename”]” in face I couldn’t get that to work correctly so I just deleted the images I didn’t want in the show and voila.  Mission accomplished: http://www.woople.org/gallery/
  8. That’s it!  Check out the sample site I created at www.woople.org.

If one thing is obvious, I like really simple/spartan site design:

Digital Journalism #kmddj10 @p2pu; Welcome to no-credit college.

Who needs credit these days anyway?  Peer to Peer University (P2PU), if you’re not familiar, is a free, open, online “university” (non-accredited) that offers courses I never would have found at the University of Vermont (no offense UVM, but you’re not exactly pushing the boundaries of higher learning).

This whole notion of free, online, open learning has captivated me, whether through MIT OCW, University of the People or P2PU is a great leap in access for learners everywhere.  After just a week of the Digital Journalism course I can say that the course has very much exceeded my expectations.  Here are a few reasons I was interested in the course:

  • it’s FREE education, man!
  • I run Moodlenews.com, which is fun, but I’m always looking to improve the site so learning a little more about real digital journalism practices will be a good exercise for my brain
  • who doesn’t need to improve their writing?
  • I  need/want/yearn for constructive feedback.  Comments are great (if you get them) but otherwise I’m left wondering where my writing falls on a scale of ‘crap to awesome’.
  • Finally, I want to learn first hand if this model of education is worthwhile.  What happens when students globally take a course for no credit while students locally take the same course for credit?  Can it work?  If it does, what does that mean for the future of credit?  (because they’ve essentially become valueless in that scenario).

And to be fair, these are a few reasons now why I’m glad I enrolled,

It’s my hunch that organizations like P2PU will continue to grow in power and influence in higher education.  Already they’re redefining what it means to take college level courses and grow professionally.  Perhaps someday my kids will earn a degree for free from P2PU based on the legacy of the volunteers that are running it today.  My participation only furthers that goal.