GO ONLINE
HOW TO C R E AT E A W O R D P R E S S WEBSITE
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“My advice to any high school newspaper adviser is, if you don’t have a website, start one!”
MIKESCHLESINGER
Publisher Marshalltown Times-Republic
don’t want the paper to die. Will anyone read what I write online? How do we start? Will the school let us do it? All of these questions came from students when we considered going online. The worst part was that there wasn’t a guide or textbook to show us how to get it done. A world without textbooks is exciting, but also daunting. After going through the process of working through all of the above questions, I decided to try and create a guide for high school journalism advisers looking to create a “real” website. This guide is also serving as my Master Journalism Educator project for JEA. There are other options out there, but I believe WordPress is the easiest, most cost effective, and best way to go online. Beyond these pages, I highly encourage journalism teachers to pick up the phone. We are lucky to work in a profession that has so many helpful colleagues that are more than GO ONLINE
willing to answer questions. Having said that there is also a wealth of information online. Most WordPress themes have an assortment of video tutorials to help people along the way. I also highly encourage those developing a site to visit jeadigitalmedia.org and www.jeadigitalmedia.org/ Guide-To-Moving-Online/ Their guide to moving online, which I also contributed, contains an excellent array of tutorials how-tos and more indepth explanations of the topics in the following pages. If you are viewing this document online then all the links are active. Click away and you should make it to the websites. Good luck and I can honestly say going through this process was the best educational experience I have had with students.
jonROGERS Iowa City High - Adviser MJE JEA Digital Media Board Member
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GET A URL & A HOST
To start a website using Wordpress the first step is to get a URL and call a hosting service. To get a URL check out the JEA link..
http://bit.ly/rc6KEt Popular hosting providers like GoDaddy can be found at
www.hosting-review.com When you call a hosting service you will need a web address and make sure to tell them you will be using a Wordpress content management system or CMS.
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What is WordPress? The following is a defintion from WORDPRESS.ORG WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.
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WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means you are free to use it for anything from your cat’s home page to a Fortune 500 web site without paying anyone a license fee and a number of other important freedoms. About WordPress.org
On this site you can download and install a software script called WordPress. To do this you need a web host who meets the minimum requirements and a little time. WordPress is completely customizable and can be used for almost anything. There is also a service called WordPress.com which lets you get started with a new and free WordPress-based blog in seconds, but varies in several ways and is less flexible than the WordPress you download and install yourself.
UPLOAD Well,
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T H E G R AT E F U L D E A D
A “The worst thing a high school paper can do is release a website that doesn’t have much content.”
AARONMANFULL
ADVISER - Francis Howell North
fter a hosting service has been set up the next step is to pick out a theme and upload content. Themes can be found all over the web. The best advice is to get one with good support. The free themes usually lack support and much of the ease of a premium or paid for themes. Once a theme is found then the staff should spend the next three to six months learning how to upload stories and building up the site. As Aaron Manfull told me the worst thing a paper can do is release a website without much content. Balancing the development of a website and print editions can be a challenge for students who have worked their whole life withGO ONLINE
out the web. “I feel like the most difficult part is getting a previously paper-only staff enthused by the thought of immediate story uploads,” Davis Vonk, Executive Editor of The Little Hawk, said. “I think for a lot of people the key is to not get discouraged by major news websites like the New York Times that actually have the resources to publish 24/7. We have to remember that we are a high school newspaper and uploading a few times a week is awesome.” It is tempting to publicize the site after it is functional, but a long training period where content can be uploaded will help to keep the site active. Loyalty of viewers will also be much higher with a well developed site.
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UPLOAD A THEME
Two popular sites for themes are Woo Themes and WPZOOM. There are two ways of uploading your theme to your website. One uses the back door to your site and the other uses an FTP uploader like Filezilla. Both ways are described in the following video tutorial from WPZoom.
www.wpzoom.com/documentation
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BACKDOOR So where do you go to actually post stories and photos to your site? You will go to your backdoor. The backdoor will have a web address like...
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Themes can be found all over the internet. There are free themes, but most good themes run around $50. Make sure the technical support is good with the theme as they will be the ones you contact with any problems.
POSTING
POST CONTENT Start uploading content. Most advisers I have spoken with recommend a three to six month window of uploading stories, photos, video and podcasts before publicizing the site. This will also allow a staff time to learn how to use the Wordpress theme. GO ONLINE
www.thetimes.com/wp-admin
From this web page you will enter in your log in and password. After logging into your website you will make posts that are filled with stories and photos.
Different Wordpress themes will have different ways to make these posts come to life on your site.
Most have video tutorials that will instruct you on how to make posts on your website.
THEME
A theme is the basic layout of the website.
Don’t be shocked if your theme looks different than the pictures of what it can look like on the theme creator’s website. Once you have uploaded dozens of posts and added widgets your site will begin to take shape.
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tarting out my students had far more concerns about going online than I did. They worried a great deal about their stories being read, if the newspaper would survive and if people would read their stories online.
TIPS LET A STUDENT ONLINE EDITOR OR TEAM LEAD THE WAY. BUILD UP THE SITE FOR THREE TO SIX MONTHS BEFORE PUBLICIZING IT. USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS TO SHOW STUDENTS THEIR WORK IS BEING VIEWED. LINK THE SITE TO FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. INCREASE FACEBOOK FANS BY HAVING CONTESTS. HAVE FUN WITH THE NEW TECHNOLOGY!
All valid concerns and I worked to convince them the website would work well in combination with the paper. It isn’t being created to take over the paper, but to compliment it with breaking news, a space for more photos, video, and to showcase the print edition.
dividuals have certain projects. To overcome the challenge of organizing a variety of new projects that can go on the web it is a good idea to put one student in charge. This can be labeled as a new Online Editor or Convergence Editor. “A reliable convergence editor is crucial. I think it would be intelligent to have a convergence editor and several web-only writers atop the regular staff just to ensure weekly uploads, especially during deadline week for the print edition,” Vonk said.
“A reliable convergence editor is crucial.”
To get it started there were a few strategies that have been experimented with and I will reference what a few other staffs do to publish online and in print. The questions we began with included whether the staff be working on both the paper and website, should a separate staff be dedicated to the website, should teams take turns working on the website, or should inGO ONLINE
A good Online Editor will work to help the staff experiment with videos, live updates, Twitter feeds, a Facebook page, photo slide shows, and covering breaking news.
DAVISVONK
“Choosing good people to run the staff is essential. I have minimal knowledge of the technological part of websites,” Ann Visser said. “But I know about content, I know about different ways to deliver content, etc.
I don’t think you have to know everything.” Other options for organizing staffs include assigning students one day per month when they are responsible for uploading content to the website. This structure ensures new posts are created daily. Aaron Manfull, JEA Digital Media Chair, who advises the Pacemaker winning site FHNtoday. com follows this structure. For the Hoover Challenger Timm Pilcher goes with individual responsibility. “Everyone on staff is responsible for posting his or her own pages and stories; the entire staff blogs weekly as well,” he said. Whatever the organization the most important part of keeping a website working is buy in from the staff. To get the staff motivated staffs have used contests on their site and Facebook pages, put laptops around the school, created posters with QR codes and had used Google Analytics. Google Analytics can prove that people are reading stories and is a great page to put up on the overhead projector to let students know what is happening. “Put it up on the board and show
them the number of hits. It is important for them to see the actual numbers,” Manfull said. To build content editors and advisors also look beyond the written the word. Mike Schlesinger from the Marshalltown Times said that his web hits go up by 10,000 with the addition of video. Adding video to stories, having a video section, and having a video sidebar with the latest video has also been one of the biggest draws on thelittlehawk.com. Most video is short clips from sporting events or school events without editing or commentary. To conclude, no matter the structure getting three to five posts up a week with good breaking news keeps student newspaper websites alive. Student enthusiam has come from having big hit days, being picked up by major media outlets, and having fun with the new technology. My favorite part of using the website is to see students tweeting with famous journalists, having their stories linked in the local press, and beating out the local press on breaking news. GO ONLINE
LINKS JEA DIGITAL MEDIA www.jeadigitalmedia.org
HOST REVIEW
www.hosting-review.com
ISSUU
www.issuu.com
USTREAM
www.ustream.com
10000 Words
www.10000words.net
MEDIASHIFT
www.mediashift.com
NSPA www.studentpress.org/nspa
IHSPA
www.ihspa.org
POYNTER
www.poynter.org
ISSUU.FACEBOOK.CALENDAR
A “We don’t really have any social media guidelines. We basically just tell people to use common sense and don’t be stupid.”
LIZHERON
NY Times- Social Media Director
fter a staff has learned the basics of posting there is an assortment of online products that can be embedded onto a website. The first embeddable product I would suggest is from issuu.com. Issuu uses the pdfs of a publication and creates an online viewer. From issuu an embed code can be created that will allow for the placement of the publication into the website. The viewer allows online readers to read in full page mode, turn the pages, and zoom in to individual stories. This feature can easily be embedded into the website. After issuu many
schools have added social media to their website. Facebook and Twitter both have embedable boxes that can be placed on sidebars. Details on how to do this are on the next page. The last embedding box that is used by most schools is a Google calendar box. Make sure to check out how to customize all of these boxes on the different sites. All of these HTML codes can be embedded into posts in the HTML section or on directly into text widgets. One mistake we made early on was trying to use plugins instead of text widgets. A detailed JEA tutorial is linked below.
http://bit.ly/qizu94 GO ONLINE
FACEBOOK TIPS TEXT WIDGETS ARE THE KEY TO EMBEDDING CONTENT IN THE SIDEBAR OF WORDPRESS SITES.
PLUG INS CAN BE USEFUL, BUT VIDEO SIDEBARS AND FACEBOOK LIKE BOXES ARE ADDED BY USING A TEXT WIDGET WITH AN EMBED CODE. GOOGLE CALENDARS ARE ALSO ADDED BY FILLING A TEXT WIDGET WITH THE EMBED CODE GIVEN ON THE GOOGLE CALENDAR SETTINGS PAGE.
Google Calendar
YOUTUBE AND VIMEO ALSO PROVIDE MANY DIFFERENT EMBEDDING OPTIONS.
JOIN ISSUU
Go to issuu.com and start a membership. The free membership should be all you need.
CREATE A PDF
Create PDF files of your publication to upload to ISSUU.
EMBED ON YOUR SITE
Copy and past the embed code into a text widget sidebar on you website. Check out the following link for a detailed JEA tutorial on embedding.
http://bit.ly/qizu94
EMBED A GOOGLE CALENDAR
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EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT EMBEDDING OPTIONS. ISSUU, GOOGLE CALENDAR AND FACEBOOK ALL ALLOW FOR VARIOUS EMBEDDING OPTIONS.
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ANY HTML EMBED CODE CAN BE PLACED INSIDE A TEXT WIDGET ON WORDPRESS SITE.
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On a Google Calendar’s settings there will also be an HTML embed code. This code can also be copy and placed into a text widget on the webpage’s sidebar.
EMBED A FACEBOOK LIKE BOX
After creating a Facebook Fanpage a newspaper can create a Like Box on their page. Search Facebook for embeding a like box and there will be a page that will allow you to create an HTML code based on your Fan Page’s URL.
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issuu
PACEMAKERS
T H E F O L L O W I N G S I T E S H A V E A L L B E E N A W A R D E D T H E PA C E M A K E R O R H AV E B E E N F I N A L I S T S F O R T H E I R W E B S I T E C O N T E N T A N D D E S I G N .
www.voice.paly.net
PALY VOICE Palo Alto, California
www.fhntoday.com
FHN TODAY St. Charles, Missouri GO DIGITAL
www.nileswestnews.org www.students.hw.com/chronicle NILES WEST NEWS Skokie, Illinois
THE CHRONICLE Los Angeles, California
www.thelittlehawk.com
www.elestoque.com
THE LITTLE HAWK Iowa City, Iowa
EL ESTOQUE Cupertino, California
www.shseyeofthestorm.com
www.hilite.org
EYE OF THE STORM Bend, Oregon
GO DIGITAL
Hi Lite Carmel, Indiana
GOONLINE “The worst thing a high school paper can do is release a website that doesn’t have much content.”
AARONMANFUL
ADVISER - Franci Howell North
“I desperately hope newspapers can survive, but someone has to figure out how to make that happen. Many of my students can’t imagine starting their days without reading anything - print or onlline.” “Choosing good people to run the staff is essential... I don’t think you have to know everything.”
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“Newspapers of the future will be a combination of print and online to a greater degree than they are now. With all the new technology coming forward, there will be greater applications for cross promoting between print and online... only our imaginations will limit what the future can bring to the web and print and the future of newspapers.” “Hits for stories with videos can go up by as much as 10,000 with the addition of video.”
ANNVISSER
MIKESCHLESINGER
ADVISER - Pella High School
“I think for a lot of people the key is to not get discouraged by major news websites like The New York Times... We have to remember that we are a high school newspaper and uploading a few times a week is awesome!”
t o
Publisher Marshaltown Times-Republic
“The most important thing about adding an online presence is budgeting time with the staff to be online.”
TIMMPILCHER
ADVISER - Herbert Hoover High School
DAVISVONK
Former Little Hawk Executive Editor
GLOSSARY BACKDOOR
The backdoor to a website is where publishers, writers, and adminstrators go to create posts and manage the website. The URL for the backdoor will be the web address followed by /wp-admin.
BLOG
A type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events or videos.
CMS
Content Management System (CMS) is a collection of procedures used to manage
work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based. Wordpress and Joomla are the most commonly used CMS.
For internet sites this means that code is generated so that sound slides, video, images, and music can appear on Web sites by simply copying and pasting the code into a post or sidebar.
The ability to interchange text, audio, and visual communication over the Internet has fundamentally transformed news organizations. Convergence has enabled media companies to gather, disseminate and share information over a variety of platforms.
A tool that can be added on or comes with most CMS themes where the owner can view how many people visit their site (hits) and thousands of other details about what is happening with the internet site.
CONVERGENCE
EMBED
to be or become fixed or incorporated, as into a surrounding mass.
HOST
A computer acting as an information or communications server.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
HTML
HITS
NEW MEDIA
A person or machine visiting a site.
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An acronym for HyperText Markup Language, HTML is the language used to tag various parts of a Web document so browsing software will know how to display that document’s links, text, graphics and attached media. Products and services that provide information or entertainment using computers or the Internet, and not traditional methods such as televisions or