"WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time."Matt Mulleweg, it's creator intended it to be easy to use and supportive of open sharing. Over 3.7 million downloads of its latest version says it is. "It's just an open source project, it's free for everybody and always will be."
In this way, his mission is the same as ours, of Pauahi; to share, to disseminate the knowledge and pathways we've been given access to. He says in an interview linked below, "Most software doesn't die from people pirating it, or from people using it in ways you didn't intend, it dies from obscurity. So open source is the best way I can imagine to have distribution or adoption among..people of influence in the community.... The thing that I learned over time is the more open I was, the more successful things were...so put as much out there as possible."
Here's the easy first step -
- go to http://en.wordpress.com/signup/
- Choose a Domain and blog Title - pick something you care about or want to have fun with - doesn't matter, your choice.
- Click private if you prefer, and you can invite us as Users, or you can leave it public.
- Once it opens, click the Dashboard link at the top of the page and explore! (see emailed handout)
You may be interested in a couple of related posts by Burt Lum about building online communities and a presence:
Tips and Myths ... http://bytemarks.pbwiki.com/Top10Tips
Social Networking links http://bytemarks.pbwiki.com/ToolKit
My sample blog is http://joanmats.wordpress.com
Warning - make sure you save your Drafts often and click Upload (in the righthand column) to check your results. When you view your post, you can, as the author, click on the Edit link to return to the Dashboard. When you do this, if you had clicked Preview instead of UPload, it may return you to an earlier version of your post So save or click Upload first, never quite figured out that glitch.
See and hear Matt at http://www.horsepigcow.com/2008/06/05/the-whuffie-factor-matt-mullenweg-talks-wordpress/
Comments
The whole blogging concept fits very nicely with online social networking. So, how can we take advantage of social networking in respects to marketing? Maybe one way is to have a blog on our branch Web site where free A'o Makua activities are posted. The free activities would serve to encourage participants to sign up for A'o Makua while getting users to network with one another. Mahalo again for sharing.
I do agree with Clinton in trying to utilize it for A`o Makua participants. It's a great way to perpetuate the learning community once it is created online. Three weeks for rich interaction should continue beyond the course itself with resources and dialogue. It would be nice to implement. As I was facilitating A`o Makua, it seems like there were a handful of students that led many discussions. Those students may be interested in administering blogs too. Just an idea... Thanks again for introducing this great tool!
f-2-f. Just some thoughts . . .
Kelly
And Clinton - thanks for telling me it was passworded! I was mucking around and wondered what that was so I locked it. Lost my one and only fan too!
I was feeling pretty good I didn't have any spam - guess I was talking to myself. I kind of liked it that way though! ha ha!
If you want to try again, it should be open. 8-)
Similar to everyone else's thoughts, I think we should definitely discuss as a group how we'd like to proceed with integration of Web 2.0 tools for our DL learners to sustain and enhance our virtual community.
Going off of what Kelly D. said, I also liked how KScholars counselors maintained their blogs. Maybe we could have our A'o Makua DL Instructors keep a blog during the time period they're facilitating their courses and the rest of the staff contribute with specials, tidbits, etc.? Just a thought. Looking forward to our owau discussion.
Overall, I was excited to try WordPress after Joan brought it up. I'm glad I had the opportunity to create a site:
http://alysabug.wordpress.com/ and see how it all worked. Like everyone else I found it very user-friendly and something that could be easily used.