Friday, January 6th

Class hours: 9:40 – 2:05
Mr. Bohmann
wbohmann@ewsd.org

Week Seventeen

Today’s Notes

Today is an EHS B Day
No 20% for this week (means no presentations Monday) this was a short week
SKILLS USA Leadership – Monday – Job Skill Demo Practice
- 11:35am with Mr. Cronin – are you ready (I suspect no) – Let’s get there
  - Eli – you need to respond to Sarah Knight’s email
  - 4-5 Minutes for Mr. Cronin’s class
  - Wednesday January 11th is competition day – Eli, Schuyler, Tom – see email from Ms. Knight
SKILLS USA Pin Competition: Internal Judging of Pins is set for Wednesday, January 25th.
- All pins due by Tuesday the 24th for printing – earlier is better – time for feedback and revision
Printed Resumes needed for Andy, Eli, Schuyler and Tom – you can send to me (thanks Matt)
Tom – you have a meeting today at 12:30 –
Jan. 16: MLK Day: No School

9:40 Attendance

9:45 WordPress

So, what is WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (referred to as a CMS). It began as a forked project in 2003. WordPress is open-source and was started primarily as a blog platform.

Wix and Squarespace are other very popular CMS systems as are Drupal and Joomla.

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

There are several ways to get WordPress. The easiest is through a hosting provider, but sometimes tech-savvy folks prefer to download and install it themselves.

WordPress.org is the location for getting the latest download. An installation of WordPress gives creators access to all files, database and full customization of the application. This is like choosing a homebuilder and you get to choose how you want to arrange the walls and details from an approved list of suppliers.

For less savvy folks, an account can be created on WordPress.com and a site is created for you instantly. However, you have little control over the code. This is a great option for an organization that needs little access to the meat and guts of the code and is willing to use the predefined templates. This is similar to moving into an apartment or condo and while you can paint the walls, you cannot move them or modify the structure.

WordPress is Open Source – so it is developed by everyone!

WordPress is build on a plugin architecture.

The plugin architecture makes it possible to add thousands of features to customize the CMS. Themes are used to customize the look and functionality of WordPress sites for blogging, e-commerce, portfolios and media galleries. Over 30% of the web is made up of WordPress sites.

WordPress needs a web server, a database and PHP in order to function correctly.
MySQL is the database that manages all of the content while the individual pages are processed through PHP.
Apache is what makes the connection to the web server and returns the information from your keyboard input.

This is Commonly referred to a software stack
Windows, Apache, Mysql, PHP (WAMP)

Linux Apache MySql PHP
Windows Apache MySql PHP
Macintosh Apache MySql PHP

Operating System, Apache is the Http server language, MySql is the database language and PHP is the programming language

In order for us to run a content management system, like WordPress, we need to install some tools that turn our machines into local hosts (servers) just like if the website was live on the web.

I really like the ease of Local (the program I had you download yesterday), as it creates a nice and easy WordPress installation too. We’ll come back to this. First let’s explore our Condo – WordPress.com

For our first activity we are going to make an account and create a wordpress.com site.
Your first site can be about anything you want. Let’s do this together. Sample I made last night

Things to look at:

Pick a theme
Get familiar with the Dashboard
Learn about Gutenberg – WordPress’s editor
Create a Welcome Page – you can use some lorem ipsum if you like
Create another Page – Gear Guide – create a page about your favorite piece of gear (could be a game setup, snowboard set-up… include some pictures), page about a pet, page about your favorite foods…
Create a Blog Post – Prompt: My favorite winter activity is….
Explore the Customizer – under Appearance
Poke around and see what’s under the hood (in your new apartment)
Let’s make a menu to tie it all together.

10:45 Installing WordPress Locally….

For our second activity we are going to install the latest version of WordPress on our computers and begin using the platform by turning our computers into local servers. Which means we’ll turn our computers into web servers.

This morning I talked a bit about MAMP or WAMP, which is an excellent tool for developing web content locally before loading to a hosting server. I’m going to introduce to you another local development tool called…. Local

With Local, we can develop on our machines, but… we can also get a link to our local sites and share with others to view! You can’t do that with MAMP/WAMP.

Developing locally on your machine is the most common practice for WordPress sites. Once the site is all configured and ready to roll, you can then migrate the site to your host provider and turn on the site for all to view!

Using Local, we can nearly one click our way into a fresh install of WordPress. From there, we will learn about the Dashboard, set a theme and begin using WordPress. If you pursue work in the field of Web Development, it is imperative you understand how WordPress works.

We are going to need some inspiration for our site, so let’s use this Google Site from one of our former teachers. He has a band called the rustics. We can make a few pages using some of his content.

Landing Page (home or about page)
Gallery / Photos Page
Contact Page
Where we have Played Page

Monday we will begin the process of developing our own Child Themes and learn about how Child themes work within the WordPress framework.

WordPress Themes and Extensions

In the WordPress world themes control the look and feel of your website. Themes control really big things like the number of columns, size of the header, navigation and footer placement. In addition, themes control default colors and smaller things opacity, shadows and animations.

Plugins are extra value modules / software that can be added to your WordPress installation to extend and add functionality.

All WordPress plugins are written in PHP, so they integrate seamlessly and easily with WordPress. There are tens of thousands of plugins. Some add improvements to the theme, some are for securing your site, some are to help your organize your SEO (search engine optimization) some just make your galleries look better!

List of the most popular WordPress plugins

Link to the WordPress Plugin Database

Activity: Install CMS Tree Page View from the administration panel in the backend of your WordPress website. Locate one additional plugin – of your choosing – we’ll generate some ideas in class. Install and configure.

12:15 Lunch

12:45 Literacy in Practice

1:10 Break

1:20 20% Production Time & Guided Support

Skills USA – Interview / Job Skill Demo / Pin Design
Bootstrap Menu (Pho Hong)
WebPortfolio – Wireframe of all pages due today- sketch out your design
- Place your Wireframe for all pages on your keyboard before you leave today
Close Read from yesterday