Ornithology - WordPress

WordPress is a web publishing platform and is available at Evergreen at http://blogs.evergreen.edu

Your Assignment

You will generate content for a species page on a website titled “The Birds of Evergreen”. The format will be modeled after “Birds of North America Online” which is available to view for free through the Evergreen Library. The content will include images and sound as well as research you conduct through reading and in the field on your assigned species.

Getting Started

• Getting Started with WordPress - What is WordPress and how is it being used at Evergreen?
• Login to the Birds of Evergreen site

Driving in WordPress

• Dashboard Overview - get comfortable navigating the Dashboard and moving between Admin and Public view
• Change your profile info

Writing and Managing your content

Adding new posts

Basics

• Title your post - use the common name for your bird
• Top of page: Include the Order, Family, Genus and Species.
  • Genus - Make sure Genus name is capitalized and italicized
  • Species - Remember the full Latin name always includes Genus name and specific epithet. The genus name is always capitalized and the specific epithet is always lowercase, and both words should be italicized

Creating collapsible sections

After the "introduction section we will be putting the rest of our conetnt into collapsible section using a WordPress plugin.

1. Start the section with the shortcode [collapsible_item title="your section title"]
2. Add the content for this section, you can include any kind of media you'd like
3. close the section with [/collapsible_item]

It will look like this for the "Distribution" section:

[collapsible_item title="Distribution"]
Your text and images for this section go between the shortcode. 

[/collapsible_item]

Categories and Tags

1. Select the appropriate categories for your bird.
2. You may need to create some of these. Make sure to choose the appropriate "Parent category"
   • Order - Add the name of the order that your species is in
   • Family - Add the name of the Family your species is in
   • Genus - Add the name of the Genus your species is in.

Adding Media

Images

• Insert an image - add an image to the body of a post
• Use the "Thumbnail" size for the first image next to the Introduction.
• Using Photoshop to resize very large images: File > Save for Web and Devices
• Scanning from a Macintosh in the Computer Center
• Set your featured image for all posts. Featured images will appear in the on the category pages.
• Working with image galleries

Audio

1. Add descriptive text
2. then upload your audio file (must be mp3) and insert into post.
3. Audio plugin will automatically detect file and insert a graphical player.

Working with GeoMashup Google Maps plugin

This part is not required but is really cool.

• Attach a google earth .kml file to the post using add media
• Use the following shortcode to embed the .kml file into your posts
  

[geo_mashup_map]

• Tips: if you need to update your KML file you need to delete the old kml from the Media Library and you may need to delete the old post and start all over again (use copy and paste to save your work and transfer into the new post.)

Additional Resources

• Wordpress.com Getting Started Tutorials - these tutorials are for working on wordpress.com but is nearly identical to using WordPress at blogs.evergreen.edu
  
• Lynda.com (on-campus) WordPress 3 Essential Training - this is another training geared towards using Wordpress.com but if you skip the account setup portion most of the rest is relavent to blogs.evergreen.edu