Struggling online so they won’t have to
So I think English teachers have that part of the brain missing where things like web hosting. FTP, and plug-ins makes sense.
Or so it seemed the first 48 hours of me trying to put together a killer WordPress blog in time for my CNN debut. The graphic design snob in me wanted an awesome design, so I paid for one. But couldn’t figure out how to manage it and make it look like I wanted, so I reverted to the WordPress 2011 theme.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first hurdle was muddling through the concept of web hosting. Because trihardadrienne.wordpress.com is just not as cool as trihardadrienne.com, I spent hours trying to find the cheapest, most reliable web host. Times like these, I seriously hate capitalism. Just tell me which site to choose.
Once I randomly decided on iPage.com and bought my advanced theme, I then spent hours screaming at the computer when I couldn’t install it. I made a lunch date with the Computer Science teacher at our school who creates apps for Apple in his spare time, but when I started talking about my advanced wp theme, he was lost. I guess WordPress 101 isn’t in our school’s curriculum. Someone filled me in on the computer geek method of manually uploading the files using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and the author of the advanced theme made it happen (after a few more hours of contacting him through his help page).
All that and I couldn’t figure out how to manage it once it was installed. So after I loaded a whole bunch of content (but couldn’t get it to display how I wanted it to), I tried switching to a simpler theme. When I did that, a whole bunch of files got altered and the friendly people at iPage old me I had to reinstall WordPress. Ended up having to do that probably more than five times.
Now did CNN require me to make my own blog? No. I have to send entries to them each week, but I am not required to maintain my own site. I have Sarah Nichols to thank for trihardadrienne.com. After seeing detailsyearbook.com this fall at conference, my students set a goal to launch our yearbook website by book delivery May 11th (moved up a week since I’ll be in Kona, Hawaii our initially planned delivery date). How could I ask my students to create something I had no clue how to do?
While my blog is seriously basic, I’d like to thank Bryan Farley for awakening a dormant part of my brain and for holding my hand as I made my first steps in the digital media world.
So now that my blog is up and running, what’s my next step to get my students ready for the launch of our yearbook site?
Looks like you had some problems! Your blog is looking good though! Not having to manage it is always a plus! I would say ‘yes’ get started on the yearbook site! 🙂
This is the perfect blog for everyone who really wants to understand this topic. You know a whole lot its almost tough to argue with you (not that I really would want to…HaHa). You definitely put a brand new spin on a topic that’s been discussed for many years. Excellent stuff, just great!