Guidelines for building a Wordpress website that works for you

Social Media

Guidelines

This semester, you will use your Wordpress website for several reasons:

•       Build a portfolio
•       Turn in your homework
•       Create a platform to share information with your students
•       Share your vision and voice

Consider these guidelines to help you find and organize your website.

Step One:

Template. It is very important you choose the right template; it could become a part of your portfolio/resume. 

• Spend at least an hour searching through various templates until you find one that works for you
• Make sure it’s easy to read and follow
• Keep it simply organized
• It absolutely needs to be photo friendly
• Stay away from websites designed for marketing or selling stuff
• Don’t feel you need to select the first one you find. Go through them until you find the right fit
• When you do find one you like, but then decide two weeks later it doesn’t work, then change it
• Spend the first month getting to understand and know your website. Experiment!

Lori King's website: With dynamic photo and menu

Step Two:

Homepage or cover page? When a visitor lands on your blog, what will they see? Will it begin with a cover page, with a dynamic photo and a menu like what on the right? Or a homepage, with a menu for the various pages? Or will visitors be greeted with your blog and social media right away?

Consider these options:

Visuals and Voices – This doesn’t have a homepage

Lori King’s Website – This one does

King’s Klass Blog – This is a true blog, not a website

King's Klass Blog: All elements on homepage

Step Three:

Blog. Once you’ve chosen your homepage option, then add a blog, or not.

Some websites are blogs, while others have separate pages for blogs. You have to decide which one works for you. Whatever you decide, your blog posts need to be found fast and easy, because this is where you will post 99% of your essays and photos.

Step Four:

Twitter. Your Twitter feed should be on the homepage.

Visitors need to be able to read your most recent Tweets. They also should be able to click on your name to go directly to your Twitter feed.

Remember the following requirements:

• Upload professional headshot
• Brief but informative description
• Include Website URL in your description
• Include required hashtags in every post
• Follow @intro2pj + five others from my feed

Step Five:

Instagram. Your Instagram feed should be on the homepage.

Visitors need to be able to view your most recent Instagram posts. They should also be able to click on your name to go directly to your Instagram feed.

Remember the following requirements:

• Upload professional headshot
• Brief but informative description. This can be the same as your Twitter description
• Include Website URL in your description
• You must post a first photo to make it active on your website
• Open a new account if your original account is mostly selfies and personal content
• Follow @toledophotog + five others from my feed

Prezi presentation on social media

Your Wordpress: The site that binds

Wayne State Digital Photojournalism final projects showcase multiple skills

“This assignment was truly a culmination of skills, and I exercised them all to the best of my ability. After this assignment I’ve realized just how artful photojournalism is and the work people put in to doing it. For me the hardest part was still the photos, the technique. I now know that as a photojournalist you also have to create your style, your ‘way of doing,’ to create this common thread in your images and that thread is you. What you’re looking at through your lenses, what composition you’re using, how you’re using light, what moments you capture. You’re given the tools and the skills but once you’re out shooting it all comes down to you.” – Pulled quote from blog post of Kayla Cockrel, fall semester 2016 Wayne State Digital Photojournalism student.

   What a succinct way of describing what photojournalists do!

   It is certainly true that once you’re out there with camera in hand, whatever and wherever it is, it all comes down to you, the shooter: What lens you choose. What composition you see. How you evaluate light. What moment you capture.

   Kayla learned this through experiencing those important choices via the assignments given in the Digital Photojournalism class at Wayne State University in Detroit.

   I’ve heard grumblings from former students complaining that the course is too advanced. Too difficult. They come in on that first day thinking it’s basically a camera class, but find out as the course progresses that it’s much more than learning apertures and shutter speeds.

   Lessons include:

• What news and photojournalism is. This includes identifying all parts of a print newspaper, learning the history of journalism, and identifying eight news values
• The camera: Learning ISO, shutter speed, aperture; composition; reading light; capturing the moment
• Setting up and maintaining social media sites: Wordpress blogs, Twitter and Instagram
• Writing AP style captions
• Law & Ethics
• Collecting and editing audio
• Shooting feature, portrait, sports and photo story assignments
• Using industry standard software: Photo Mechanic; Photoshop; Adobe Premiere Pro CC; Audacity

  

Screen grab: Blog post by Morgan Kollen

Yes, it’s progressive. But because this is the only photojournalism course available in the journalism program, I stand by the curriculum. Because I understand this is a difficult course for the novice photographer, which most of them are, I allow them to turn in assignments late. This gives them time to soak in the information; reshoot weak assignments; give them confidence and time to get out of their comfort zones.

   Even if they will never use a camera again, they, as journalism and PR majors, will undoubtedly work with photojournalists, or manage them. Now they will have an appreciation of what photojournalists do, and what they need to get the job done.
    The final project is a culmination of all of the aforementioned lessons. I’m proud to say most of the students did amazingly well. Rather than have a strict rule on how it should be presented, they were encouraged to follow their guts, and hearts. Considering most of these students knew absolutely nothing about cameras and storytelling four months ago, I think they did a great job putting their stories together.

   This proves to me that I am on the right track in keeping the curriculum challenging, but giving them time and room to grow. Most students walk into class with a minimal digital footprint, and depart with a Wordpress blog showcasing a variety of photojournalism content. 

   Now, I present to you three wonderful, very different examples of their work. These are their final projects: 

Ryan Miller – a conversation interview format, shot in a difficult lighting situation:

Morgan Kollen – a poetic tribute to the City of Detroit:

Chris Ehrmann – a video story on his trip with fellow WSU classmates to Ghana in October:

KSU Teaching Multimedia students post final assignment: A lesson plan

   The semester is now over, but before I put this blog to bed for the summer, I want to share the final projects for my Kent State Teaching Multimedia grad students.

   But first, I want to say that the Teaching MM course impacted me a great deal when I was a grad student in the KSU Journalism Education program. Under the tutelage of Sue Zake in 2009, a KSU adjunct and instructor for that course back then, I created my first blog, and have been blogging ever since. Now, Zake is a KSU assistant professor, and I am honored to have inherited that course from her in 2013.

   Blogs are now required in all of my photojournalism courses because, it most cases, it’s the first visual portfolio for the students. Blogs are a powerful way of documenting what they’ve learned throughout the semester, and passing that knowledge forward.

   The final and most significant posting is their final project, which is developing a lesson plan, homework sheet, rubric and Camtasia Studio tutorial on a topic of their choice. It was based on their newfound expertise in creating multimedia journalism. The students were instructed to select a subject they wanted to teach and/or use with their own students, and upload all of the required elements to their blogs. 

   Not only do I grade from the blogs, but by posting to their blogs, other teachers and students can share it, as well.

   Of course, all of the teachers have developed lesson plans and rubrics throughout their career. But what was new was developing a lesson using Camtasia, a screen recording and video editing software that is perfect for creating how-to tutorials. Since this was a multimedia course, why not introduce them to a program that enhances their lesson plans?

    I loved the wide range of subjects chosen for this assignment: Videolicious, Twitter, video sequencing and editing, creating infographics, Picasa and editing podcasts using Audacity.

   So, it is with immense pride that I present to you the blogs of the spring semester 2016 class, who are mostly high school teachers advising or teaching student media (broadcasting, newspapers, yearbook).

    Click Here for the Page link to their blogs.

Adding a poll to your content from Mark Davidson on Vimeo.

How to use Twitter to promote a news story from Teaching Multimedia on Vimeo.

  (This video is a demonstration for students posting their live broadcasts to Todd's school website on his class page, by Todd Hatfield)

Editing Video to Tell a Story from Stephen Milligan on Vimeo.

(Introducing students to ThingLink, a website that allows users to create interactive graphics, by Michael Gluskin)


AIR Exam Video from Robin Lester on Vimeo.

Summer: Time to reflect, rebuild and replenish the journalism toolbox

Screen grab of a social media tool search.

   Summer.

   For many college students on break, summer is all about relaxing, partying, traveling or working for tuition money.
   Unless they are attending summer school, there is no homework to ruin much-needed downtime for the brain.

   But for university instructors (and I probably speak for many), much of our summer is spent doing homework.

   I use summer to catch up on what’s new in the journalism industry, and to update lesson plans that reflect modern trends of storytelling.

   Thinking back, it seemed that being a journalism student was less tasking in the good ole days. Now I’m simplifying here, but we students primarily learned the traditional skills of interviewing, writing and editing. The basic tools included a typewriter, paper and pens for reporters; and a film camera and wet darkroom for photojournalists.

   And back then only editors had the capacity to design and disseminate news on a printed page. Oh, how I remember those design tools fondly: Xacto knives, pica poles and whiz wheels… oh my.

   I will never forget the beloved Xacto knife, which nearly cut off a couple of my fingers while finishing a page design for The Huachuca Scout military newspaper in Arizona. Not a fond memory.

   But journalism tools now a days? OH… MY… GOD!

   There are so many (countless, really) that I fear it’s impossible to teach students everything they need to know to succeed in the 21^st Century. How can we possibly keep up with the industry standards when there are so, so many tools?

   Social media tools are supposed to make our lives easier, right? There is no doubt they are a necessity. So, I’m thinking the best plan is to keep it simple.
   I recently read somewhere that journalists shouldn’t maintain more than three social media tools at a time. If I go by that advise, then I need to determine the most important social media tools that I think students should know. Are they Twitter, Facebook and Instagram? Snap Chat is wanting in on the game now, and You Tube is no slouch.  

   And how we need to contain them? Consider Rebel Mouse and TweetDeck.

  Need to congregate a bunch of similar topics together, or looking for similar topics to add to your story? Try Storify or Storyful.

  How about live storytelling? Download Evrybit or Periscope on your smart phones.

  Do you get my point?

   I decided to write this blog post because I was searching for new tools to teach my photojournalism students next semester, and I wanted to share that I’ve found more than I bargained for.

Twitter allows me to escape from my isolated hometown bubble

Twitter comments by PHO245 student Aaron Gonya.

   The other day I was surfacing Twitter and discovered a new blog about journalism ethics called Ethics Matters (thanks for the link, Dave Cantor). I also learned that the investigation of a recent Maumee, Ohio fatal apartment fire continues, and looked at Wall Street Journal photos of the day.

   Sounds like a lot, but it's only a tiny fraction of links to national and local stories, websites and photos that are available at any given time on Twitter.

   When I tell students they will tweet as part of their course work, their reactions are all the same: they don't like it. Why? Because they don't understand it. The most common complaint is they don't want to hear what people had for breakfast, or any other insignificant banter. But that's not what Twitter is about. It's more for professionals, and that is what separates it from Facebook.

    Like it or not, tweeting is a part of journalism that's here to stay, at least for now. It's a quick and easy way to

•  stay in touch with your community, including classmates, educators, colleagues, photographers, news sources, etc.

•  receive and disseminate news tips, stories, photos, etc.

•  learn about journalism-related information, like tools of trade, websites, training, etc.

•  advertise your own or someone else's stories and photos that run in newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, etc.

•  keep connected to whatever field you're interested in.

A few of the journalism profs and orgs I follow.

   Those are just a few reasons why I like Twitter as a collaborative way to stay connected to people, organizations and news outlets.
    Twitter, launched in 2006, is an online social networking service that limits you to 140 characters. So there's yet another benefit: it forces you to be concise, which, as you know, is a key ingredient of journalism. 
   I wrote this post about Twitter because I am amazed at how much information is available at my fingertips. 
   I think of it this way: I am only one person, so it would be unfair to my students if I only offered them what I know about the business. Twitter allows me to expand their knowledge beyond the classroom.
    I no longer feel I am confined inside this tiny Toledo bubble. As a PJ instructor, I must ensure that my students don't live in their own tiny bubbles, either.