Hosting a dynamic blog - a paradigm shift of collaborative knowledge construction by applying WordPress themes and plug-ins

CITE Research Symposium 2010

Mike H.L. Chui
mikechui@ied.edu.hk
The Hong Kong Institute of Education

 Students have experience on using CMS/ LMS but they
have little governance on the functions
 Little chance to tailor for pedagogical purposes
 Students generally perceive administering on the
server side is difficult
 Dynamic data exchange: PHP + Apache server + MySQL
database
 ICT industry rarely designs tools for specific
pedagogical applications (Muwanga-Zake, Parkes and
Gregory, 2010)

 Free Web hosting services blogs as e-portfolios
 Easy setup at the server side is the KEY

 Installing blog platform
 Easy setup and maintenance (WordPress)
 Easy add/ remove features (Plug-ins)
 Aesthetic considerations (Themes)

 An experimental study +focus group (proposed)
 Population
 FT PGDE(S) – 2009-2010 (128 students)
 43 out of 128 students voluntarily are participating the study , from the second
semester of 2009/2010
 Student-teachers (STs) are advised to 1) download the learning material; 2)
complete the self-evaluation checklist; and 3) post issues encountered
from instructor’s Moodle system
 Totally 8 weeks will be involved (ongoing since Feb 2010)
 STs are advised to 1) apply WordPress blog during the teaching practice;
and 2) write a reflection afterward
 A questionnaire will be adopted for this blended learning initiative at the
end of 8 weeks
 Students might be invited for the focus group for in-depth interview

 Week 1: Installing WordPress
 register a free Web space
 change theme
 post message
 Week 2: Basic customisation
 adding plug-ins and themes (FTP)
 updating plug-ins from dashboard
 understanding WordPress security basics
 Week 3: Managing widgets in dashboard for learning
 Week 4: Introducing plug-in for pedagogical applications (part1)
 Week 5: Introducing plug-in for pedagogical applications (part2)
 Week 6: Exporting and importing blog posts – knowledge management
 Week 7: Managing learning materials in WordPress with your students
 Week 8: Sharing experience on selecting plug-ins and theme customisation
for better communication

 Learning is defined as a basic, adaptive function of
human (Bransford et al., 1999)
 Steve Jobs proposed 7 key tasks of people in iPad
keynote (Jan 27, 2010):
 Browsing (Web browsing)
 Email
 Photos (Enjoying and sharing photographs)
 Video (Video, watch videos)
 Music (Enjoy your music collections)
 Games (Playing games)
 eBooks (Reading eBooks)

 Could the tasks be transformed to “Learning”?
 How “Learning” can be actualised by blog?

7 key tasks of people Learning with blog
Browsing Basic Internet operations/ RSS/ Blogrolls
Email Receiving comments from blogposts/ New subscribers
to your blog
Photos Embedding Flickr/ Webshots/ Picasa  Photo story
telling/ Project-based learning
Video Embedding YouTube/ Animoto by screencasting your
own instructions and experiences/ Embedding eTVs
Music Subscribing/ Embedding podcasting materials
Games Embedding blog widgets  instructional games/ drill-
and-practice/ simulation
eBooks Creating and embedding your own literatures 
Google Docs/ SlideShare/ Scribe/ Docstoc

 Required features for hosting WordPress (WP)
 Support FTP client (third party software like FileZilla
FTP Client http://filezilla-project.org/ )
 Allow WP theme/ plug-in installation (FTP)
 Support PHP + MySQL + Apache server
 At least 100 Mb capacity

 Registration of a free Web hosting
 http://getfreehosting.co.uk/
 http://www.erufa.com/wp/ (Traditional Chinese)

 After registration, the following screen will be shown:

 Go to control panel: http://cpanel.erufa.com

 Username: erufa_36270xx(refer: Control panel user name)
 Password: xxxxxxxx(refer: Control panel password)

 Click on the MySQL databases link

 Enter demo in Your current databases field, and click
on the Create Database button

Sooner or later, you will see a
database
erufa_xxxxxxx_demo
is created.

 Go to http://wordpress.org/download to download the
latest version of WordPress

 Unzip the file into a folder in your local drive (e.g.
d:/wordpress)

 Open the file named wp-config-sample.php in
Notepad or any ASCII editor (e.g. Notepad++ at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad-plus/),
change the bold words as below (Remark: DO NOT
use MS WORD):

 Save the file as wp-config.php

 Use FileZilla FTP Client to upload the whole stuff
(under wordpress folder locally) under the htdocs
folder in the remote directory
 Host: ftp.erufa.com
 User: erufa_36270xx
 Password: refer FTP password

 Go to http://mikechui.erufa.com/wp-
admin/install.php , enter the following information
and click on Install WordPress button
 Remark: "mikechui" is a variable, change to your log in
name

 Copy the password, click on the Log In button to get into the
Dashboard

 Remark: Next time, go to http://mikechui.erufa.com/wp-
login.php to log in (with user name: admin)

 In dashboard, click on Users

 Click on the admin link to change Admin password
(MUST DO!!), paste the original password you just
copied

 Change the New Password, click on Update Profile
button to continue

 Change Settings as you like, click on Save Changes
button to proceed

 Single-discipline/ Personal learning environment (PLE)
 Student-teacher (ST) who blogs with reflection from a
single discipline could form a circle with the other STs
within the same discipline
 Cross-discipline/ Computer-supported collaborative
learning (CSCL)
 ST can collaborate by sharing resources/ reflections with
the other disciplines (e.g. Chinese x English; Science x
Liberal Studies)

 Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L. and Cocking, R.R. (eds.) (1999) How people learn: brain, mind, experience,
and school. Washington: National Academy Press.
 Jobs, S. (2010) Announces iPad. [online] Available from:
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1001q3f8hhr/event/index.html [Accessed 27 January 2010]
 Muwanga-Zake, J.W.F., Parkes, M. and Gregory, S. (2010) Blogging at university as a case study in
instructional design: Challenges and suggestions towards professional development. International
Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT),
Vol. 6, Issue 1, pp.(to be confirmed).

Thank you very much for your
participation

Hosting a dynamic blog - a paradigm shift of collaborative knowledge construction by applying WordPress themes and plug-ins

More Related Content

Hosting a dynamic blog - a paradigm shift of collaborative knowledge construction by applying WordPress themes and plug-ins