Dashboard>Presentation>Widget

Step 1: Open the presentation and widget tabs

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom and set the number of RSS widgets.

Step 3: Click on one of the widgets from the box at the middle of the page and drag and drop it into the desired sidebar.

Step 4: Click on the widget and paste an RSS code into the form that appear

Step 5: Click view page

COST

There are a couple of important issues to consider before choosing this option. Blogs use tags and categories which help to organize your information so that you can extract it easily. This is only the first stage of the e-Portfolio project and participants are encouraged to collect artifacts and begin to write reflections but not to worry to much about how they will create a showcase e-Portfolio. The post format is more suited to social interaction and is easily navigated with tags and categories.

Step 1: Choose an appropriate theme

Step 2: Organize your sidebars

Step 3: Set a page to the front of your blog

Step 4: Turn off the comments

Step 1: Choose an appropriate theme

Dashboard>Presentation>Theme

One of the initial ways of changing the appearance of your e-Portfolio is to change the theme. A number of the themes that I listed below are wider than typical blog themes and can be used to created static pages that appear like a website. Choose carefully; remember that all themes come with different widget and extras options. You can change theme without affecting the content except to alter the formatting.

Choose a wider theme with at least 2 sidebars:

Step 2: Organize your sidebars

Through organizing your sidebar you can modify your pages to make them look more like web pages. Remember there are some important functions within the sidebars such as links, and admin. If you make changes ensure they are not important to the sites functionality.

Dashboard>Presentation>Widgets

A. When you click on the widget tab you will see a large box at the bottom of your screen with a number of smaller buttons inside it. You will also see one, two or three sidebars depending on the theme you choose.

B. Drag and drop the buttons into the sidebar to add more functions to your sidebar. Keep it simple, and do not clutter you sidebar and remember if you leave a sidebar empty WordPress will add the default buttons

Step 3: Set it so that a page appears at the front of your site

A. Create a new page that you would like to be at the front of your blog

Dashboard>Write>WritePage

You can design the new page later. For now give a title and write single sentence in the text form

B. Create a second page that you will use for your scrolling posts. You can label this blog or post page.

Dashboard>Write>WritePage

This page will serve as your scrolling post page. Create a simple title for it such as posts

C. Move your new static page to the front of your e-Portfolio

Dashboard>Options>Reading

Now you can set a static page to the front of your e-Portfolio by selecting a static page as your front page from the reading options. Dedicate the post page to the page you labeled post. Save and view your e-Porfolio and a page will come up as soon as you enter the site

Step 4: Turn off the comments on the page

Dashboard>Manage>Manage Pages

The last thing that you need to do is open the visual editor on the page you have set to the front of your blog. On the side of the page you will see a box marked allow comments. Uncheck this box and the comment form at the bottom of the page will disappear.

There are two ways of adding functionality to your site. Activating plugins and adding widgets.

Step 1: Activating plugins

Dashboard>Plugins

Choose the desired plugin and click activate

Step 2: Adding widgets

Dashboard>Presentation>Widgets

A. Open your presentation and widget tabs

B. Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose the desired widgets buttons from the box and drag and drop them into the sidebar

Step 3: Adding a Widget Box Widget

Dashboard>Presentation>Widgets

A. Open your presentation and widget tabs

B. Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose the number of widget box widgets to appear in the box. Click save

C. Select one of the widget box buttons from the box in the center of the page and drag into a sidebar

D. Click on the button and follow the links to the widget box web site

E. Choose one of the widgets there and click get code

F. Set the dimensions

G. Copy the code into your web browser and copy the id= code

H. Paste the id code into the widget box widget

1. Embedding and editing pictures using a URL

In order to embed and edit pictures using a URL follow this path

Dashboard>Write>WritePost>

Click on the tree symbol and insert a URL. Make changes to the dimensions, layout and borders

Step 1: Go to the write post tab and click on the image of a tree

Step 2: Copy the URL into the form and edit the required dimensions, border…

2. Embedding a video

In order to embed a video you have a couple options. When we get the dedicated domain you will be able to use the browse button to upload short video links..but the link will open a player on the viewers computer. Secondly you can embed movie players from second parties such as Bit TV, YouTube and Divshare. The privacy levels vary. In the following demonstration I have uploaded a video into YouTube and embedded into my site. Here is the path and procedure:

Dashboard>write>writepost>

Click on the A button and paste the URL for the player into the form

Publish

Step 1

3. Embedding a slideshow

There are a number of second party programs that you can embed a show with. I prefer bubbleshare because of its privacy options, ease of use and simplicity. In order to embed a slideshow first you must create a bubbleshare account, upload your pictures and copy the URL. Then you need to embed the code in your site.

Path: Dashboard>write>writePost> code tab

Step 1: Create a slideshow using bubbleshare www.bubbleshare.com

Step 2: Copy the slideshow code

Step 3: Copy the program into a text editor Start> programs>accesories>notebook

Step4: Embed the code in your site www.your site.edublogs.org

4. Embedding a RSS feed

An RSS feed allows you to receive ongoing updates from a website or whenever a colleague updates their blog. Here is the path and procedure:

Dashboard>Presentation>Widgets>

Select a number of RSS widgets and then drag and drop one into your sidebar. Click on it and copy an RSS feed

Step 1:Open the presentation and widget tab

Step 2: Set the number of RSS feed widgets you want

Step 3: Drag and drop an RSS feed widget into the sidebar

Slideshare 4: Click on it and copy the RSS feed into the form