I don’t usually usually pay for WordPress plugins but this is one I’ve come to like1 quite a bit. To start off, I have a historic interest in facet based searching. It is one of the main things that continues to appeal to me about Exhibit (one of the earlier javascript based tool libraries aimed […]
I got an email from a professor who was using Gravity Forms to allow students to create blog posts. The problem was that when they submitted posts via the form the category ended up being the default category no matter what was selected. Here’s a few of the things I did trying to figure out […]
Our Sociology Department Chair, Jennifer Johnson, is out there leading the way for the Sociology Department at VCU. She’s not only thinking through how syndication will impact the design of their entire program and curriculum (online and off), she’s also teaching a course on Sociological Theory in a way that shows how student work can […]
The Concept FeedWordPress is the plugin that allows us to create our “mother blogs.” Consider it an example of the “you are what you eat” concept. The “mother blog” is composed of the consumed feeds. FeedWordPress is our spoon. The mother takes all the student posts from their personal sites and unites them in one […]
Two pretty telling student quotes from the video1 above. “I was real excited that our blog is now an example for anyone. If you want to look up high bush clover you can look on one of our blogs and find our pictures.” “I think that knowing that the blog and the material would be […]
VCU is reading The Circle by Dave Eggers. All of the first year students will read the book in addition to a number of different faculty members and it’ll play various roles in various classes. So all that means lots of potential for interesting connections but very, very little consistency or hope for consistency.1 The […]
I’ve been having quite a few conversations around student portfolios eportfolios online representations of their learning over time. These conversations have mostly centered on using WordPress and, almost inevitably, the first instinct is to create a series of pages that are aligned to either courses or assignments. Those pages usually contain a number of different […]
I turned on the Tiled Galleries (directions on that link) in the WordPress Jetpack Plugin. This is an example of what it looks like. It’s easy to do and has some decent options. You do have to accept what you’re given but such is the price of convenience . . . […]
Here are a few things that have come up recently that might be of value to others wandering the FeedWordPress/FeedWordPress Advanced Filters Syndication highway. Same Name, Different Pictures I ran into this with the Field Botany page. A variety of factors came into play here. We now have over 1300 posts with at least one […]
The Field Botany class is underway and the vegetation is rolling in despite floods and hail. There are 20 student participating on 20 different blogs. Right now we have almost 700 posts in the mother blog. Amazing to see all this great work and to be able to keep it instead of having it stuck […]