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RSS Using RSS is an effective way of making your site more interactive. For example, if you set up a site for your cohorts you could subscribe to the e-coaching website and whenever I put up information about WordPress it will automatically update on your site. You can also subscribe to the feeds of other e-coaches. The purpose is to create more fluid communication and better information sharing.

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

Ways of Making Your e-Portfolio Look Like a Web Site Rather Than a Blog

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:

EdublogsContempt: a clean theme..looks professional as a web page, but a little narrowAndreas O9: A wider theme with colour choices..no customizable header

Blue Zinfandel Enhanced 2.0: Another wide theme lacking a customizable header

Blue Moon: A wider, darker theme

Cutline: a wide and clean theme

CleanTidy: another wide and clean theme

WordPress.comCutline: same as aboveContempt: same as above

Chaos Theory: a wide darker theme

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.

Adding Functionality to Your Site

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