[wp-edu] wp-edu Digest, Vol 30, Issue 1

Fri Dec 9 16:18:59 UTC 2011

Mr. King,

Multisite, without question, is the way to go.

I'm from Henrico and we tied in LDAP with this plugin http://wpmuldap.tuxdocs.net/  You get a blog on login that's named with your LDAP username.  We are not currently allowing users to add additional blogs on their own.

It's working well for us with 2,566 blogs and 26,100 users as of today.

If you'd like any other information, I'm happy to try to help.

Tom

Tom Woodward
Assistant Director
Instructional Technology
Henrico County Public Schools
804-652-3031

On Dec 9, 2011, at 9:26 AM, <wp-edu-request at lists.automattic.com<mailto:wp-edu-request at lists.automattic.com>> wrote:

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Today's Topics:

  1. Wordpress for all! (King, Mr A)
  2. Re: Wordpress for all! (Tim Owens)
  3. Re: Wordpress for all! (King, Mr A)

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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 13:45:32 +0000
From: "King, Mr A" <a.king at macmillan-academy.org.uk>
Subject: [wp-edu] Wordpress for all!
To: "'wp-edu at lists.automattic.com'" <wp-edu at lists.automattic.com>
Message-ID:
<3791CC6677D37747BF2CF983FCD67F5D06C3F6 at Mac1.macmillan-academy.org.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi,

I am head of ICT in a secondary school in Middlesbrough, UK. I have used WordPress for a number of years as a personal teacher blog - http://www.macmillan-academy.org.uk/staff_blogs/mr_king/

I am happy to say that since its introduction, we now have a large number of staff with their own personal Blog.

I am looking into the feasibility of getting every student who joins us their own blog. I want them to use it to showcase their work throughout their school life and for friends, family and teachers to comment on the work they produce. I think it will help to instill pride in the work they produce.

I would like to know what are the options for proceeding. We are a large school with 220+ students in each year group, so setting the blogs up student by student like we do for the teachers is not an option. I have heard something about WordPress MU, but not sure if this is related?

Ideally, we would like to export a CSV list of our students accounts from our Network from active directory, and for this in some way to be used to generate individual student blogs.

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

Adrian

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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 09:02:02 -0500
From: Tim Owens <genial at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [wp-edu] Wordpress for all!
To: wp-edu at lists.automattic.com
Message-ID:
<CAPaV0RR52e050Ab2PGunodV5kDfBaR0ZfiCdEjc7=b6V9k8cTQ at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Multisite is absolutely what you're looking for (previously called
Wordpress MU but it's now built into Wordpress). I'd highly recommend this
ebook to get you started on that setup:
http://wpebooks.com/2010/09/how-to-enable-multisite-in-wordpress/.

You can setup blogs from a CSV file using this paid plugin as well:
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/batch-create although some on the list
here may know of some free options for accomplishing that task. Another
option you might consider is having a blog automatically be created the
first time a student logs in (could reduce the number of blogs that might
get generated automatically and then remain empty). There are plugins to
build in Active Directory login for the system and then when they login the
blog would be created. I know some folks doing that in a K12 environment in
Henrico, VA and can likely get documentation if you'd like to go that route.

We run a rather large multisite setup here at the University of Mary
Washington for a few years now and it's great for collaboration. We have
courses running solely on that system instead of a learning management
system and we have organizations using it to publish their content like the
school newspaper. I think you'll be quite pleased with what it has to
offer. If you have any questions don't hesitate to let me know!

Tim Owens

*Instructional Technology Specialist*

*University of Mary Washington*

*(540) 654-1510*

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 8:45 AM, King, Mr A
<a.king at macmillan-academy.org.uk>wrote:

Hi,****

I am head of ICT in a secondary school in Middlesbrough, UK. I have used
WordPress for a number of years as a personal teacher blog -
http://www.macmillan-academy.org.uk/staff_blogs/mr_king/****

I am happy to say that since its introduction, we now have a large number
of staff with their own personal Blog.****

I am looking into the feasibility of getting every student who joins us
their own blog. I want them to use it to showcase their work throughout
their school life and for friends, family and teachers to comment on the
work they produce. I think it will help to instill pride in the work they
produce.****

I would like to know what are the options for proceeding. We are a large
school with 220+ students in each year group, so setting the blogs up
student by student like we do for the teachers is not an option. I have
heard something about WordPress MU, but not sure if this is related?****

Ideally, we would like to export a CSV list of our students accounts from
our Network from active directory, and for this in some way to be used to
generate individual student blogs.****

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.****

Many thanks****

Adrian ****

** **

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wp-edu mailing list
wp-edu at lists.automattic.com
http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-edu

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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 14:25:54 +0000
From: "King, Mr A" <a.king at macmillan-academy.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [wp-edu] Wordpress for all!
To: "'wp-edu at lists.automattic.com'" <wp-edu at lists.automattic.com>
Message-ID:
<3791CC6677D37747BF2CF983FCD67F5D06C418 at Mac1.macmillan-academy.org.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Many thanks Tim - this is excellent information.

I think purchasing the e-book is a good start, although the automatic creation of a blog using Active Directory also sounds good.  If you could find anything from your contact in Henrico that would be much appreciated.

Many thanks for your time

____________________________________
Adrian King
Head of ICT
Macmillan Academy
Stockton Road
Middlesbrough
TS5 4AG

Tel | 01642 800 800 (Switchboard)
Tel | 01642 354 481 (Direct Line)
http://www.macmillan-academy.org.uk<http://mac1.macmillan-academy.org.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=e6afd10a771644d5933853bb1b716bf0&URL=http%3a%2f%2fexchange.macmillan-academy.org.uk%2fexchweb%2fbin%2fredir.asp%3fURL%3dhttp%3a%2f%2fwww.macmillan-academy.org.uk>

From: wp-edu-bounces at lists.automattic.com [mailto:wp-edu-bounces at lists.automattic.com] On Behalf Of Tim Owens
Sent: 09 December 2011 14:02
To: wp-edu at lists.automattic.com
Subject: Re: [wp-edu] Wordpress for all!

Multisite is absolutely what you're looking for (previously called Wordpress MU but it's now built into Wordpress). I'd highly recommend this ebook to get you started on that setup: http://wpebooks.com/2010/09/how-to-enable-multisite-in-wordpress/.

You can setup blogs from a CSV file using this paid plugin as well: http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/batch-create although some on the list here may know of some free options for accomplishing that task. Another option you might consider is having a blog automatically be created the first time a student logs in (could reduce the number of blogs that might get generated automatically and then remain empty). There are plugins to build in Active Directory login for the system and then when they login the blog would be created. I know some folks doing that in a K12 environment in Henrico, VA and can likely get documentation if you'd like to go that route.

We run a rather large multisite setup here at the University of Mary Washington for a few years now and it's great for collaboration. We have courses running solely on that system instead of a learning management system and we have organizations using it to publish their content like the school newspaper. I think you'll be quite pleased with what it has to offer. If you have any questions don't hesitate to let me know!

Tim Owens

Instructional Technology Specialist

University of Mary Washington

(540) 654-1510

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 8:45 AM, King, Mr A <a.king at macmillan-academy.org.uk<mailto:a.king at macmillan-academy.org.uk>> wrote:

Hi,