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Training DVDs on WordPress Now Available

Most new web sites and all new blogs at Palomar College are using our installation of WordPress. WordPress makes site/blog management so easy that after initial setup—which in itself is easy—all you need do is type your content and add your graphics or other media. It all works well, but if you are completely new to WordPress, or simply curious about what WordPress can do and how it does it, you might want to view one of the lynda.com training DVDs we have made available through the library.

Here is the course description from the lynda.com web site:

"In WordPress 3 Essential Training, author Morten Rand-Hendriksen shows how to use WordPress 3 to create feature-rich blogs and web sites. The course covers both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.org web sites and includes a walkthrough of common tasks in WordPress, from setting up an account to launching self-hosted sites. Also included are tutorials on inserting media, installing plugins, creating custom themes, and incorporating search engine optimization. Exercise files accompany the course."

Just ask for the WordPress DVDs at the San Marcos campus library circulation desk. Blackboard 9.x training DVDs are also available in the same place. If you prefer in-person training, Chris Norcross will be conducting a "Getting Started with WordPress" workshop on Friday, April 27 from 9-11AM in room LL-109, and an online webinar titled "Easy Web Sites with WordPress" at 2PM on Tuesday, May 1. Professional Development credit is available for the DVDs and workshops through the PD office.

Upcoming Training

We encourage faculty members who want to improve existing or develop new technology skills to attend one of the following workshops or webinars. Over the next few weeks we will be offering:

Date	Workshop	Time	Room
Friday March 30	How to Edit Video with Camtasia (workshop)	9-11 AM	LL-109
Tuesday April 3	No Fooling, Archive Your Courses (webinar)	2 PM	online
Tuesday April 10	Google Docs (webinar)	2 PM	online
Tuesday April 17	Remember Everything with Evernote (webinar)	2 PM	online
Friday April 20	eTexts, eReaders and eTextbooks (workshop)	9-11 AM	LL-109
Tuesday April 24	Blogging and Journaling in Blackboard (webinar)	2 PM	online
Friday April 27	Getting Started with WordPress (workshop)	9-11 AM	LL-109

Our complete training descriptions can be found here, and our tabular schedule of events here.

Blackboard course shells for summer 2012 were created last week. Therefore David Gray has published a quick guide to copying previous course content into the new, as-yet-to-be-populated course shells. In addition to David's blog post he delivered a webinar on the topic, and saved an archive from the webinar here.

New Look for Our Blog

We have recently purchased and installed WordPress themes from ElegantThemes. These very good looking themes are available to all Palomar faculty and staff members who wish to have a WordPress web site or blog. In fact, if you want our staff to customize one of these themes to meet your needs, we would be glad to work with you. Just create a help ticket to get the ball rolling.

In the mean time, we have adopted one of the new ElegantThemes for our own blog, and customized it in a couple of ways to make it our own. Please take a look at our blog, and take a look at our WordPress Central How-To to find out how to get started. Here is our new blog look (reduced size):