You can add posts to our site in addition to commenting. You’ll add posts to share drafts and projects, as well as any announcements or resources you want to share with the class.
To add a post to our site:
- First, log in.
- Come to our course site.
- Then click the + in the grey bar at the top of the screen, to add a Post.
- When you write a post, you need to give it a title.
- After the title, you can paste your draft from wherever else you’ve written it.
- The metadata for the post tells me what I need to know about who you are and what your work is, so there’s no need to add a heading to your post with your name or the date or the project number as you might ordinarily do when submitting a formal project.
- You’ll want to check to make sure it all looks ok, that the formatting didn’t get strange when you copied and pasted. Look to make sure you have paragraphs. If you want to, you can learn more about using the block editor.
- If you want to add images within your text, you can add a new block by hitting Enter on your keyboard, and then type /i and choose an image block (or if you’re adding it from Flickr, you can type /f and choose a Flickr block). These options allow you to add an image by uploading it or by pasting in the URL. See below for instructions on including a featured image at the top of the post like I do for each of my posts.
- You can link out to the source of your quotation from one of our mentor texts–copy the link from our class agendas or our course schedule and paste it in your post. For example, if I wanted to talk about how I am part of a discourse community of writing professors, I might write something like:
- In “How to Read like a Writer,” Mike Bunn makes the point that writers have shared experiences in what they notice when they read, which gives them insights into the text. He states “You are already an author, and that means you have a built-in advantage when reading like a writer. All of your previous writing experiences—inside the classroom and out—can contribute to your success with RLW” (75). Here, Bunn shows how the shared understanding, shared language, shared goals of people who are knowledgeable about writing all contribute to a shared ability to notice what matters in a piece of writing. This connects to my feeling of connection with other writing professionals because we have similar habits of noticing, and are able to derive meaning where other people might not notice anything significant.”
- For the next three directions, you’ll need to look for the Post settings. If you’re on a computer, look on the right-hand column. If there is no right-hand column, look for a button on top that looks like a screen divided into a wide column and a narrow column, and click it–the sidebar column should appear, and you’ll see the option for Post or Block. For what we’re doing, you’ll want the post settings, not the block settings, which are for individual blocks rather than the post overall. If you’re on a phone or smaller tablet, you want to look for that button to access those settings–it will show up instead of your post instead of alongside it, and then you can click it again to make it go away.
- You need to choose a category before you publish your post. Find where the categories are, and choose Project 1 Work.
- You can choose who sees your draft. Look for More Visibility Options. The default is everyone. You can change it to only logged in OpenLab members, or only logged in members of our course.
- If you want an image to show at the top of your post like I do with mine, you can set the featured image in the top of the post settings. Choose an image that you have the rights to use–meaning one that you created, one that has a Creative Commons license, or one that’s in the public domain. OpenLab Help has more info to guide you in choosing images. If you add an image, add a photo credit like I do at the bottom of all of my posts.
- If you need to stop working on your post before you publish it, be sure to click Save draft at the top right of the screen. When you’re ready to publish your post, click the blue Publish button. If you make changes after that, you can click Save.
- If you have any trouble, please reach out to me and I can help you.
I’m looking forward to all of us reading what you’ve written about discourse communities and belonging! Remember, Project 1 is due on Wednesday, March 5th.
Photo credit: “Posting up” by namestartswithj89 via Flickr under the license CC BY 2.0.
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