Overview of creating an Online Course with WordPress and LMS Plugins

Creating online courses in WordPress is easier than ever with the help of some amazing LMS (Learning Management Systems) plugins. It’s a great business model, considering the low startup costs, profits, ability to share your knowledge, and flexibility. What’s that? I think I hear the school bell ringing. So, let’s get to it… Here’s a bit of what I’ll be going over: Why even launch an online course using WordPress? Do you need an LMS plugin? 3rd party sites (and why they’re probably not best) Creating online courses in WordPress

Source: How to Create an Online Course with WordPress and LMS Plugins :: wpmudev

Good overview of the pros and cons of building a course using WordPress and some third party plugins. Key thing to remember is that you’re still responsible for all the content, WP + plugins just give you a framework to offer the course in.

Podcast Hosting with WordPress: Your Advanced Guide | Barn2 Media

Setting up your own podcast hosting isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Our step-by-step guide covers all you need to know to quickly set up your own self-hosted podcast library on a WordPress website, measure your podcast’s success and submit it to iTunes.

Source: Podcast Hosting with WordPress: Your Advanced Guide | Barn2 Media

Podcasting is easier than ever with WordPress and this is a pretty good guide to get you started.

VersionPress Brings the Power of Git to WordPress

One of the best things about WordPress is how easy it is to make sweeping changes to a website in just a few minutes. But with no easy way to revert a website to a previous state, you can lose a lot of work very quickly if you aren’t careful. VersionPress brings the power of Git to WordPress so you can make as many changes as your want with the knowledge that undoing any change is just a click away.

Source: Setting Up VersionPress for Git-Powered WordPress Version Control – WPMU DEV

Appears to work for both content and backend changes which would be handy. Not sure how it would work on large multisite installs like Classcaster or Lawbooks.

FBI Warns of ISIL Defacement Attacks on WordPress Sites

The FBI issued a public service announcement today [April 7, 2015], warning concerning WordPress website attacks being carried out by individuals sympathetic to the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL) a.k.a. Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS). The perpetrators of these attacks are defacing sites across various platforms such as news organizations, businesses, government sites, and religious institutions.

via FBI Warns of ISIL Defacement Attacks on WordPress Sites.

Everyone running WordPress out there needs to make sure they’re patched up and security is tight on your WP sites. CALI’s Classcaster and other WordPress sites are up to date and secure.

15+ Must-Have Tools For Every WordPress Admin – WPMU DEV. http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/15-must-have-tools-for-every-wordpress-admin/

The WordPress ecosystem is as colorful and varied as it is large. From the smallest personal blogs to directories of impressive size and complexity, the full spectrum is indeed a diverse one indeed.
Managing our site can be a hassle, though, especially as they become more and more complex. Luckily there are great tools that can help us in our daily administrative tasks.

25 Useful Plugins for WordPress Multisite Networks

There’s always a lot of discussion on the WPMU DEV forums about this very topic, so I asked our support crew and developers what plugins they recommend people install on their network.
Whether you’re new to running a Multisite network or have been hosting your own network for some time, you’re sure to find many of the plugins below (in no particularly order) useful for managing your sites.

via 25 Must-Have Plugins for WordPress Multisite Networks – WPMU DEV.

If you’re running a multisite WordPress install this list of plugins is a pretty good place to start in the search for the right mix of features to run the network smoothly and provide useful options to your bloggers. We use many of these plugins on Classcaster, the free podcasting and blogging network for CALI members.

 

And Who Says Law Students Wouldn’t Benefit From More Tech Training?

Frustrated by ridiculous bills for routine “commodity” matters, Flaherty decided to strike back, and recently launched his technology audit program, where firms bidding for Kia’s business must bring a top associate for a live test of their skills using basic, generic business tech tools such as Microsoft Word and Excel, for simple, rudimentary tasks.

So far, the track record is zero. Nine firms have taken the test, and all failed. One firm flunked twice.

“The audit should take one hour,” said Flaherty, “but the average pace is five hours.” In real life, that adds up to a whole lot of wasted money, he said. Flaherty uses the test to help him decide winners of the beauty contests, and to set rates and set performance goals. “I take 5 percent off every bill until they pass the test.”

via Big Law Whipped for Poor Tech Training.

This article is full of fun facts including things like less than 30% of associates know how to use the save to PDF function of Word with the rest printing then scanning documents to PDF. The reality here is that just because someone knows how to turn on computer and start typing does not mean they have any idea how to use the machine or the applications needed to function in the profession. Seriously, buying stuff on eBay should not be considered an advanced computer skill.

This presents a huge opportunity for the legal ed tech community (let’s call them Teknoids) to step up and provide the sort of instruction and training that is needed to turn smart law students into techno-capable lawyers. The practice of law is becoming more and more technical every day. Innovations in practice technology are requiring an increasing level of sophistication that isn’t going to get picked up on the street. Law students need training in the use of technical tools of their chosen profession. It is that simple.

I think this calls for something well beyond the LPM seminar or other small classes that reach only a fraction of the students. This sort of training needs to be required of each and every law student. Some of it can be added to the required research and writing programs as sessions that look at the features, basic and advanced, of standard software tools like word processors and spreadsheets. Make those programs paperless. Require students to use available tools to create PDFs and submit their work electronically. Require faculty to review and comment on the work in the same electronic format. Simply being able to master these tasks would probably get most law students through the audit described in the article.

Perhaps law schools should develop their own tech audit, a sort of technical bar exam. Students who complete the exercises would receive a certificate that indicates they’ve achieved a certain level of technical competency in a set of software tools. Wouldn’t it be great if law schools had access to some sort of platform to create these sorts of exercises, distribute them to students, track student results, and issue certifications? You with me here? This is something that could be done with the CALI platform. CALI Author for creating and authoring the exercises, Classcaster for Lesson distribution, the CALI Lesson system for student tracking. It’s all there, just waiting for someone to pick it up and run with it.

How about it Teknoids? Care to step up and get a piece of the change coming to legal education?