Setting Up Your Website Profile
A fair amount of the work for this course will take place on our course webpage. To get started, you should have received an email inviting you to sign up for the website. This is a separate login from your normal campus login. If you haven’t received one, try using this link to reset your password (use your college email address). If you still don’t receive the invitation that way (or the reset tells you your account doesn’t exist), email me and I’ll set you up manually.
Next, click here to access your profile settings.
Add your name, and set your nickname to display what you’d like people to call you. Next, find or take a picture you’d like to use as an Avatar. It can be a picture of you, or an image or icon you’d like to use to represent yourself.
Scroll down to the very bottom of your profile page, past the first, false opportunity to add a profile photo, to the section that looks like this except with no picture:
Click “Choose from Media Library”, then “Select Files.” Find the image file you’d like to use, click “open,” then in the lower right click “Select Avatar and Crop.” Crop your image as you’d like it to appear, then click “crop.” You should now see it set as your Avatar.
Finally, click the “Update Profile” button at the bottom of the page. Now you’re ready to participate in website activities!
How to Post to the Course Website
Over the course of the semester, you’ll have several opportunities to post to the course website. The most important will be your Erga, but you may want to post to the site as a form of out-of-class contribution or for other reasons as well.
When writing longer posts, I would recommend composing them first in Word / Google Docs; you don’t want to accidentally get logged out and lose your progress. When you’re ready to post something to the site, click here to go to the login screen. Once you’re logged in, hover your mouse over “+ New” in the upper left of the screen, and click on “Post.”
This will take you to the post editor. You should give your post a title that indicates who you are and what the post is about (like “Matt’s Literary Analysis Ergon”). Paste the text you’ve written as the body of your post; you can create different “Blocks” to add images, link to videos, etc. Please do not post large pieces of media to the site; link to videos or audio on other platforms instead (including your free, unlimited Box folder; ask me if you don’t know how to use this!). The interface we’re using is called “WordPress” – if you can’t figure out how to do something with your post you’d like to do, you’ll find quick answers by googling “WordPress” and a description of what you want to do.
When you’ve finished your post, put your cursor on the post title at the top of the page, and then look over at the menu on the right. You’ll see an option for “Categories.” Deselect “Uncategorized” and select the appropriate category; for example, “Erga” if you’re posting an ergon assignment.
When your post is ready, you can click the blue “Publish” button in the upper right. It’ll ask if you’re sure; once you confirm, your post will appear on the website! You can always click on your post and then edit it if something doesn’t look right.
Let me know if you have any questions! I can see your unpublished drafts, so let me know if you’d like me to look over anything before you share it with the class.
