What Is the Educational Side of WordPress?

WordPress is an open-source content management system that can be used for many things. It’s a massive website builder that’s primarily used for blogging. WordPress (WP) dominates the largest portion of the internet of all CMS platforms. Now, while blogging is the predominant use for this tool, its use in other fields should never be underestimated. To further illustrate this, we’ll try to show you the educational side of WP. Here are several things you need to know.

1. Setting up an educational blog

   Teachers and students can use blogging as a form of a learning experience. Teachers can use a blog to update their students on all the course-relevant matters and upload essential materials. Instead of sticking to the old-school data-transmission methods, teachers can use blogs as more innovative and immersive sharing platforms.

   Educational blogs or edublogs are hardly something new. They support the learning method that involves a higher level of back-and-forth between teachers and students. While this organic discourse exists in offline classrooms, communication in a digital environment (in an educational context) is still far from perfect. This could be an easy way to bridge that gap.

   Besides this, it would be a good exercise in responsibility to bring a couple of students on board as blog administrators. This is especially true in a world with an ever-growing career opportunity in the blogging industry. In a world where many argue that schools prioritize non-practical skills, this would be a fantastic opportunity to prove them wrong.

2. Highly versatile platform

   Another thing worth considering is the versatility of WP. The thing is that WP has so many different themes and plugins that you’ll be able to personalize the learning experience without any trouble. This is a step away from the traditional (rigid) learning structures and a great way to animate your classroom in a non-imposing way.

   You should never underestimate the importance of visual stimuli in learning. Here, you’ll have an opportunity to express your creativity fully. A blog dedicated to a particular subject can borrow themes and motifs. More importantly, you can include your students in the design process, allowing you to test exactly how much they have managed to adopt.

   It’s also important to understand that the design of WP is highly mobile-friendly. Let’s be honest; most of your students are learning via their phones. By providing them with a better mobile experience, you’re making their learning experience more positive. You should never underestimate the importance of perceived convenience on one’s motivation.

3. Efficient way of motivating students

   Previously, we’ve mentioned that people sometimes criticize the educational system for being non-pragmatic. By teaching your students how to use WordPress properly, you can help them acquire one marketable skill. In the business world, they’re likely to need WP skills. Moreover, WP-related skills are often transferable to other areas, as well.

   Intrinsic motivation is everything, and once they realize how many opportunities they’ll get from learning word press, learning should run smoothly. They can start their blog and share their opinions with the world or use their WP skills to find a side gig to supplement their allowance. Overall, this can also be used as a foot in the door. Once you get them interested in WP, it might not be long before they start paying attention to other things.

   Generally speaking, technology is a great way to get young people more interested in education. The application of K-12 education in technology is a perfect example of this. The world we live in is increasingly reliant on technology. Turning a blind eye to this fact does no one a favor.

4. Egalitarian learning environment

   Learning in a digital environment is, in a way, a great way to make learning more egalitarian. What do we mean by that? Well, it’s a form of communication that equally favors introverts and extroverts. Also, because it’s multi-media supportive, it’s easy to integrate learning materials that favor different learning styles. It can even bring learning closer to those suffering from dyslexia.

   It would be impossible for a teacher to achieve this in a traditional classroom fully. Even addressing this after the class (private consultations, sending each student preferred materials, etc.) would be incredibly difficult and time-consuming. With the help of WordPress and edublogs, this problem can be solved in a simple and elegant manner.

   Lastly, this makes learning open for everyone. Transparency is important, and if parents want to check out what you’re about, they can easily do so. You can even give limited editorial access (or full access) to your TAs to facilitate the process. After all, even with all the tools, there’s only so much you can do in a day.

5. It’s always there

   Lastly, your learning process is never really done. Even top doctors and lawyers occasionally consult the book or the internet. If your learning materials are uploaded on a blog, you can access them anytime and with any device. This is great since you never know when you’ll need some of these learning materials.

   This is far superior to when everyone keeps the learning material in storage. After all, people clean up their storage, store too many items, and even forget the name under which they’ve saved them. This means they’ll have an incredibly difficult time finding it when needed. This way, the problem can be solved simply and elegantly.

   Sure, sites can go down, and data can be lost, but this is another valuable lesson to be learned. We’re, of course, talking about the lesson of the importance of backups and proper cybersecurity. It’s not that there aren’t any risks; it’s just that they’re easy to mitigate with a bit of effort.

Wrap up

In the end, WordPress is just a tool. However, it’s a versatile tool with massive potential to be successfully applied in education. It teaches important skills for one’s future job hunt and helps students learn practical skills. Most importantly, it’s relevant to younger generations, meaning they’ll be more immersed in the subject. This will automatically increase the effectiveness of the curriculum.