NOTE: These instructions are for students who have created their own accounts on WordPress.com and who are maintaining blogs there. If you’re looking for instructions on how to use my web sites, see the entries under Using WordPress instead. WordPress.com is a web site that is run by the WordPress software, but the creators of the site have limited what blog owners can do with their sites, so the features available on a WordPress.com Dashboard will not be the same as what’s available on the Dashboard for one of my sites.
These are the steps I covered in class on our first day with the blogs. I’ll add more instructions over time.
(1) To set up your wordpress.com blog, log into your wordpress.com account and then put your mouse over My Blogs in the dark grey bar at the very top of the page. You should see your blog appear in a list under My Blogs. Put your mouse over your blog name and a side menu should appear. Drag over to Dashboard and click.
(2) On the Dashboard, click on the Posts tab and then on the Post Categories link. Create a new category called Site News. You’ll need to create some additional categories later.
(3) Click on the Settings tab, which will take you to the General settings page. Change the title and subtitle of your blog, as needed. Pick the right time zone. Click the blue Save Changes button at the bottom.
(4) Click on the link to Writing under the Settings tab. Change the Size of the post box to something bigger than 10 (maybe 14 or 20). Change the Default Post Category to “Site News” (which you set up in a previous step). Later, after you’ve set up some link categories, you can return to these settings and choose a default link category.
(5) Click on the link to Discussion from under the Settings tab and change those settings to match the ones in the screen shot. (You can pick whatever settings you want under Email me whenever)
(6) Click on the Appearance tab, which will take you to the Themes page. Search through the thousands of available themes to find one you like and activate it.
For more details on setting up your blog, see the WordPress.com support pages
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