Wouldn’t it be nice if every time you posted something to your blog, a Tweet would go out informing the Twitter community about it? Well, the folks at Brave New Code have made that possible with a WordPress plugin called WordTwit.

Essentially, WordTwit integrates your WordPress website with your Twitter account. Whenever you publish new content from WordPress, Twitter will automatically be updated with a brief description of your new content along with a link back to it, bringing visitors to your website.

Here’s how it works. When you create a new post from WordPress, WordTwit will Tweet a brief description along with the post’s permalink, allowing your followers on Twitter to easily read your new content. Another neat feature is that  WordTwit can be configured to only Tweet or not Tweet posts with certain tags or categories.

The only note of caution is that you must have a self-hosted WordPress account to install WordTwit. At present, the free accounts offered by WordPress.com and Edublogs.org do not support this plugin.

I have some great news for teachers who use WordPress as their blogging platform of choice.

WordPress 3.0, “Thelonious,” the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the result of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download (or upgrade within your dashboard). Major new features in this release include an elegant new default theme called Twenty Ten.

As a die-hard WordPress user, I am impressed by the new lighter interface, contextual help on every screen, over 1,200 bug fixes and feature enhancements, and a bulk updates feature that allows you to upgrade 15 plugins at once with a single click. Wow!

Need more convincing to upgrade? Check out the video:

By now, anyone gamely following this series should have registered a domain name, set up a web hosting plan, and changed your nameservers to point to your host’s address on the Internet. Now let’s put a face on your website.

In this tutorial, I’m going to be creating a demo site using the domain name eltinternet.com, which I have previously registered. Please substitute your own domain name as you complete the following steps:

1. Log in to your cPanel
2. Install WordPress in the root directory of your website using Fantastico
3. Log in to WordPress
4. Install any themes you have previously downloaded
5. Select a favorite from among them
6. Don’t forget (as I did!) to log out when finished

As I mention during the video, you certainly do not have to use WordPress as your default home page.

If you are familiar with FTP, you can upload a readily-available HTML template. Or, using Fantastico, you might want to install Moodle, Drupal, Joomla, or other content management system as the front door to your site, and put WordPress in a separate directory. That’s the power of self-hosting — you really can have it your way and at an affordable cost.

I should also add that what I’m covering here is merely the scaffolding to support your e-teaching space. The real challenge, of course, is putting together your content.

Coming next: Moodle – installation and considerations for self-hosted teaching sites.

More and more teachers are jumping on the bandwagon and creating some sort of web presence. Many teachers that I know have set up a blog as their  base of online operations. Free services such as Blogger, WordPress, and EduBlogs make it so easy!

These free services are a great place to start. But if you’re like me, at some point you realize their limitations. Caps on storage space or bandwidth. No FTP capability. Unsightly advertising. Inability to use themes other than those provided. Limited customization. You can, of course, upgrade to a premium account to get some of these features. After all, outside of advertising, that’s how these services make their money.

But let’s say you want to expand your web presence with a wiki, bulletin board, forum, or Moodle. Unless your school is doing the hosting or footing the bill, you could end up with a hefty charge at the end of each month.

A more economical solution, and one that is ultimately more flexible and satisfying, is to host your own site. For one low, flat monthly fee, you can set up any number of blogs, wikis, Moodles, etc., and customize them as you like. This is also a very good option for teachers whose schools have unusually tough firewalls or less than cooperative system administrators.

Other self-hosting advantages include:

• No bothersome advertising
• Free email accounts with your own domain name
• Complete control of all your files and information
• Direct upload and download of these files to and from your server
• One-touch installation of WordPress, Moodle, and other scripts
• Complete site backup and restore capability

Where to start?

I would suggest first getting a domain name. Be wary of the “free domain for life” that some web hosts offer. Why? Because if the hosting company goes out of business, or is bought by another firm, your domain name could disappear or be held hostage to extract more money from you (I speak from experience).

Play it safe and get your own name from a third-party domain name registrar and manage it yourself. I use GoDaddy and have no complaints, but there are a number of others to choose from. Expect to pay $8-15/year to secure your domain name.

Tip: No matter where you register your domain, make SURE to keep a safe copy of your username and password. This info is vital for connecting your domain name with your website.

What’s next?

Now that you have a domain name, it’s time to go shopping for the right web host. Details coming up.

I just came across a neat service called Riffly that allows visitors to your WordPress blog to add audio comments via microphone or combined audio/video comments via webcam. More specifically, Riffly is a plugin that for now works only with WordPress blogs.

If you are hosting WordPress on your own server, you simply download the plugin, unzip it, upload the folder to your plugins folder, and then enable the plugin from your dashboard.

The basic service is free but visitors will see an advertisement after leaving a comment. A premium version is available that offers “advertising removal, control panel access, and analytics,” but at a steep price. If you can live with a little advertising, I would definitely opt for the free version.