Category: Training Activity Posts

I had quite the time trying to fix my site after breaking it. At first I googled the error message that appeared on my site but it didn’t really bring me to any solutions to my problem. After not finding any solutions that way I looked up what I did wrong and looked for WordPress specific answers. I found a solution on a WordPress forum where someone had a similar problem and were able to fix it. I then followed the instructions on the forum. First I went to Cpanel and found “phpMyAdmin”. Once I clicked on phpMyAdmin then I found wpoption and edited siteurl to what I had originally. After that I went to my dashboard for the training subdomain and entered settings. I went to the general section and changed the site url and WordPress url there as well and saved changes. At first these allowed me to enter my site from the dashboard but not from a search engine so I asked Kayla for help and we figured out that I just needed to clear my cache on my browser.

I had a really fun time learning about the different ways to make a webpage accessible. The most interesting thing for me was learning about alt. text because that was a feature that I had never used or heard of before. In addition to this feature I found it interesting how design elements impact accessibility. For example, I had only thought of font, text size, and background color as part of making your website look good. I had never thought of them as ways to make it easier for people to read and navigate the website. It is also cool to see how the accessibility plugin assists in making your website better by showing you the corrections you should make. I’m excited to learn more about this topic and begin prioritizing it in my future page and post designs.

My main focus today was reorganizing my website and making sure everything was where it is supposed to be and that the site was easy to navigate. I designated the about me page as the homepage for the site with the training posts page as an option in the menu. On the about me page I made sure to link the DKC training site so that if someone were interested as to why I created the page they would be able to find it just by clicking a link! I think I am starting to get the hang of simple WordPress procedure and I am very excited to learn more skills offered by DKC consultants. While I was looking into the services offered in the DKC my attention was grabbed by the video and audio editing. These topics have always interested me and I can’t wait to grow my skills past basic iMovie and Garage band functions. Below I embedded the appointment types page on the DKC website so that the curious minds reading this post can see the range of skills many of the DKC consultants use and teach during their shifts.

This semester I am training to be a consultant at the DKC! By the end of this semester I will have gained new tech skills and will be able to help others make websites like this!

Let’s chat about the customization of my website! I started by changing the theme and creating a page for posts and a special page for a project I am gonna start. This new project is gonna be a page where I post the link to a song I like every day and include why I chose it. Throughout this process I learned a lot about WordPress and definitely still have more to learn. One thing in particular was how to create and edit pages. Thank you for reading! As a treat here is the link to my favorite break up scene from my favorite tv show. 

Today I created a site using sites@umw! The main difference I noticed between Sites and DoOO is in their abilities and uses. In general you can do more with DoOO. Sites is only site building using WordPress while on Domain of One’s Own you can install other applications for site building and other needs. In this way the uses of Sites are very limited. Overall I enjoy the formatting of Sites a lot and for a beginner it is a lot less intimidating and a good way to become familiar with using WordPress.

This website will be dedicated to my training semester at Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center! If you wanna keep up with my assigned posts and projects, check out my Training Posts page!

A Little Bit About Me

My name is Ally and I am a Freshman at the University of Mary Washington. I plan to major in English and my favorite book of all time is “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. Outside of class I love music and act as the social media manager of the acapella group One Note Stand. I sing all the time and often accompany myself on the guitar or ukulele. I plan to carry this love of music into my work at the DKC. On my main website I post a song everyday and once I gain more training I hope to become proficient in audio and video production software. Hopefully you know me a little better now and have some context for my future posts!