WP in a classroom – "invites" problem

  • Unknown's avatar
    elainesohn2014 · Member ·

    I’ve read some previous threads – one from several years ago, as it happens – that say that this is less “robust” than it ought to be, and it’s devilishly perplexing and frustrating…. I’m using WP to encourage adult students to write. To that end, I started a blog on WP.com and invited 20+ students to become contributors. Over about 2 days, 4 of them “came through,” one every 6-12 hours. It’s almost as if they wind up in a queue, and a WP employee “takes them by the hand.” I “invited my husband,” and we now can rule out “user error” – it took 24 hours for HIM to make it through the gates. Anybody have a clue?

    Suggestion for developers – allow the administrator to add individuals (even 10 at a time) as contributors, maybe designating their new usernames along with their emails … so that they can blog immediately.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    lorelle · Member ·

    I do this on a regular basis and while I haven’t found out why there are complications with this, the key is to have them use the email addresses for invites, not usernames. That speeds up the process.

    I teach a WordPress course in college, and we have contributor sites and each student has their own site, which I also recommend in this case. You can track all of those sites easily, and embed the feed into the sidebar of the teacher’s site, using RSSMixer to create a single feed for multiple sites.

    For the contributor site, I use all the emails with a comma between them, and set them to be Authors (except for those chosen to be Editors) not contributors. If they are Contributors, they cannot add images, and images may be part of your homework. The emails work much faster than the usernames.

    Still, this requires each student sign up for WordPress.com, so here is the order in which I do this.

    1. Before the class starts (or first day if you do not have their emails), send instructions on how to sign up for just a username (save that link) if the students will not be starting their own site.
    2. Have them email (or write down on a list) the email used to REGISTER for the username or WordPress.com blog. (My students often have multiple emails and they forget which one they used, so make this IMMEDIATE.)
    3. You add the emails to the New Users (comma between each email) invite, set to the role of Author.
    4. Remind students to search for WordPress.com in their email as these can often be funneled to spam or social media/promotions and other folders.
    5. If they do not respond within a few minutes (if in class or whenever is appropriate if outside), resend the invite.

    I do all of this before the first day of class to get as many as possible added to the site before they walk in the door. There will always be someone dragging their feet who don’t know how to even use email, but you can help them in class.

    I’ve found that this speeds up the process. Wish I knew why it was delayed, but this is my solution for my college students and trainee clients.

    Good luck with it and I’m thrilled you are using WordPress in your classes. Please let me know through my site if I can help you more, one teacher to another. Thanks!

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