Browsing Tag

WordPress education themes

WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes

5 teaching plugins should be included in WordPress education themes

October 21, 2015

WordPress is one of the most used platforms for academic researchers and the professionals who teaching online. To improve usability and productivity of WordPress education themes, there are interesting plugins designed for the field of education.

A plugin is basically an application that complements the functionality or content. They are generally easy to install and here you can find some of the best ones developed for WordPress education themes.

Top 5 teaching plugins should be included in WordPress education themes

1. Class Blogs

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The Class Blogs plugin simplifies the creation of content in a classroom blog with all students. It facilitates organization and analysis of the work created by your students. With this plugin you can show:

  • Entries and comments recently published by students
  • A tag cloud formed from the labels used by students in their entries
  • YouTube videos embedded on student input
  • A randomly selected image entry from students
  • Links to watch the inputs of each student

One of the features making the plugin suitable for responsive WordPress education themes is that it provides additional management pages for teachers and students, which you’ll see when logging to create new content. These admin pages allow users to:

  • View a table with all input and feedback from students sorted by date
  • View the number of words on the inputs and comments of students, broken down by week
  • Disable comments on all current and future entries
  • The student also has an additional management page where they can:
  • Create a nickname or changing your username
  • See how many words they have written this week

This plugin also includes a new aesthetic for the blog in order to submit entries from students in a more clear and easy way to navigate. Instead of displaying the entries sorted by date, the main page shows the most recent entries grouped by student, with new content always appears first.

2. mTouch Quiz

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The mTouchQuiz plugin allows you to add polls to your WordPress education themes and tests in order to see whether students have understood a topic or motivate a game show through questions and answers. This plugin is very versatile and very easy to use and adapted to mobile devices so that students can respond at any time. It also allows you to:

  • Include tracks when choosing the wrong answer
  • Add a detailed explanation of the solution
  • Offer multiple correct answers
  • Specify when correct answers are shown
  • Specify the number of attempts to answer the question
  • Specify the score achieved on each question

3. WP Document Revisions

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Revisions Document WP is a document manager that allows a group of students or teachers to work together to edit files of any format (spreadsheets, text, images, etc.).

The plugin lets users see in an instant the progress of a team and change history, even with the option to return to a previous version. Also students can receive RSS notifications of any changes in the document. Each document is assigned a URL that can be private, password protected or public. It is highly customizable and very useful in the work of a thesis. So it should be included in WordPress education themes.

4. WP LaTeX

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Write equations and formulas in a blog or web page can be complicated, but this plugin combines the power of LaTeX and simplicity of WordPress to teach mathematics in the classroom blog. If you want to create the best WordPress education themes with mathematical features then this plugin will help.

5. WP Hide Post

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WP Hide Post allows full control over the visibility of any blog post on a WordPress site. By default, any input is immediately displayed on front page in the first position. Sometimes you may want to give information to students through the blog to expand a curriculum issue, but it does not mean that the entry has a prominent place on the blog. This plugin allows you to hide that entry on the home page and students can only access it if having its link.

What is the essential plugin that you have used for your WordPress education themes? Share yours now!

Featured, WordPress Themes

Pros & cons of choosing premium WordPress education themes

October 16, 2015

Premium WordPress education themes have become a critical part of professional WordPress sites aimed at education. However, with a lot of premium theme authors and shops out there, it can be difficult for you to consider their products’ potential downsides. Hopefully the following pros and cons will help.

Pros of Premium WordPress Education Themes

Official Support

Most premium education WordPress themes come with official support via forum, email, or phone in a period of time. Some theme authors even offer lifetime support for their users. This is a huge bonus for users. Particularly, the users will have the theme author answer their technical questions about item’s features, as well as help to fix reported bugs and issues or to solve problems related to the included third party assets.

High Quality

Quality is one of the primary factors that consumers are interested in when reviewing a commercial product. Hence, the quality of premium WordPress education themes, whose aim is to make money, is much higher than free items. For the theme developers and marketplaces, high quality creates a positive feedback loop where their themes are continually getting better as more and more users come to use them.

Advanced Functionality

Premium education WordPress themes usually come with advanced functionality such as advanced plugins (Visual Composer, Revolution Slider, etc.) and advanced admin panels which make customization and site configuration much easier.

Better Design

WordPress education themes

The design of premium WordPress education themes is usually much better in every aspect, from page templates to widgets and back-end admin menus. An education site with clean and beautiful design goes a long way towards promoting your brand and attracting your potential students or customers.

Security

Security is a priority for premium WordPress education theme authors/shops. In order to get a foothold in the theme market, they have to invest in meeting the high security standards of their customers.

Frequent Updates

The update cycle with premium WordPress education themes tends to be tighter. This affects not only the theme compatibility but many other things, from small bugs to big security issues. There are a thousand little issues which can arise from an out of date WordPress theme. The only way to avoid them is frequent updates, which premium theme authors/shops tend to be better at.

Cons of Premium WordPress Education Themes

WordPress education themes

High Price Point

The price point for your favorite education WordPress themes may be quite high and yet still require further licensing fees. If you only run a small education site and not actually earn enough money to offset your theme costs, a premium theme with annual licensing fees can burn your wallet.

No Official Review Process

Currently, there is still no official review process for premium WordPress themes. This means that premium theme authors are able to ignore WordPress development best practices in certain areas. This sometimes causes minor annoyances, even costs a lot more.

Theme Bloat

Premium WordPress education themes have a higher potential for “theme bloat” than free ones. This is a trade-off to have more features and better functionality. Also, the theme bloat is more likely to drag your website speed into the gutter.

Item No Longer Available

When the theme that you purchased is taken down from the shop or the authors stop selling it, this means you no longer receive updates and support. Consequently, you may not only have to transition to another theme but also be out of your money.

WordPress Tutorials

6 ways to insert charts into WordPress education themes

August 19, 2015

Beside the images, bloggers often want to present the statistics under the charts and graphs to help readers access easier. According to the default settings of WordPress in general and WordPress education themes particularly, it is impossible to create charts or graphs but there are some codes, plugin or API library to enable the users to insert the interactive charts and graphs. Some people like to use the simple method such as setting up and using plugin while some prefer using codes or API. Therefore, depending on design requirements, you can choose the suitable one.

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The list below provides you six methods to insert charts and graphs into WordPress in general and WordPress themes on education in particular.

ChartBoot for WordPress

This is a useful plugin for inserting the available graphs of Google into the WordPress generally and WordPress themes on education in particular. Thanks to it, you can directly create or edit the graphs of Google from the inside of dashboard. You can input the data for the graphs from Excel and then insert into the WordPress education themes after completing the settings. You can also choose the position for the graph by copying and pasting its shortcode to the appropriate chart.

Easy Graphs

This plugin is quite flexible in creating bar, line and pie; meaning that its shortcode can accept detailed specifications for data and other information in order to create a complete one. If you want to compare two values of the data on the same pie chart, this plugin will be a great choice.

JSXGraph – Graphics with JavaScript

If you want to insert the geometric charts into the WordPress or WordPress education themes, you should choose this plugin. All charts in the plugin can automatically update the data. It is extremely useful for education websites as it help students insert the charts into the post more conveniently.

Google Docs Spreadsheet Charts

chart - wordpress education themes

You can also use Google spreadsheet to create charts for WordPress themes on education. To take the data, you need to press Publish chart after input. The chart is directly linked with Google Docs Spreadsheet Charts and automatically updated when the data is modified. This method is effective, reliable and highly recommended when doing surveys with the ever-changing data.

Easy Chart Builder

This plugin provides you an easy and direct way to create charts. You can edit the size for the chart to make it fit with mobile themes (Interactive with Responsive Theme). You can also insert charts into widget areas and custom pages.

Google Visualization Charts

It is an ideal plugin for different charts. You can directly enter the information of the chart into a shortcode and set it up in the suitable position in the WordPress site. After activated, Google Visualization Charts will automatically fetch the API code of Google to create charts. Moreover, the plugin supports a size adjustment feature which helps your charts look great on mobile phones and tablets.

Featured, WordPress Themes

Premium WordPress education themes for higher ed

August 13, 2015

It is no doubt that WordPress is one of the most used CMS worldwide. People use it not only for business websites but also for educational ones. Universities and higher education institutions are leveraging the flexibility of WordPress to power their websites, from main site to student portfolios and faculty sites.

If you are in higher education, this collect will help you choose the most suitable education theme for your website. The collection includes six most popular WordPress education themes for online courses and LMS on ThemeForest market.

 1. Clever Course

This flexible WordPress theme is suitable for online courses. Clever Course is fully responsive, easy to use and feature rich. It allows you to create and sell online courses, create onsite courses and online quiz, add many payment methods to the site and so on. With this theme, you can create an impressive and multifunctional website for your institute. wordpress education themes 1

Price: $58

2. University

University is one of the trending higher education WordPress themes on ThemeForest. It fits not only eLearning System and online courses but business, events and shopping. The theme’s key features include: events and tick selling, course enroll and payment, LearnDash and WooCommerce support, Visual Composer page builder, Slider Revolution, translation ready, one-click sample data, auto updates and much more. By using those features, you can easily turn your education website into a professional and multifunctional site.

wordpress education themes 2

Price: $58

3. Grand College

Grand College is an elegant WordPress theme for university and higher education sites. It has clean design and many powerful options such as easy-to-use admin panel, drag-drop Page Builder, unlimited sidebars, 6 footer layouts, 4 blog styles and drag-drop slider manager. Also, the theme is translation ready, SEO friendly and frequently updated.

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Price: $48

4. Academy

This is a fully responsive WordPress education theme, which is especially designed for learning and teaching online. It provides various features for a learning management system, including tracking course progress, extended user profiles, rating and questions systems, WooCommerce integration, embedding self-hosted media and file attachments, etc. With this theme, you can selling and sharing your knowledge online without barriers.

wordpress education themes

Price: $58

5. WPLMS

WPLMS is one of the best higher education WordPress themes for online course management. Its features a number of child themes, instructor dashboard, student dashboard and various touch points, etc. The theme includes 8 custom plugins exclusively built for it. Besides, WPLMS supports many popular plugins like BuddyPress, BBPress and WooCommerce.

wordpress education themes 5

Price: $63

6. The Keynote

This conference and event WordPress theme is especially suitable for higher education websites which support academic conferences. The Keynote utilizes three types of slider, Page Builder, time counter, Paypal payment for ticket, parallax section and short-code generator, etc.

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Price: $48