You can unlock your course-building potential by utilizing the built-in features of WordPress.com to craft your online course. By gaining an understanding of the hierarchical relationships between pages and posts you’re empowered to construct a cohesive learning experience, without the need for additional plugins. This method, available on all WordPress.com plans, ensures you can build a course that’s both engaging and structured, on any budget.
First things first, let’s review what pages, posts, categories, and tags are in the context of WordPress.com.
Pages are like the static parts of your website. They usually contain information that doesn’t change often, like a “Contact Us” page.
Posts are dynamic and usually arranged in reverse chronological order. Think of them as ongoing conversations or updates, like blog entries.
Categories are the folders you put posts into. They help organize your content by topic, making it easier for you and your students to find what you’re looking for.
Tags are another way to label and group your content but are usually more specific than categories. Think of them as the index at the back of a book that helps you locate specific information quickly.
So how can we use this built-in structure that WordPress provides us with to structure a simple course?
Understanding when and why to use these elements can make your life much easier:
- Use pages for your main course landing page, modules, or units, as they’re more permanent structures that give your course its backbone. You can also use child-pages for your lessons when you plan to release an entire course, all at once, with open access.
- Utilize posts in some cases for individual lessons or assignments within modules. Posts are more flexible and dynamic, perfect for when you want to drip lessons out on a schedule, with automated notifications.
- Employ categories to help you sort lesson posts into module groups, making it easier for students to navigate through your course material.
- Tags can be added for finer-grained organization. They’re especially useful for cross-referencing topics across various modules and lessons.
The level of detail you go into for utilizing these features will depend on the course you’re providing. This is why the Blueprint lesson is so important. Understanding what the end goal is for your course will shape the way you structure your materials.
Throughout the rest of this module you’ll see references to Block themes and custom templates. While the same concepts can be applied on Classic themes, Block themes provide more control and customizations to really enhance your materials. To learn more about different types of themes, refer to our lesson on Understanding themes.
Which of the following best describes how you should use pages and posts when building an online course using WordPress.com?
Excellent! You’ve got it! Pages serve as the main course modules, providing the backbone of your course. Posts are more dynamic and flexible, ideal for individual lessons or assignments. You’re well on your way to effectively structuring your online course.
Good try! Remember, the goal is to use the built-in features of WordPress.com to make your course both structured and flexible. Consider revisiting the lesson to clarify how each element—pages, posts, categories, and tags—fits into this strategy.
There’s a lot of power and flexibility in how you choose to utilize and apply the built-in features of WordPress.com for building your online course. In the next two lessons we’ll take a look at two possible approaches to using pages and posts for your course. But it’s not about there being a right or wrong way of doing this. So don’t hesitate to explore and experiment to find the configuration that will work best for your materials.
Before diving into the mechanics of crafting your course using pages and posts, it’s essential to think about accessibility. While the strategies we’ll explore are ideal for courses that are freely accessible to the public, you might wonder: What if I want to restrict access to certain lessons, modules, or even the entire course?
Several methods allow for such restrictions, that range from utilizing free or paid subscriber access, deploying Paid Content blocks, to leveraging membership plugins. For instance, if you’re looking at a drip course model using posts, there’s an option to make these posts exclusive to subscribers, or more specifically, to paid subscribers only. You can also provide public access to posts or pages and use the Paid Content block to put certain sections behind a paywall. Additionally, membership plugins offer an array of possibilities to limit access, encompassing pages, posts, categories, and more.
Remember, deciding to protect your course content is not a default requirement; it’s a strategic choice. It’s about leveraging various features to establish a controlled learning environment. While this course doesn’t delve deeply into the intricacies of content protection, we have specialized lessons on these topics in our Newsletters 101 and Membership Sites 101 courses for those keen on embracing this option.
Now, let’s explore the nuances of using pages and posts to design engaging courses.
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