[Air-L] Looking for a free Wordpress site that allows template programming

Mon Aug 13 07:45:38 PDT 2012

Hi Lois,

In that case, I advise you teach students to install MAMP or XAMPP. They
can then run apache/mysql/php and install WordPress in local dev
environments and develop themes for them through the comfort of their own
laptops. All of this software is open-source, so the only associated cost
is the computer.

Best,

Matt

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Lois Scheidt <lscheidt at indiana.edu> wrote:

> A followup note...which I sent to Alex privately. At this community
> college, and as I understand it possibly most community colleges, I
> can't add materials that would add additional costs to the student
> without approval of the central course committee. So expecting
> students to buy their own sites is out of the question.
>
>  Also I can't add server-side software without that committee's
> approval...and these committees take years to decide on such things.
> They are in their second year of discussions on replacing the nearly
> 10 year old HTML server emulator with something that will support both
> static and dynamic pages and their associated software.
>
> As for desktop emulators...we've had terrible trouble with these tools
> on the current network design.
>
> Yes it's a pain...but it is what it is. Which is why I was hoping
> against hope that this group might know of a resource I was unable to
> find in my searching.
>
> Thanks
>
> Lois
>
> On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 8:21 AM, matt g <matt.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I agree with Alex here -- most hosts of multisite WP installs won't allow
> > users to upload PHP files. One bit of middle ground you might explore is
> a
> > WP platform that has the Custom UserCSS plugin and/or Atahualpa theme
> > installed. Custom UserCSS (
> > http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-user-css/ ) allows users to
> > override theme stylesheets with their own CSS, and Atahualpa (
> > http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/atahualpa ) allows a great deal of
> > flexibility in layout and design from the dashboard.
> >
> > If you want to go further than that and have students edit PHP files
> and/or
> > design themes from scratch, it's probably best to have students sign up
> for
> > their own hosting accounts, as Alex suggests. Doing so may have many
> > unintended benefits, such as teaching students to assume control over
> their
> > own web-based digital identities; see UMW's "A Domain of One's Own"
> > initiative for more on that:
> > http://www.wired.com/cloudline/2012/07/a-domain-of-ones-own/
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Matt
> > --
> > Matthew K. Gold, Ph.D.
> > http://mkgold.net | @mkgold
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 1:37 AM, Alexander Halavais <halavais at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >> I don't know of one. From my perspective, for a course with a name like
> >> "advanced web site design" it isn't unreasonable to ask students to get
> >> their own accounts on something like BlueHost. Because of the expense of
> >> this, I got together with friends and set up a reseller to get students
> an
> >> account for $36 a year (others can match this, but then up it
> considerably
> >> after the first year). Contact me if you are interested, this already
> >> starts to sound somewhat spammy ;). It ends up costing the same or less
> >> than a text book.
> >>
> >> The other host I've had students use is called NearlyFreeSpeech It
> lives up
> >> to the name. The only difficulty is that it is set up in a somewhat
> >> idiosyncratic way, and so students end up learning to use that
> particular
> >> host--knowledge that doesn't translate so well to later projects...
> >>
> >> Alex
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sunday, August 12, 2012, Lois Scheidt <lscheidt at indiana.edu> wrote:
> >> > I teach an Advanced Web Site Design course for undergraduates at the
> >> > community college level. I would like to give my students some
> >> > experience designing for dynamic websites but I do not have that
> >> > option on the college server system.
> >> >
> >> > To that end I am asking if anyone on the list knows of a free online
> >> > Wordpress host that allows users to design their own templates? The
> >> > ones I have found only allow access to a limited family of predesigned
> >> > templates and do not allow editing the templates.
> >> >
> >> > Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
> >> >
> >> > Thanks
> >> >
> >> > Lois
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Lois Ann Scheidt
> >> > Doctoral Candidate - School of Library and Information Science,
> >> > Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA
> >> > Webpage:  http://www.loisscheidt.com
> >> > CV:  http://www.loisscheidt.com/cv.html
> >> > Blog:  http://www.professional-lurker.com
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> >> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers
> http://aoir.org
> >> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> >> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> >> >
> >> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> >> > http://www.aoir.org/
> >> >
> >>
> >> --
> >> --
> >> //
> >> // This email is
> >> // [x] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded.
> >> // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing.
> >> //
> >> // Alexander C. Halavais, ciberflâneur
> >> // http://alex.halavais.net
> >> //
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> >> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> >> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> >> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> >>
> >> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> >> http://www.aoir.org/
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> >
> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > http://www.aoir.org/
>
>
>
> --
> Lois Ann Scheidt
> Doctoral Candidate - School of Library and Information Science,
> Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA
> Webpage:  http://www.loisscheidt.com
> CV:  http://www.loisscheidt.com/cv.html
> Blog:  http://www.professional-lurker.com
>