From an email that all field school participants received the other day:

General Instructions:

1. General navigation: the site is divided into pages, all of which are linked from the home page OR from the “Site Pages” widget in the right hand side bar. For example, to get to the Orientation page (and it’s subpages) you can click on the link with that name either from the courses home page OR in the navigation widget

2. You can access the site without logging in, with two exceptions: A. to post anything, you will need to log in using your DuckID (email username/password), and B. to download PDF files of assigned readings, you will need to enter a password (I will provide that password shortly).

A. for posting, you will log in to the site by clicking the “Log in” link under the “Admin” widget on the right sidebar; then do the following:
* once successfully logged in, you will redirected to a general “Dashboard” for the AAAblogs system
* click on the “My Sites” link in the lefthand navigating column; you should see “Public Culture and Heritage: A Beijing Field School” as one (maybe the only) site option
* click the link to the “Dashboard” of the field school site
* this will take you into the dashboard/backend of the site; it is all built in WordPress, so if you are familiar with that environment you should recognize your surroundings. If you are not, there are links to various support and tutorial documents on the Orientation page of our course site. You can also find them here .

B. for posting, the section of the Dashboard you will be most concerned with is the “Posts” control panel on the left side (just under ‘My Sites’). You should certainly poke around in here and familiarize yourself with this tool prior to assignment due dates (all listed in the syllabus, which has its own page linked to the Orientation page).

General Tips:

1. we are using this system in lieu of BlackBoard, as it gives us more flexibility in general. That said, it also serves many of the same functions as BB in terms of delivery class content and allowing us to communicate with each other. While it might not look like BB, we will use it in some ways that parallel how you may have experienced BB in other classes; we will also be using it in expanded ways, primarily as a communication tool…
2. The blog stream will be our primary way of communicating, sharing info, and posting assignments; please start using it as soon as you’d like! We have started posting notes and materials of interest there already, and hope that you will each begin to contribute well before the course officially begins on June 20. If you find news items of interest, videos to share or books to read, or any other resources, please post them. We also recommend that everyone “follow” the blog in some way: use an RSS reader, generate a Feedburner that will send you emails when new posts show up, or just check the stream on a regular basis. Also, comment on each other’s posts…doing all of this will pave the way for smooth communication and navigation once the class starts and assignments start to show up in the blog stream.
3. With the assignments, we ask that you assign each the proper “category” when posting your materials; if you do not know what this means, no problem! It is very simple, and we are happy to explain (you can also find out on the tutorial pages mentioned above). Basically the assignments are lettered (A, B, C, and D) on the syllabus, and when you post we’d like you to assign the proper category (already created in the system by us). You can “tag” the assignments however you’d like, but categories should be consistent (which is why we created them).
4. We recommend drafting any posts in a word processor, rather than composing directly in the WordPress environment (especially for assignments!). Any network glitches could cause you to lose work, even though WordPress automatically/frequently saves drafts. You can easily cut/paste into WordPress, and there is even a special tool for getting around some of the extra code/macros that MS Word tends to include when pasting from it. If you use this program, and would like more info, please contact John directly (or look in the tutorial materials!).
5. uploading/attaching media such as photos or videos is fairly straightforward, and is only required for the final assignment. However, we suggest testing these capabilities out in various posts prior to completing an assignment so that you do not encounter last-minute stress!