Oh, The Places They'll Go: Fostering Creativity and Independence with WordPress

In fall 2014, Bates College launched Coursepress, a self-provisioning instance of WordPress. Coursepress allows students and faculty full control and customization of their academic websites within an isolated environment. This digital learning platform, which is collaboratively supported by a team of instructional technologists and systems analysts, increases experimentation and creativity in web publishing. Initial feedback has been promising with two examples: student-generated mock presidential campaign websites for a course in Rhetoric, and an alternative and interactive LMS in intermediate German.

OUTCOMES: Identify 2–3 ways that self-provisioning instances of WordPress can be used in an academic environment and 3–5 ways they can be used to increase student engagement