Next in the spotlight is Steve Cunningham, assistant professor in the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. He’s in the Music Industry Department and teaches a class on marketing music on the web which includes a unit on building websites.

“My experience has been that the iThemes Education Program has substantially helped improve not only the quality of students’ work, but also their grasp of both design and programming concepts. Because they’re spending less time struggling with code to get results, we get to spend more time exploring typography, layout, SEO, and yes even the code. The bottom line is that the outcomes after 16 weeks are noticeably improved, and students remain engaged throughout.

“From a pedagogical standpoint, the best thing about using iThemes’ Builder is its modularity. Each of Builder’s modules is optimized for a specific use, and that gives students opportunities to focus on the ‘why’ as well as the ‘how’ of each module, and to see how they work together. The plug-ins are well-documented, so they continue to provide students with a sense of accomplishment along the way, which keeps them engaged.”

Want to be considered for our Educator Spotlight? We’d love to hear your story. Fill out our contact form and let us know how you use the iThemes Education Program.

1. Apply for the iThemes Education Program
First things first, you’ll need to fill out our online application. Once you’ve filled out the application we’ll look it over and get back to you. If you’re unsure if you meet the requirements, go ahead and contact us. We’re always happy to consider all kinds of situations.

2. Prepare Your Space.
Before you download the Educator’s Toolkit you need a place to actually put the software. Unlike other software like Dreamweaver or Photoshop, WordPress is not software you install on a computer. It’s software that’s installed on a web server and is run through your browser.

Your school might have a place where you can do this. If not, you’ll need to get your own domain name (a URL like iThemes.com) and hosting (server space to put all your files). Once you get those set up, you’ll need to download and install WordPress.

3. Access the Educator’s Toolkit
Now you’re ready for the Educator’s Toolkit. When you received your welcome email to the Education Program you received directions for setting up your account. If you haven’t set up your account, do it now. If you already did, you’ll need the username and password you set up.

Go to iThemes.com and log in to access the Members Panel. Just look for the login area at the top where you can enter your username and password. If you have any trouble logging in, contact us.

Once you’re logged in, you’ll see a long list of files on the left under Your Subscriptions. It looks a little overwhelming at first, but this is where you can download all the iThemes goodies, 160 themes, 20 plugins and more. On the right you can find links to the support forum and the WebDesign.com training library (both require logging in again). Now you can download themes and plugins and install them through WordPress. You will have access to your member’s panel for 6 months.

You can check out our free Getting Started With WordPress ebook for help on using WordPress and how to install themes and plugins.

4. Get Access to the Student’s Toolkit.
Now that you’re starting to see how the Educator’s Toolkit can help in your classroom, it’s time to make it available to your students. Just like picking a textbook, you’ll need to make sure your students can get access to the Toolkit.

There are a few ways you can do this:

• Have students apply and purchase the Student’s Toolkit on their own.
• Set up a coupon code for your class so students can bypass the application.
• Work directly with us to secure a bulk discount for your entire class or institution.

Now you’re ready to make the most of the iThemes Education Program. If you have any questions or problems, contact us. We’re ready to help.

Great question! You’ll want both in your classroom to really take advantage of our Education Program. The Educator’s Toolkit is free and gives you a chance to try out iThemes products and use them for yourself. But to have your class using iThemes products they’ll need to buy the Student’s Toolkit.

Here are the two primary differences:

1) Price
We make the entire Web Designer’s Toolkit free to educators. This allows you to check out iThemes and evaluate what we have to offer without making any investment.

But your class will need to purchase the Student’s Toolkit. It’s only $97 for students, reduced from $825. Or less: we also offer bulk discounts if institutions want to outfit entire classrooms.

2) Support vs. Student Community Forum
The Student’s Toolkit offers the same benefits as the Educator’s Toolkit, with one main difference. We give educators full access to our support forum, while we have to limit students to our Student Community Forum where they can connect and engage with other students.

We can’t offer full support to students because of the vastly reduced price of the Student’s Toolkit. But it’s our hope that students will help one another in the Student Community Forum and if they’re still stuck will then go to their teachers.

You’ll Need Both
While the Educator’s Toolkit gives you a lot to work with, you’ll want to give your classroom access to the Student’s Toolkit to really make the most of our Education Program. Remember that we offer bulk discounts for classroom purchasing. We are also available to discuss further customization of student toolkit purchases case by case.

See, we love the Internet. We’re amazed at how it gives everyone a platform and puts opportunity back in the hands of the people. But the Internet can be overwhelming. There’s a lot to learn and you need a powerful geek to make it work.

That’s where WordPress comes in. It’s a simple but powerful website management tool that puts the power of the Internet within reach of normal people. You don’t have to be a geek to build awesome stuff with WordPress. But if you are a geek, it makes the cooler stuff easier.

So if you’re going to teach web design, WordPress is the way to go. You still teach the foundational elements of HTML, CSS and PHP, but there’s a framework to help you move faster. Beginners get a sense of accomplishment and advanced students can tackle more intense projects.

Pairing WordPress with the right themes, plugins and training from iThemes can make it even more powerful. iThemes Builder makes it quick and easy to build a WordPress site with interchangeable elements. Our plugins can add pizzazz to a simple site and offer sturdy backup to a major project. Our training can save you time and add depth to your teaching.

Did you follow that? Internet, WordPress, iThemes.

The Internet is awesome. Teach it!

WordPress makes web creation easy. Use it!

iThemes makes WordPress ever better. Love it!

OK, we’re a bit biased on that last one, but we’re serious. And we’re ready to help.

How can we make your classroom better? We believe it’s by giving you the tools to help you teach web design better. You should be able to teach technology without headaches.

That’s why we offer the iThemes Education Program with access to our WordPress Web Designer’s Toolkit for educators and students. It’s a software and training package to make your classroom better.

Let’s talk about how you can get started:

• Apply now.
• Contact us for more info.

In general, the biggest advantage WordPress and iThemes offer is that you can get moving quickly. You can get a site up and running in minutes, giving students an immediate framework to start working. Good luck making that kind of progress with Dreamweaver.

Note: Your students will need their own copy of the Student’s Toolkit. Students can purchase it on their own or we have bulk discounts for classroom purchases.

Create a Website
Have your students create a simple website using WordPress and the Builder theme. They can learn the basics of WordPress and themes, plus be encouraged by how quickly and easily they can post a professional looking site. Have them use WordPress to keep a journal of what they’re learning in class. For coding classes this is a good foundational step, but for non-coding classes it offers an easy opportunity to make projects online. Use plugins to add functionality like video, photo galleries and more.

Backup Everything
Push the importance of backup by having your students install BackupBuddy. Have them backup their sites, delete them, and then restore them from the backup. They’ll learn how WordPress plugins work and how important it is to have a backup. This is a good time to stress that they keep backups for everything—they could easily lose that USB dongle or SD card.

Build Your Own Theme
Working with other themes and using Builder to get a leg up is great, but eventually students need to learn how to build their own theme. This is a chance to test their PHP and CSS knowledge. You can use the WebDesign.com training video about how to build your own WordPress theme.

Build Your Own Plugin
Use iThemes plugins to show students what it’s possible to accomplish. Then use the WebDesign.com training video for a complete how-to on building your own plugin. Use it to bring yourself up to speed or give students another resource if they get stuck.

CSS Lessons
With Builder and a child theme you can give students simple lessons in CSS. Tweak the different styles to see how they work and show the basics of CSS. Then use a blank child theme to have students start writing their own CSS. Give your students more CSS lessons with the CSS Dojo videos from WebDesign.com (lessons cover images, typography, tables and more).

PHP Lessons
Use Builder and FireBug to see how templates work and cover the basics of PHP. Students can begin to manipulate PHP and see their changes take effect. Have students start editing and writing their own template files to show they understand PHP. Let your students dive deeper with PHP Dojo videos from WebDesign.com (lessons cover variables, conditional logic and arrays).

The Real World
A lot of times education is less than practical. You teach your students how to code, but who teaches them how to deal with clients? Or how much they should charge? Or how to run their business? WebDesign.com has done a number of practical trainings on how to run your business, including topics like negotiating a contract, handing off a site to a client, finding new clients, billing and more.

Lesson Plans
You can also check out the iThemes Lesson Plan Guide for more detailed ways to educate with WordPress and iThemes. We even have our professor, Benjamin Bradley, teaching them at WebDesign.com. You can watch live or catch the recordings.

Which means we have our work cut out for us as educators—especially those of us who are digital immigrants, often struggling to keep up in a new technological world.

One way forward is to embrace the Internet and all the incredible possibilities. Instead of putting up roadblocks, encourage your students to create online.

We’ve put together a free ebook exploring that idea, Kids Creating Stuff Online: Inspiring the Innovators of the Future. It focuses on the benefits of online content creation and how to do it. It also includes an entire chapter on how educators can encourage students to create online.

It’s full of resources, tips and ideas. Check it out: Kids Creating Stuff Online.

Each lesson includes objectives, lecture teaching points, assigned readings, tutorial videos, hands-on practice activities and additional resources. Several options for student web design projects and evaluation rubrics are also included. Many hands-on activities for students involve writing a blog post and following accompanying rubric.

To access the lesson plans, view this GitHub project. We’ve made them available on GitHub so each educator can see changes, make their own suggestions or branch off and create new lesson plans to share with others.

Benjamin Bradley from Webdesign.com has planned a special webinar training on how to use the new iThemes Lesson Plans next Wednesday, January 30th at 7pm Central Standard Time. Benjamin will walk through the lesson plans, show how make edits in GitHub and share educator-specific classes planned in February. Register for this webinar here.

These plans include projects, grading rubrics and outlines for each week and include 12 unique lessons. We have brought in experts to help us with these plans and are putting the finishing touches on them now. If you are already a an iThemes Educator you will receive an email when they are released. If you are still considering if it is right for your or your students you can find more information here.

Right now is also the perfect time to get your student licenses and be ready for the semester ahead. Each student license is $97 a year with discounts available for a semester based license. We also offer discounts if the school and not the student is making the purchase. Contact me today and I will get you and your students ready to learn how to develop and design websites using WordPress and iThemes.

So next in the spotlight is Kristen Harris, an online instructor in web design and development at the Francis Tuttle Technology Center.

“What I like about the Student Toolkit is that it exposes students to a lot of WordPress fundamentals that they can build on throughout their time in our program. I have my students install Builder and a Builder Child Theme, along with BackupBuddy in their first course, and they set up their initial student portfolios using these products. They get to experience the excitement of setting up and customizing a site for themselves at their own domain name the second week of class! This is very motivating for a new web design student—they can’t wait to see what they’ll learn next.”

That’s what we love to hear. The ease of use of WordPress, especially with a theme like Builder, is a great motivator. It gets them started and then they can move on to bigger things.

“After they’ve gotten some coding basics under their belts, they then learn how to customize a child theme using their own CSS and FireBug to help them figure out how Builder’s theme code works. By starting with a framework like Builder, students learn about content management systems, child vs. parent themes, CSS customization, and other WordPress essentials. And BackupBuddy is there to ensure that they have a current backup of their work.”

It’s good to see students learning the importance of backing up early.

Kristen has been teaching for the last three years at Francis Tuttle and before that taught writing and worked on websites in the energy industry. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family and geeking out on web design topics like WordPress development and responsive layout design.

Want to be considered for our Educator Spotlight? We’d love to hear your story. Fill out our contact form and let us know how you use the iThemes Education Program.

WordPress Courseware — Nov. 27 @ 4pm CST

How To Break the Email Marketing Rules — Nov. 27, Dec. 4 & Dec.11 @ 1pm CST

All of these webinars are just part of the great offerings we have at webdesign.com you can watch the recordings later if you are an iThemes Educator, but why wait? Be a part of the community and join live. Hope to see you at one of these events!